RUSH: Well, here it is Thursday, ladies and gentlemen, and another Republican debate tonight. The establishment Republicans are dumping all over Newt Gingrich all over the place. National Review posted an editorial, Mr. Buckley’s magazine, it used to be conservative, and they had an editorial last night. They didn’t really recommend anybody, they just said not Newt. No way Newt. No way Newt. (interruption) They didn’t say. They implied Romney, of course. And then they kinda ruled out Perry, doesn’t have a chance, Santorum and Bachmann, maybe get a second look. But it was just anti-Newt.

Now, you’ve got this debate tonight. You’ve got, in Iowa, Ron Paul in second place and moving up, and Newt is losing ground in Iowa. Which is somewhat understandable. Newt’s rise was precipitously fast, and that sometimes could indicate it is not deep or substantive and is subject to fluctuation. He’s leveling off a little bit. And then in New Hampshire where Newt had gotten within the margin of error, Mitt Romney continues to lead, however, he’s with 35% there, and that is the only — even with Newt plummeting, Romney still can’t get 25%. Still can’t get anywhere near 30 outside of New Hampshire. New Hampshire’s the only place where Romney has 30% or higher. No matter where you look, 70% of Republican primary voters want somebody else than Romney. They’re just zany. Yes, and I of course am the zany Rush Limbaugh here on the zany EIB Network.

So in New Hampshire now you have Romneycare at 35%; Ron Paul has moved into second place in New Hampshire at 21%; and Gingrich is now third place with 16%; Jon Huntsman in fourth place at 13%. I told you that you have to take the long view of this. Last summer I said, last fall, you gotta take the long view, too much can happen. Not a single vote has been cast yet, not a single vote. Meanwhile, you have Newt and Romney going at each other embarrassingly. You’ve got Romney who could buy Tiffany if he wanted to, running around ripping Gingrich for having a $500,000 line of credit there. I mean these guys, they may be doing at the end of all this a bit of a service by opening the door to potential other candidates, ’cause this is looking childish. It’s the libs that use class warfare against us.

We’ve got two Republicans going after each other the way liberals talk about us with this class warfare business. Romney out there, (impression) “Hey, you know, Gingrich has got a lot of money, he’s not exactly a man of the people, he’s out there 10,000, $500,000 line of credit at Tiffany,” but the bad thing about that is we got two guys attacking rich people. So Romney’s attacking Newt for being rich and Newt’s not that rich, and Newt’s attacking Romney for being rich, and Romney is that rich. But it’s usually the Democrats that do that kind of stuff. Whatever, folks, we will wade through this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, I didn’t talk about it much. I think I only mentioned it one time yesterday, which was an oversight. It was unintentional. But I did an interview after the program yesterday with Greta Van Susteren for the Fox News Channel, her show On the Record. It runs at ten o’clock eastern every night, and I, ladies and gentlemen, was the entire hour. It’s now posted. We got the video and the transcript posted it at Rush Limbaugh if you missed it. As you watch it — I know I don’t have to say this, but as you watch it — you will notice two things. No! You will notice one thing and I will tell you the second. The one thing you’ll notice is that Greta let me answer her questions. I answered perhaps ten minutes straight without an interruption her first question; the next question, another ten minutes — and the reason that she did that is because I actually answer ten or 15 questions with each question that she asks, and I do that in ten to 15 minutes. What will not see, what you don’t know — well, you’ll instinctively know it — is no teleprompter. Now, very rarely do guests on TV shows have teleprompters. But I just want to tell you as you watch this? No teleprompter. So it’s up at RushLimbaugh.com.

Here’s the latest polling data out of Iowa from Rasmussen, and what’s interesting about this is for the fifth straight survey, the Republican field has a new leader in Iowa. There’s been a new leader in each of the four previous surveys. Right now, according to Rasmussen, the Hawkeye Cauci, Romney’s at 23%, Gingrich is at 20, and Ron Paul is at 18. In some other polls, Ron Paul is in second place in Iowa, and there are people who are beginning to whisper, “Psst! Ron Poul might win Iowa!” People are saying this, “Ron Paul might win Iowa.” Chris Wallace of the Fox News Channel was on Your World With Neil Cavuto. Cavuto asked Chris Wallace what he thought the take away would be from a Ron Paul victory in the Hawkeye Cauci.

