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RUSH: ‘The Republican candidate in a special election to fill an unexpectedly contested seat in a conservative Mississippi congressional district is using recent controversies surrounding Senator Barack Obama to tar his Democratic rival. A television ad from Southaven Mayor Greg Davis tells viewers that his Democratic rival, Travis Childers, a realtor and Prentiss County official, has accepted the endorsement of ‘liberal Barack Obama.’ Then, with Childers’ face beside footage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, it says, ‘When Obama’s pastor cursed America, blaming us for 9/11, Childers said nothing.’ Then: ‘When Obama ridiculed rural folks for clinging to guns and religion, Childers said nothing.’ ‘He took Obama’s endorsement over our conservative values. Conservatives just can’t trust Travis Childers,’ the ad concludes.’ This is in Mississippi. Now, a week ago, only a handful of people in North Carolina could have told you who the chairwoman of the North Carolina Republican Party is.

They had lost almost all support in North Carolina, despite the fact that North Carolina has had several years now of high-ranking Democrats being investigated and put in prison. The former Democrat majority leader of the North Carolina House is now in jail for 40 years. No one at the North Carolina Republican Party said a word. Meanwhile, in poll after poll, voters did not know that this man was a Democrat because the Drive-By Media in North Carolina left out that bit of information — and then, bam! All of a sudden, outta nowhere, the North Carolina Republican Party happened to come alive. And, yeah, everybody and their brother is tagging the North Carolina Republican Party and all the Republicans in the state with being racists and all that, but the upshot is that the North Carolina Republican Party today is being flooded with contributions and compliments. Who are these people who are so delightfully giving money to the North Carolina Republican Party that they refused to give to a week ago; two weeks ago, a month ago, a year ago? I imagine throughout the country, state Republican parties have been having trouble raising money because the national Republican Party is in such a malaise and such a mess.

Do you know who’s giving money now to North Carolina after that ad that runs starting today? It’s been run all over the place free, but actually starts running today and tomorrow; the ad against the two Democrat candidates for governor, using Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama. You know who all these new-found contributors to the North Carolina Republican Party are? Well, they’re not Rockefeller Republicans, and they’re not blue-blood country club Republicans. They are conservatives. They are people tired of being dismissed, tired of being impugned. People who want to fight but have no leader to rally around. They’re hungry to go into this battle. Conservatives across this country, not just in North Carolina, are eager for the Republican Party to enter this battle and to begin to fight it. The people of North Carolina and around the country who are sending money to the North Carolina Republican Party, are the people who make this country work. They are the backbone of America.

They are willing to contribute to their party if their party will engage the political party that most in this party believe is the threat to the country as we know it today, the liberal Democrat Party. Because the Republican Party seems to eager, nationally, to attract these very voters to our party; the backbone of the Republican Party has said, ‘To hell with it! If that’s who you want, you go get ’em. You ask them for money. We’re not going to help you,’ but then the North Carolina Republican Party grew a set and they actually produced an ad. And then what happened? The Republican Party standard-bearer, John McCain, dumps on the North Carolina Republican Party and says they’re ‘out of touch with reality’ and they’re not obeying him in his demand that they not run the ad. What does this result in? This results in even more money going to the North Carolina Republican Party! It results in who knows how many people telling McCain, ‘You stepped in it big time on this. Senator, we love you,’ I’m sure his supporters are telling him. ‘We love you, but you don’t trash your own party, especially when you’re unwilling to trash the Democrats! Senator, if you would just treat the Democrats like you treat the Republicans now and then, if you’d just criticize them!’

McCain got the message, somehow. We think we know up here how he got the message, but nevertheless, he got the message. He’s backed off now, and he is giving credit to Obama. (doing McCain impression) ‘That’s right. That’s right, Limbaugh! Because it was Obama, it wasn’t you. You, you think — you think — you think that you influence me? Hee-hee-hee-hee. Silly! It was Obama. It was Obama. When he was on Fox on Sunday. Obama said, ‘Yes, the race business makes race for a campaign.’ Well! Since Obama has said that, then it’s okay now for me. It wasn’t you.’ I don’t care who it was. The bottom line is Senator McCain has now cleared the path for other states to go after Obama on the basis of Wright; even though McCain says he himself will not do it; he still disapproves of it, yada yada yada. So conservatives, the backbone of the Republican Party, the backbone of America, hungry to get into this battle. All they needed was just the least little bit of sign that somebody else was willing to get in the ring and fight, too. Now, this example, this amazing example in North Carolina is an opening. It is an opportunity that previously had not been an option.

