That’s some pretty heavy firepower to start the Republican civil war. But then, Dubya always did believe in shock and awe.

Rush Limbaugh’s claim that George W. Bush and Laura Bush voted for Hillary Clinton is wrong, a spokesperson for the former president says.

“Rush is wrong and should apologize,” Freddy Ford, a spokesman for former President Bush, told CNN on Tuesday.

The former first couple did not vote for a presidential candidate, Ford said. They did vote for Republican candidates down the ballot.

Lindsey Graham also felt obliged to snub Trump publicly this afternoon. And why not? Republican populists have proved they’re incapable of threatening him in a primary in South Carolina. He can flout them all he wants with votes for amnesty and third-party candidates and there’ll be no consequences:

I voted @Evan_McMullin for President. I appreciate his views on a strong America and the need to rebuild our military. #3

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 8, 2016

Bush’s vote, or non-vote, isn’t surprising. Read this if you missed it last week. Bush 41 was rumored to have committed to Hillary months ago but he never copped to that publicly. Dubya was also unlikely to support Trump given Trump’s immigration rhetoric and his humiliation of Jeb, but he was also unlikely to support Hillary — if only, perhaps, because that support wouldn’t have been helpful to Clinton in consolidating her progressive base. I didn’t think he’d show his cards, though. And maybe he wouldn’t have, had Rush Limbaugh not (apparently) falsely accused him of casting a vote for Hillary.

Here’s Rush today on Bush, going full metal populist:

“I submit to you that if you’re in the club, and by the club I mean the establishment, if you are among the few elites in Washington and New York that actually, for lack of a better term, run the country, you’re going to hang together with other club members,” Limbaugh said. “That’s how I think this happens.

“Hillary Clinton’s not seen as a Democrat… She may be, on one intramural level, an opponent, but she’s certainly not an enemy when somebody outside the club happens to be running,” he added. “Members of the club … they’re going to hang together to preserve the existence of the club and its exclusivity.”

So there you go. The first skirmish of the civil war has Bush Republicans on one side and Rush Republicans on the other. Now we wait for results to see how nasty the battle is tomorrow.