| Undecided Women Can't Trust Kerry |
|
Auguat 17, 2004 |
|
Listen To It!  Windows Media Player
 Audio clips available for Rush 24/7 members only -- Join Now!
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
 RUSH: Interesting story here, this from the Associated Press. This is on the women's vote. And they talked to an undecided voter out there in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Her name is Elizabeth Burnosky. She's a registered Democrat who voted for President Bush in 2000. She opposes his policy on Iraq -- surprise, surprise -- but she calls Senator Kerry "a little wussy boy." She's conflicted. She disagrees with the Iraq policy, but she thinks Kerry is a wussy boy.
Now, that's going to come as a shock to Tad Devine and the Democrats running Kerry's campaign because he's out there trying to do this guy stuff. He's slithering around on his stomach hunting -- what, deer -- he's out there windsurfing, kite surfing, he's throwing footballs around. He's doing all kinds of guy stuff and this woman considers him a little wussy boy. Her words, not mine. She's 60 years old. She's a retiree. (Reading from AP) "She said, 'I'm probably for Bush, maybe not,' standing outside her suburban Philadelphia home, squeezing rusty pliers around stem of a stubborn water tap.'" That's when the AP talked to her. She's trying to fix a faucet.
"There may be no greater commodity in presidential politics than a voter like Elizabeth Burnosky, an undecided woman with no firm party allegiance. 'I'd like to vote against Bush, but I just don't know whether Kerry would keep us safe.'"
That, my friends, the undecided voter quote here from Elizabeth Burnosky I think says it all. "I'd like to vote against Bush, but I just don't know whether Kerry would keep us safe." |
 |
|
(More AP) "Polls show that single women generally favor Democrats. Married women lean Republicans. Elderly women are Democratic. Bush and Kerry are targeting swing voting women such as Elizabeth Burnosky, who defy categorization with their independence."
You know, I'm going to save this for later, and we're working on this. We have a special election issue of my immensely popular newsletter, the Limbaugh Letter. It's in the works. It will be out in October. And there's going to be a whole dissertation. I ordered the editrix to put this in there, because, I'm telling you, we're running a campaign here, and we're targeting five or six people. This whole election is being targeted to five or six people who claim to be undecided and it, frankly, sort of burns me. It burns me that people who can't make up their minds -- what more can there possibly be for them to know? What more can there possibly be for them to hear? What is this undecided?
And the almost slavish devotion to these undecided – "Rush, be careful you're going to make Elizabeth Burnosky mad if you're listening." I'm exempting Elizabeth Burnosky. I love Elizabeth Burnosky. I don't want to include her in this, ladies and gentlemen, but I mean doesn't it bother you, too? That you've got people out there that are decisive and know what they want and know what they don't want and people that have made up their minds about things, and I understand that it may be a waste of time to go try to change somebody's mind that's already made up, but not necessarily. Because I think there are a whole lot of Elizabeth Burnoskys out there that are being counted firmly in the Kerry camp. That's what I think. And that's why I think focusing on some of those people -- and they're not calling themselves undecided. They're firmly in the Kerry camp, but they're not satisfied with Kerry because they don't know who he is. He's is coming across as a "wussy boy" to a lot of people. They don't like Bush, but they're worried about being kept safe. And this is what it boils down to. There's just nothing in the Democratic campaign that make anybody they're that they're going to keep you safe.
 Look at this business with the troop withdrawal. That is absolutely amazing. It's exactly what I said yesterday was the case. The Democrats, Kerry has been (Kerry impression), "I'm going to bring those troops home in six months two a year from Iraq, and I'm going to see to it that the French and the Germans go in and fight that war for us." He can't anymore guarantee that than I could! It isn't going to happen. But yet he's out there promising troop withdrawals to the detriment of policy. You tell the enemy when we're leaving, they sit idly by, sandbag us, make everybody think it's safe, we in fact leave on the date we promise, and bam, they overrun the country sort of like what happened in Vietnam. Or Cambodia or wherever the hell he was.
