RUSH: You know, I purposely kept myself out of it. I have not gone anywhere near it, other than a couple of mentions, and somehow I’ve found myself involved now in this Massachusetts Senate race. My picture is in the first attack ad that’s been run by this Coakley woman, and I’m identified with George Bush, Cheney and Mitch McConnell as Washington Republican insiders. Bush and Cheney are not in Washington. I’m not in Washington, certainly not an insider, and ‘Republican’ is the dirty word in the campaign commercial. Anyway, great to have you here, folks, as another exciting three hours of broadcast excellence straight ahead. The telephone number is 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
Scott Brown destroyed this Martha Coakley last night in the one and only debate that they’re going to have. The special election is a week from today. The polling on this is all over the place. The last I looked, Public Policy Polling, the liberal group out of North Carolina, have Brown up by one. The Boston Globe has Coakley up by 15 or nine, whatever it is. I think the average of the poll shows that Martha Coakley is up by nine, but I’ll tell you, it’s amazing. This guy blew through a million dollars in one day yesterday. His fundraising objective was $500,000 and they blew through, collected more than $1 million yesterday. The Democrats are having to fight for the Ted Kennedy seat in Massachusetts and Brown had a great line about that in the debate: ‘It’s not the Kennedy seat, it’s not the Democrat seat, it’s the people’s seat.’ This was the highlight of the debate. Let’s just go to it. David ‘Rodham’ Gergen was the debate moderator last night, and he had a loaded question: ‘Are you willing to sit in Teddy Kennedy’s seat and kill health care?’ And here’s the answer.
GERGEN: Mr. Brown, you said you’re for health care reform, just not this bill. If this bill fails, it could well be another 15 years before we see health care reform efforts again in Washington. Are you willing, under those circumstances, to say, ‘I’m going to sit in Teddy Kennedy’s seat, and I’m going to be the person that’s going to block it for another 15 years?’
BROWN: With all due respect, it’s not the Kennedys’ seat, and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat. And they have a chance to send somebody down here who’s gonna be an independent voter and an independent thinker and going to look out for the best interests of the people of Massachusetts. And the way that this bill is configured, I’d like to send them back to the drawing board, because I believe people should have insurance, not just this particular bill because it’s not good for the entire country. You’re talking about an additional trillion dollars of cost, a half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts, and it’s not good. We need to go back to the drawing board. Nobody has confidence in this bill.
RUSH: Right on, right on, right on, right on. He’s right on the money about that and what a great comeback. David ‘Rodham’ Gergen, I’m sure that he was all set in his own mind to be the toast of the town when he got back to Washington and hit the cocktail circuit, ‘Hey, Dave, we really love the way you rammed it down old Scott Brown’s throat. ‘Do you really have the guts to go in there and vote against health care reform and Teddy Kennedy’s seat?” And, instead, Scott Brown rammed it right down that giant, big Adam’s apple that David ‘Rodham’ Gergen has with that answer. ‘With all due respect it’s not the Kennedys’ seat and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.’ What a great, great line. Now, the moderator, David ‘Rodham’ Gergen last night said to I think Martha Coakley, ‘You’ll only vote for the Senate bill?’
COAKLEY: I’ll vote for the Senate bill or some reasonable facsimile of it.
GERGEN: Right.
BROWN: Excuse me. It’s not going to be the Senate bill. As you know it’s in conference committee now. It’s going to come out, the bill is going to be a compromise. And bottom line is, regardless of what version comes out, this bill is not good for Massachusetts. It’s going to cost us jobs.
RUSH: Now, she is the entrenched machine candidate here. She’s attorney general, or has been. I never heard of her until all this got started, but, at any rate, she’s just a sock puppet for Harry Reid and the Democrats. In the to-and-fro, back-and-forth they had last night in the debate, Brown had another good comeback. He said, ‘You’re not a lawyer here and I’m not under interrogation.’ He’s totally nonplused by the situation he finds himself in. And to show you how desperate they are getting, they are running an ad that calls Scott Brown a dirty word, and the dirty word is ‘Republican.’ And this is the ad that shows images of Bush and Cheney and yours truly, El Rushbo.
COAKLEY: I’m Martha Coakley, and I approved this message.
ANNOUNCER: Who is Scott Brown, really? A Republican in lockstep with Washington Republicans. They’ll block tougher oversight of Wall Street, give more tax breaks to the wealthiest, oppose new prescription coverage for millions of seniors. Brown even favors letting hospitals deny emergency contraception to rape victims. He lacks understanding and seriousness. In times like these we can’t afford a Republican like Scott Brown.
RUSH: So they’re relying here on the fact that there are a million more Democrat voters in Massachusetts than there are Republicans, and Republican is the dirty word. Bush is the first picture you’ll see, Bush and Cheney, then it morphs to me, and then on to Mitch McConnell and some of the Senate Republicans as this dirty word ‘Republican.’ I purposely didn’t mention the guy’s fundraising yesterday and I’ll tell you I did have a lot of people e-mail me yesterday: ‘Rush, how come you’re not helping Scott Brown?’ because, folks, I saw how it was going. He didn’t need any help. It was like the tea party stuff last August, it happened without a leader. It was genuine. It bubbled up. It was effervescing right out of the grassroots just as this guy’s support is. This guy didn’t need anybody out there plugging for him, and if I had gotten involved and he raised all this money, what would have been said is, ‘It all happened because Limbaugh was asking his mind-numbed robots from all over the country to send the guy a couple of bucks.’ Now they can’t say that ’cause I didn’t get involved. So they’re panicking up there. Regardless of how this comes out, I think it’s wonderful that they’re having to fight so hard to save what they call the Teddy Kennedy seat. Now, let’s go back here, December 2009, this is an ad from Scott Brown featuring former President John F. Kennedy.
KENNEDY: The billions of dollars this bill will place in the hands of the consumer and our businessmen will have both immediate and permanent benefits to our economy.
BROWN: Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create a new job and a new salary. And these new jobs and new salaries can create other jobs and other salaries and more customers and more growth for an expanding American economy.
RUSH: Yeah, and the video of that is really amazing. Kennedy starts out the ad talking about his tax cuts in the sixties, and then the footage morphs into a clip of Brown continuing to recite Kennedy’s speech. It was really good. This line here, ‘With all due respect, it’s not the Kennedys’ seat and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat, that line is pretty much akin to what — remember ‘Lord’ Bentsen and his line at Dan Quayle in their debate back in 1992: ‘I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. And, Mr. Vice President, you are no Jack Kennedy.’ And the war whooping started in the hall, and that line is forever etched in the memory of everybody who watched it, political scientists. This response: ‘With all due respect, it’s not the Kennedys’ seat, it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s,’ is along those lines. So congratulations to Scott Brown. It’s going to be interesting to watch this. This special election is one week from today.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, that debate last night between Martha Coakley and Scott Brown, there was one serious gaffe, and it was made by Martha Coakley when she said there are no terrorists left in Afghanistan, that they’ve all gone to Pakistan and Iraq or something. There’s no terrorists, no Taliban, no Al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan. Now, that’s big. You can talk all you want about stupid, idiotic, uninformed people, that is just — misstatement? I mean that’s ignorant. That is pure ignorance. I know where it came from. I bet you ten to one it came from her debate prep where she was supposed to sit there and praise Obama’s efforts here and in doing so, (paraphrasing) ‘Oh, yeah, there are no terrorists left there.’ She didn’t say Obama, that’s probably what the prep was, if it comes up Obama is doing a great job, no terrorists left in Afghanistan. That’s reminiscent of Gerald Ford in 1976 saying there are no communists in Poland when of course it was being run by communists.