As I said to Senator McCain last week, ‘Senator, we’re all mavericks now. If you can sit there and dictate to your party what they can talk about and what they can’t talk about, what ads they can run, what they can and can’t say about Democrats; you’re telling us we have to stay on the reservation while you reserve the right for yourself to go off the reservation whenever you want to (McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Lieberman, McCain whatever else, McCain-Gang of 14), but we have to stay on the reservation? No, sir. We’re all mavericks now. We’re all independents now — and that means opposing you when necessary.’ So, we’re all mavericks. The North Carolina Republican Party has shown the Republican Party all over the country the way. Because I’m sure they’re worried about lack of campaign contributions and so forth. Like I said earlier, folks: the Democrat Party, Bill Tucker and the American Spectator today with a great piece on how the whole New Deal coalition of the Democrat Party is splintering and falling party, as evidenced by the Obama campaign.

But he’s the front-runner of the Democrat Party. He’s got two constituency groups that support him: Blacks to the tune of 80% or 90%; and rich, elitist, white liberals. But he doesn’t have the backbone of the Democrat Party supporting him, and neither does Mrs. Clinton. They’re out there wandering in the wilderness and they’re probably going to end up voting for McCain, unless Hillary can do something to wrest them back. But Obama can’t get ’em, especially now with Jeremiah Wright out there. Obama’s not going to get these people, and he likely may well end up being the nominee, and so he’s going to have two constituency groups that he’s going to rely on, and they’re not enough to elect him president. So the Democrat Party’s New Deal coalition is shredding. It’s falling apart, because of this primary, because the Democrat Party has made it possible for everybody in this country to see who they really are and how they are really constituted. Who are the people that make up the Democrat Party? What do they really think?

They’re a bunch of racist, hate-filled mongers. We look at this as Republicans and conservatives and we see a golden opportunity to wipe these people out, electorally. But then we also see our party going through the same fallout. Our party is seeing its own traditional constituency groups torn apart because the liberal, RINO Republicans are trying to take over control of the party. I talked to a friend of mine over the weekend. We had an e-mail exchange. He sent me a note saying he was livid. He got an actual postal mailing — not an e-mail mailing, but a postal mailing — from Christine Todd Whitman, who has this organization of moderate Republicans; It’s Our Party, Too, or whatever. It was the title of her book. This was a request for money to deemphasize the conservative dominance of the Republican Party, and he just shredded it and threw it away. I said, ‘I wish you hadn’t shredded it, because I’m not on their mailing list. I wish I had seen it.’ So you’ve got the Republican Party made up of these so-called ‘fiscal conservatives,’ who are really moderates or liberal Republicans trying to take over the party themselves.

The nomination of Senator McCain has given them the green light to do it, and even at that, the chance exists to inflict great damage on the Democrats. Nobody talks about this, but I want you to think about it just in terms — and we do this every election, actually, because every election we go into from 2004 forward (and you might even want to say 2002), the Democrats think they got it wrapped up. ‘It’s just a matter of time. It’s a fait accompli,’ and then they lose. They didn’t lose in ’06, but they haven’t done anything with their victory except raise gas prices and food prices. Do you realize the economic tumult, Rachel, that has descended upon this country since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006? It’s devastating, literally devastating. They think they’ve got this election wrapped up. If they lose this…You look at it from their mind-set. They think that we have the most competent president ever. They think that the vast majority of the American people personally hate George W. Bush. They think the vast majority of the American people want us out of Iraq.