And so Bush is saying, "I'm going to do troop withdrawal; you know I'm going to bring home 60,000, 70,000 troops mostly from Germany." Guess what? It's going to take ten years and guess what's going to happen Kerry's surrogates, little Ricky Holbrooke and Ashley Wilkes, haven't heard from him in a while, Wesley Clark, and they're having cows on television. "This is unseemly. This is purely political." |
|
|
Can we stipulate something? Virtually everything that happens in this country from now to November 16 is political. Can we just stipulate it? Whoever does it, it's political. It's a political season? And that's fine, that's good. Of course it's political. But there are also reasons for it. We've made the determination we don't need as many troops on the ground in these places, because war is not fought the way it was during the Cold War.
You know, generals would like to have their troops at their command, under their feet, boots on the ground where they can command them and we have the ability to deploy if we have to. And look at the Germans. The Germans, they're not upset. I mean the Germans are upset, but they're mostly upset about the money. They're upset that they're going to be losing X-amount of billions of dollars because these Americans aren't going to be around. We're not closing the bases, by the way. We're not closing bases in South Korea. And, by the way, North Korea, South Korea, that's admittedly now nuclear threat. What good are 37,000 troops in the DMZ in Korea? How are 37,000 troops going to stop this madman pot-bellied dictator in North Korea from launching a nuke on anybody? They're not. So bring 'em home. Democrats are scared to death that this troop announcement is going to cause more military people to vote for Bush. As if they were going to vote for Kerry anyway.
So, they're panicking, because Bush is doing what they said they're going to do. Bush is bringing the troops home from places that they're not needed, could be put to better use. Still gonna stay on the ground in Iraq where it matters. Kerry says (Kerry impression), "I'm going to bring those guys and gals home, and I'm going to make sure that I do it in a sensitive way." He's been trumped. He has been totally trumped. Now you've got these undecided voters out there who instinctively know that you can't trust Kerry. Just listen to what he says, that's why you can't trust him. He's going to punt Iraq. That's what he's telling people. He's out there saying that he -- or has said during the primaries, he's the anti-war candidate. Well, people instinctively know whether we're there for reasons they agree with or not you just don't just pull up stakes and scram, like Kerry says he's gonna do.
Now, Emily's List has got a demographic profile here, swing voter women favor Bush on security and values, as the upshot of this. "Demographically, swing vote women (like Elizabeth Bernosky in suburban Philadelphia) reflect the makeup of the female population in general, though they tend to be more rural and middle-aged." They favor Bush, the swing vote  women, undecided, if you will, favor Bush on values, homeland security, and national security but they are more pessimistic about the direction of the country and the war in Iraq than the public in general. They favor Kerry over Bush on domestic issues, but right now the war equals domestic issues. That's the trump card and that's what people in the press aren't concluding or putting together. The war equals economic security. The war equals domestic security. The war on terror.
"These women have been plugging their noses and saying I might vote for Bush because it's hard to change in a time of war," said the Emily's List person being quoted in the story. "Hopefully starting with the Democrat convention they're beginning to say Kerry will keep us safe. Now I can look at these other issues." Kerry tries to comfort women by focusing on his combat record, the Vietnam War, and telling GQ which actresses he salivates over, including Marilyn Monroe as he attempts to come off as a Kennedy.
Bernosky, though, Elizabeth Burnosky says, "Heck all he talks about is Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam. Big deal, she said, chopping at the air with her pliers. I still want to know who's going to protect us today." Bingo! Bingo! Thank you, Elizabeth Burnosky. We love you here at the EIB Network. And we'd be glad to send you a set of pliers that are not rusted.
END TRANSCRIPT |
|
|
Read the Articles... |
|
Source: The Assocaited Press
Headline: Bush, Kerry Press for Women's Votes
Byline: Ron Fournier
Dateline: August 17, 2004
JENKINTOWN, Pa. -- Elizabeth Burnosky is a registered Democrat who voted for President Bush in 2000, opposes his policy on Iraq and calls Sen. John Kerry "a little wussy boy." There may be no greater commodity in presidential politics than a voter like Burnosky -- an undecided woman with no firm party allegiance.