Chris Wallace said, “Well, the Ron Paul people aren’t gonna like me saying this, but to a certain degree it’ll discredit the Iowa caucuses because — rightly or wrongly — I think most of the Republican establishment thinks that Ron Paul is not going to end up as the nominee. So therefore Iowa won’t count, and everything else will go on.” So Chris Wallace: If Ron Paul wins it, Iowa is discredited because Paul doesn’t have a prayer anyway. So if Paul wins in Iowa, it means Iowans are not a factor. Mitt Romney did not call Ron Paul “zany.” Mitt Romney called Newt Gingrich “zany.” George Will has not called Barack Obama “a Marxist.” George Will has called Newt Gingrich “a Marxist.” I tell you, am I right, did I tell you yesterday and the day before?

The long knives throughout will the Republican Party have come out for Newt. One guy went on TV today to defend Newt, Giuliani, and that made all kinds of news. Because there’s somebody, somebody ranking in the Republican Party who’s defending Gingrich, and it shocked everybody — and Rudy’s out there doing it. Cheney did as well in mild tones earlier in the week.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: No way. No way am I going to ask for that meeting. It’s just been suggested that I call for a meeting between Romney and Gingrich and basically say, “Look, guys, you’re embarrassing yourselves and everybody, it’s time to shape up and stop all this childish little ‘He’s got a $500,000 line of credit at Tiffany, and he’s destroying jobs so forth and ruining companies, gotta stop.'” If I held the meeting, what would come out of it is they’d both say, “Why don’t you run?” I mean Jeffrey Lord, at American Spectator on a blog today, said he was watching me on Greta last night, said it was the single best presentation of what conservatism is in this day and age and what needs to be done that he’s heard. And the last line is,
“Why not Rush Limbaugh for president?”

So it’s out there, and if I start doing a Trump, move in there and try to please these guys, it’s… They’re on their own. Look, I think there are benefits to this. Now, I talked to some people here during the break. In both New Hampshire and Iowa, Ron Paul’s in second place. Where is his support coming from? That’s what I would like to know. I have my ideas. But, for example, are we to believe that Ron Paul is attracting the precious independents and precious Democrat crossover voters? Is that where he’s getting his support? Or is he getting his support from uninformed down the line Tea Party conservatives who really are not hearing the wacko nut job things he’s saying about foreign policy. All they’re hearing him say is the first thing he’s gonna do is cut a trillion dollars out of the budget, and they’re going, “Right on, right on.” That’s what people want. That’s what the Tea Party wants.

The Tea Party wants that government cut down to size and they want it to happen in a big step. And Ron Paul’s giving them meat. But they’re not hearing much about his foreign policy. So his support actually could be widespread throughout Republican primary voters. We don’t know. But Ron Paul has said things, for example, make you think that he believes 9/11 was an inside job, Ron Paul. He hasn’t said it word-for-word, but the only conclusion you can draw when you listen to him talk about his theories on it, he said, (paraphrasing) “I don’t blame the Iranians for doing what they’re doing. We’re just banging the war drums like we did before Iraq. We’re just setting the table to go into Iran, start another war. What do you expect the Iranians to do? I don’t blame them for shutting off their oil. I don’t blame them for blocking the Strait of Hormuz.”

He doesn’t think they’re building nukes. And if they are, they’ve got a right to. We did it, who are we to say they can’t do nukes? Who are we? But he’s moving up. And I just know that the reaction, Chris Wallace, if Ron Paul wins that thing, that Iowa is discredited and doesn’t count. There was some steam in Iowa, I am sure, after Chris Wallace said that. No question about it. Ron Paul said — I don’t know if it was the last debate or in a town hall somewhere, but it was recently, Ron Paul said that the White House celebrated when 9/11 happened because that was their ticket to go into Iraq.

He’s saying these things openly, repeating them frequently. But it’s apparently not hurting him. He’s second place, Iowa and New Hampshire. Newt has fallen to third place in both states. Newt was leading Iowa last week. Newt was getting close to Romney in New Hampshire last week. Romney’s never trailed in New Hampshire, I don’t think. And New Hampshire’s the only state where Romney gets plus 30. In fact it’s the only state where he gets anywhere near 30.