I SURE HOPE THIS OPERATION CHAOS WORKS AS WELL AS THE ORIGINAL ONE

Omigod, we're doomed!

Upstate GOP leaders plotting to meddle in SC Democratic primary by boosting Bernie Sanders

A group of prominent Upstate Republicans are preparing to launch a wide-scale effort this week to encourage GOP voters across South Carolina to vote for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Feb. 29 Democratic primary....

Greenville GOP chairman Nate Leupp, Spartanburg GOP chairman Curtis Smith, Anderson GOP chairwoman Cheryl Cuthrell and the leaders of multiple Tea Party activist groups in the Upstate are behind the effort to undermine the Democratic race, with other officials still considering joining them....

“Bernie Sanders is the most socialistic, liberal candidate running in the Democratic presidential preference primary,” Leupp told The Post and Courier....

The idea is inspired in part by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” in 2008....

Yes, Limbaugh's Operation Chaos still strikes fear in some Democrats' hearts. But notice the date: 2008. How'd that work out in the long run?

First he urged Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton, in order to prolong the primary fight. He got a lot of mainstream media attention -- this story, for instance, in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's crucial Pennsylvania primary victory last week came with the help of a patchwork of political support: working-class voters, seniors, white men, Catholics, women and - maybe even the Great Satan.

Rush Limbaugh may be his real name, but to millions of Democratic grassroots voters, especially on the left, the conservative icon who's been called the most influential radio broadcaster in America reigns as the political Prince of Darkness.

Even more so during a 2008 presidential race in which Limbaugh has assumed a new title, "commander," as he heads a drive dubbed "Operation Chaos," a gleeful and, he argues, increasingly successful effort to wreak havoc with the Democratic primary system and its candidates, Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Limbaugh's effort, which began early this year, is a call to arms urging conservatives and Republican voters to re-register as Democrats - and create chaos in that party's presidential nomination process by casting a vote.

Then he switch it up and urged his Dittoheads not to vote for Clinton. Here's a CNN report on the changeover:

He has publicly urged Republicans to vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton to keep the divisive Democratic nomination fight alive, but talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said Wednesday he really wants Sen. Barack Obama to be the party's nominee.

"I now believe he would be the weakest of the Democrat nominees," Limbaugh, among the most powerful voices in conservative radio, said on his program. "I now urge the Democrat superdelegates to make your mind up and publicly go for Obama."

"Barack Obama has shown he cannot get the votes Democrats need to win -- blue-collar, working-class people," Limbaugh said. "He can get effete snobs, he can get wealthy academics, he can get the young, and he can get the black vote, but Democrats do not win with that."

How'd that work out for you, Rush?

I guess it worked out fine for him personally -- here was Politico giving him gushing coverage:

... Entering his 20th year on the national airwaves, Rush Limbaugh is having a dandy 2008 cycle.

Regardless of how many votes Limbaugh actually pushed into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s column with his mischief-making “Operation Chaos” plan to encourage his listeners to keep the Democratic primary going, the endeavor was a success in another important way. It reminded the mainstream media and others outside the conservative orbit of the following he commands.

And that the “drive-by media” he so delights in tweaking would recognize his influence enough to put his stunt on the front page, as The Washington Post did last week, underscored another essential fact about the right-wing talk show host: Limbaugh is one heck of a showman....

“In my universe, there is no doubt it worked like a charm,” Limbaugh wrote to Politico in an interview conducted via e-mail last week. “My audience loved it, they participated in it, they had fun with it, as did I.”

But it didn't work electorally, schmuck. You were wrong about the chaos. You were wrong about Obama's electability.

Let's hope this effort is exactly as effective as Limbaugh's original.