Today's topic is a bit of surprising news from the Washington Times: In the GOP presidential race, it seems that Rick Santorum is actually the one doing the best at attracting votes from Democrats. This goes against a lot of the conventional wisdom that candidates like Ron Paul or Mitt Romney might have greater crossover appeal:
The night’s key contest was Ohio, where Mr. Romney edged Mr. Santorum 38 percent to 37 percent, or about 12,000 votes out or nearly 1.2 million cast.
But Mr. Santorum benefited from his effort to get Democrats to take part in the Republican primary. Subtracting self-identified Democrats, Mr. Romney won by more than 22,000 votes, or better than 2 percentage points, according to a Times analysis of the networks’ exit polls.
That trend held true throughout the night.
In the three states where exit polling was able to break out Democratic voters, Mr. Santorum won 41 percent of them, compared with Mr. Romney, who won just 23 percent, despite being portrayed by Mr. Santorum and others in the field as the least-conservative potential nominee.
Is there something to this development or is the phenomenon merely mischevious liberals trying to extend the primary process similar to "Operation Chaos" in 2008?
