No Chaos This Time
Today is primary election day here in Iowa, and with serious races on both the Republican and Democrat party ballots, there’s little chance of a form of “Operation Chaos” taking place.
You will no doubt recall the effort spearheaded by the great Rush Limbaugh…his idea was in presidential primaries, if the Republican nominee was settled, then Republicans should crossover and vote in the Democrat primary to cause mischief…for example, voting for the weakest Democrat in the hope of extending the process further. Independents could in theory do the same thing…become a partisan for a day and vote just to stir up trouble.
I don’t see Democrats causing chaos in Iowa this year, not with their close race for U.S. Senate on the ballot. There might be a chance of some Republicans crossing over, but there’s a race for U.S. Senate there too, and if you live in the third congressional district, you have a three-way race for the right to take on vulnerable incumbent Cindy Axne.
And top of it, with redistricting, we have some members of the state house and senate who are lumped into a newly-drawn district with a fellow lawmaker…so it’s a battle between two incumbents, and certainly worthy of straight-forwardly casting a ballot.
The Limbaugh-created chaos was a clever radio bit, but really only applied in presidential primaries and when there were no races of consequence within your own party.
But some of you today may have awakened with a sense of mischief and want to throw a wrench into things. All I can say is, “be careful what you wish for”…because if chaos efforts result in a different nominee, that person now has in essence a 50-50 chance of winning against your preferred candidate. It’s that karma thing again, you know.