They think the vast majority of them want a bigger government to get even with the rich by raising their taxes. They think the vast majority of the people in this country agree with the radicalism that they, the liberals, espouse. If they lose under these circumstances, their psychology is going to be seriously damaged. They just cannot imagine losing this — and if they are rejected again, given these circumstances and this atmosphere — it’s going to be fun to watch their reaction and try to explain to themselves why they lost this one. In truth, if there has ever been a slam dunk that the opposing party should win an election, it’s this year. You go back six months, a year, the Republicans even thought so. Republicans were even resigning themselves that it’s lost. ‘You know, we’re going to be in the wilderness for at least four years.’ Now the Republicans have to prepare the fact that they might actually win this! It’s wide open out there. It is totally, totally wide open — and it’s such an opportunity. If we, as a party, were constituted today powerfully as we have always been, we could deal the Democrat Party a devastating blow; a double-digit landslide defeat. What happened in North Carolina landslide with one little ad, shows exactly how that’s possible.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One more thing on this North Carolina thing. It is big, it is huge, same thing happening in Mississippi. Other state party organizations are running their own ads, and they are defying the RNC when the RNC tells them to pull the ad or not run it. I really do think that it would be quite helpful — you know, McCain is always asking for apologies, he’s always asking people to denounce this and he’s always denouncing and so forth. I think to be consistent, Senator McCain should apologize to the North Carolina Republican Party. I mean, what he said about them was really — he hasn’t said things like that about Democrats. ‘They’re not based in reality. They’re not listening to me.’ He said all that without even having seen the ad! He ought to apologize to them and hopefully he’ll learn to get the facts before attacking his own side. I don’t think he will. I’m just saying. It just shows something about Senator McCain. There’s a knee-jerk reaction here. He doesn’t lead. He’s immediately ready to backtrack and attack his own. It’s gotten him so far, attacking his own side has gotten him so far, this is who he is. It’s his character. He’s the maverick, because he attacks his own.

He gets adoration and love from the Drive-By Media because he attacks his own. It’s now become a reflex. For three days Senator McCain insisted the North Carolina Republican Party ad was racist, and that’s what he meant. He went out of his way to do it. He went out of his way to embarrass the people in the North Carolina Republican Party. But now he looks foolish. Obama said it was fair game. When McCain said it was not the kind of issue Republicans ought to raise — and lest we forget, the RNC and McCain’s own operatives pressed the North Carolina Republican Party to drop the ad. Now he completely reverses course because I think he has been told how wrong he was on this. He owes an apology to the North Carolina Republican Party.

Our buddies at NewsMax posted this story yesterday: ‘Sen. John McCain came out swinging against the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Sunday and suggested Sen. Barack Obama’s relationship with the controversial minister was ‘beyond belief.” McCain was down here in south Florida in Coral Gables and he reiterated that he still wants the North Carolina Republican Party to stop running the ad, but said he was deeply disturbed by new comments that Wright has made. It’s okay now for him to run around and criticize Jeremiah Wright because Obama gave him the green light, I guess, but he still wants the Republican Party in North Carolina not to run the ad. McCain said to reporters, ‘I saw yesterday some additional comments that have been revealed by Pastor Wright, one of them comparing the United States Marine Corps with Roman Legionnaires who were responsible for the death of our savior. I mean being involved in that, it’s beyond belief. And then of course saying that al-Qaida and the American flag were the same flags.’ This isn’t new Senator. These are not new comments. You may have just heard them. This is who Reverend Wright is.

Anyway, he owes ’em an apology. And then he went out even further. He said that Obama is insensitive to poor people and out of touch on economic issues. He hit Obama for opposing his idea to suspend the tax on fuel during the summer. Now, I can think of a lot of ways to go about this. I get some, it’s not a lot, but whenever I am critical of Senator McCain here, I get e-mails from Republicans who just tell me, ‘Shut up, what are you doing? Your criticism of McCain, I’m going to stop listening. I’m going to cancel my subscription.’ Folks, McCain is who he is and I’m who I am. McCain makes a proposal, in this case to cut or eliminate or temporarily suspend the federal tax on gasoline through the summer driving season. He makes the proposal. Obama rejects it. McCain takes it personally. (doing McCain impression) ‘How dare he resist my proposal! Who does he think he is?’ And so that gives him license to run out and say that Obama is out of touch with poor people for rejecting his proposal. There’s a better way. Why is Senator Obama against people saving money on gasoline? Obama says he cares about little people; why is he so opposed to this? But McCain, (doing McCain impression) ‘He opposes my proposal and so that makes him a rotten guy.’ One thing Obama did support was the limitation of Illinois state taxes on gasoline when he was in the state Senate. McCain accuses him of being inconsistent, which he is.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Phyllis in Escondido, California. Hi, Phyllis.