"Probably for Bush, maybe not" said the 60-year-old retiree, standing outside her suburban Philadelphia home, squeezing rusty pliers around the stem of a stubborn water tap.
Call her conflicted.
"I'd like to vote against Bush," she says, "but I don't know whether Kerry would keep us safe."
Polls show that single women generally favor Democrats, married women lean Republican, elderly women are more Democratic. Bush and Kerry are targeting swing-voting women such as Burnosky who defy categorization with their independence.
------
Standing at her computer, EMILY's List political director Karen M. White taps on the keyboard and pulls up the Bush re-election Web site. She clicks on the icon linking her to the president's new television ad. EMILY's List is a political action committee that helps pro-abortion rights Democratic women.
The faces of Bush and his wife, Laura, fill the computer screen. "I can't imagine the great agony of a mom or a dad having to make the decision about which child to pick up first on Sept. 11," the president says, promising to take the fight to terrorists before they strike again.
"That's a good spot," White murmurs. "Good spot. They're trying to appeal to swing-voting women, trying to remind them that they live in dangerous times. If they live in fear, they may choose to stick with the status quo," she says.
After a pause, she adds: "Smart women will look at that ad and say, 'Yes, great. But what have you done to make us safer?'"
------
Women make up about 51 percent of the U.S. population. They cast about 52 percent of all votes in 2000. In some of the most critical states, such as Florida and Ohio, the percentage of voters was as high as 54 percent in 2000.
Democrats traditionally win a majority of votes cast by women, but successful Republican candidates manage to narrow the gap while maintaining their advantages among males.
Bush promised major education reforms in 2000 in a poll-tested appeal to female voters, and he got 43 percent of their vote compared with 54 percent for Democrat Al Gore.
In 1996, President Clinton beat Republican Bob Dole among women by a whopping 16 percentage points, 54-38.
Polls this year show Kerry with a single-digit lead among women.
------
Laura Bush's appearance in the new TV ad is no mere detail. Democrats say she's an effective surrogate in the pitch to women voters.
The first lady traveled to Pennsylvania last week, defending her husband's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research -- a position that puts him at odds with most voters. Democratic strategists say women, in particular, support research that might find cures to Alzheimer's and other diseases threatening their aging parents.
In an interview with The Associated Press, she said she was campaigning more than in 2000 because she wanted women to know her husband as she does. Steady. Compassionate. Funny. A man of peace, not war.
"That's the point of Afghanistan ... and the toppling of Saddam Hussein," she said. Her husband wants to make the Middle East safer "so we can have peace everywhere."
------
Demographically, swing-vote women reflect the makeup of the female population in general, though they tend to be more rural and middle-aged. They favor Bush on values, homeland security and national security, but are more pessimistic about the direction of the country and the war in Iraq than the public in general.
They favor Kerry over Bush on domestic issues.
"These women have been plugging their noses and saying, 'I might vote for Bush because it's hard to change in a time of war,'" said White of EMILY's List. "Hopefully, starting with the Democratic convention, they're beginning to say, 'Kerry will keep us safe, now I can look at these other issues.'"
Kerry tries to comfort women by focusing on his combat record in the Vietnam War.
"All he talks about is Vietnam. Vietnam. Vietnam. Vietnam. Big deal," says Burnosky, chopping at the air with her pliers. "I still want to know who's going to protect us today."
That may be Bush, maybe not. "I know where he stands," she says, "even when I don't like his stance."
A few blocks away, Pattie Remmey, 47, comes to her door and tells campaign workers for Allyson Schwartz that she'll vote for their candidate -- a Democrat running for Congress in this swing district.
Remmey opposes the war in Iraq, thinks Bush has broken his promises on education and supports unfettered stem cell research, even after hearing Laura Bush's speech.
"Funny thing is, I can't quite tell you I'm voting against Bush," Remmey says. "It's hard to change. Check back with me in two months."
|
|
|
