Ron Paul Could Win Reelection Because Republicans Are Voting for Hillary

What?? You read that headline correctly. In the Texas 14th Congressional District Ron Paul is running for reelection against Chris Peden. Peden has been looking strong in the polls, but the open primary may be his downfall. Many Republicans are planning to cross over to vote for Hillary Clinton in the hopes of keeping her campaign alive a little longer. Reason has more:

A bit earlier today I talked to Onzelo Markum, a Texas Republican strategist who's working on the Chris Peden campaign, and he had a few caveats about how GOP voters might be breaking. One positive factor for Peden, he suggested, was that some voters were marking ballots for Ron Paul in the presidential race and choosing Peden in the House race. But another factor was really hurting Peden.

"One thing we're hearing that we really didn't expect is people going and voting in the Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton," Markum said. "They come up to me and they say McCain can beat Hillary, but he can't beat Obama. It's fueled by guys like Rush Limbaugh, by Ann Coulter, who're telling them to keep Hillary in this race, and that trickles down to Republicans going into those voting booths who can't vote in our election. These were some voters we were counting on, so that's thrown a bit of a kink in our extrapolations."

Mind you, I heard the same thing in Wisconsin, where Republican crossover voters went 72-28 for Obama over Clinton. If the numbers diverge more than 5 or 10 points in Texas, I'd be pretty shocked. But it might be a function of Republicans becoming less a'feared of Clinton because of Obama's wins. I think that will change, again, when Clinton's "kitchen sink" attacks save her and give her Texas-Ohio victories tomorrow.*

To recap: Ron Paul might be re-elected to Congress because Republican voters are voting for Hillary Clinton to increase the chance of John McCain being elected president. Here, have some aspirin.

I talked to Aransas County Sheriff Mark Gilliam on my internet radio show about this race. He knows both candidates and signed on to endorse Chris Peden. It would be a shame if the people who would otherwise support Peden don't get a chance to vote for him because they picked up a Dem ballot. He may be an unfortunately casualty of the primary contest.