CALLER: Hi, Rush, dittos from the land of fruits and nuts.

RUSH: (laughing) You live there.

CALLER: Oh, yeah, I know.

RUSH: (laughing)

CALLER: You can’t say mommy and daddy in school anymore because —

RUSH: I know. Oh, guess what? Try this story. This is an example of how our government — state and local — are out of control. ‘Modesto police are blaming a scratching cat for an accident that toppled a power pole and shut down a street for nearly an hour. A police sergeant said Friday that a woman was driving with a cat in her lap. The animal scratched her, and she drove into the pole. The woman suffered minor injuries and was taken to a hospital. The cat was taken to a vet to treat an injured eye. On Wednesday, the Assembly Appropriations Committee approved a bill by Assemblyman Bill Maze that would make it illegal to drive with a pet in your arms or in your lap.’ It took two whole days to make a law for this one isolated incident of a cat scratching a driver and the driver driving into a power pole. You talk about the land of fruits and nuts.

CALLER: Yeah. Anyway, the reason I called was, you talked about getting an e-mail from somebody who has gotten a letter from Christie Todd Whitman. I got one in September of ’06 and I kept it because I hold grudges, and it was inviting me to be a member of the steering committee of the It’s My Party, Too, and all I had to do was send in like five grand or down to a hundred dollars or something —

RUSH: That’s all you had to do was send five grand?

CALLER: Well, more or less, and I thought not on your life, babe.

RUSH: Not on your life, babe. (laughing) What was the purpose of this fundraising letter’s objective?

CALLER: Okay, basically what they do is they created It’s My Party, Too, an organization, a movement, really, dedicated to supporting fiscally conservative, socially progressive moderate Republican candidates.

RUSH: Right. But does it use the verbiage to deemphasize the power of conservative Republicans in the Republican Party?

CALLER: Absolutely, because the P.S. says, ‘The stem cell fiasco was just an example of how insidious a threat the far-right extremists’ — of which I am one, proudly — ‘are to our party, our principles, and our future.’

RUSH: Yeah, well, that’s 2006, right, you said?

CALLER: Yep.

RUSH: This is 2008, and there still hasn’t been one noteworthy bit of research providing anything from embryonic stem cells, there hasn’t been one. Well, the friend of mine that got this letter over the weekend on Friday, basically said the same thing. I don’t know if it was about stem cells, but it was all about getting rid of the far right’s influence in the Republican Party. And it’s happening. So-called conservative media is made up of this kind of people that want to marginalize the backbone of the party. That’s what’s so frustrating. If the backbone of the party were still the party, the Democrats would be wiped out this November, doesn’t matter who the nominee is. It still may happen, they’re so bad.

Here is Prissy from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Prissy is one of my all-time, top-ten favorite female names.

CALLER: Hi, Rush.

RUSH: How are you?

CALLER: Fine. Thank you. How are you?

RUSH: Good.

CALLER: You mentioned McCain attacking his own, and I heard a poll of reports this morning on Fox saying that McCain numbers were down against both Hillary and Obama as of this morning.

RUSH: I saw the Hillary numbers. It’s like 50-41.

CALLER: Okay. And Obama was not quite that good, but almost. But his numbers prior to the attack on North Carolina Republicans and also the attack on the administration in New Orleans last week were better. And I think that those of us who are just sick of this man who does nothing but attack his own are showing that we are not going to put up with this.

RUSH: Well, that’s an interesting analysis, a pretty good point. One thing that I do know, McCain was up or tied, I think up over Hillary. He just reached the crest of that wave or that mountaintop, and then along comes the bashing of his own party and he didn’t just criticize them, he insulted them. He said that they’re out of touch with reality, then they go take a poll, and, lo and behold, he’s lost his advantage. Prissy, thanks much.

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