RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we conducted our first women’s summit this week to great acclaim, tremendous fanfare, and practically worldwide coverage in the Drive-By Media. It was live blogged. It was covered after the fact on various websites and on television shows. This was the result of polling data from Public Policy Polling somewhere in North Carolina, released a national poll on me, 46 approval, 43 disapprove. Gender gap, though, minus 31 with women. And so this led to the women’s summit to find out just exactly, much as Obama did an afternoon summit to fix Social Security, to fix welfare. He sent the groups out, they came back two hours later, reported back, and the problems were solved, so I figured it worked there, why not do our own summit, women’s summit to find out just exactly what I might do to be able to narrow that gap.
Well, it turns out that the people at Public Policy Polling have also received their fair share of attention on this, and they have posted new data. Tom Jensen is who posted this at Public Policy Polling: ‘Well apparently our poll gave Rush Limbaugh a couple days of material for his show. On Tuesday he announced he was going to have a female listener summit to figure out how to address the gender gap we found in his poll numbers, and then yesterday he actually held the summit. You can read that transcript here. Someone asked me yesterday if it was possible the gender gap was simply a product of it being more likely that women are Democrats and men are Republicans, so I ran the numbers this morning by gender and party and here’s what we got. The gender gap among Democrats is eight. The gender gap among Republicans is six. The gender gap among independents is 49.’
So, as Mr. Jensen reports, there is a gender gap within both the Democrat and Republican respondents to the poll, but the really huge one is among independents. ‘The Republican ladies love you Rush, and I don’t think you have much chance with the Democratic ones. But you really need to appeal to those moderate women if you want to get that approval up over 50%.’ So this helps us target the participants for our next women’s summit, does it not, Mr. Snerdley? It’s a challenge, but if anybody is up to appealing to anybody, it’s me. Snerdley wants to know how do you appeal to moderate women? That’s not going to be a problem. The moderates, the undecided and so forth, they’re just waiting to have their minds bent, shaped, and formed by someone like me. The real trick, Snerdley, is going to get genuinely independent women calling here, not women who say they’re independent just to get on the show and speak to me. You had trouble keeping the idolatry calls off the air even though we admonished them beforehand. You had trouble keeping those calls off the air. It’s gonna be a delicate, delicate, delicate procedure here the next time we do a women’s summit, the next meeting to get these independent, moderate, undecided women ’cause the likelihood is that they’re not listening. So it’s another goal, it’s another objective to try to meet here, and of course we are up for it.
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RUSH: Mary Ann in Redding, Connecticut, Open Line Friday, and you’re next. Hello.
CALLER: Hello?
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I am calling in response to the summit. I just couldn’t call you the day you had it, and I’m both excited to call you because I’m a huge fan, and I thank you for all you do, but I feel terrible that I’m calling to confess why I, at one time, didn’t like you.
RUSH: Confession is great for the soul, and we hear confession here with no judgment.
CALLER: Well, I have become a very big fan in the past two years. My mother was a huge fan for years and encouraged me to listen. And I would try to listen to you, but I found you to be arrogant. But it was because I didn’t give you a chance. I just wonder if other women feel that as well. You have an air of confidence in your voice, and you say things like ‘I’m on loan from God,’ and they don’t offend me anymore, but they did initially.
RUSH: Did you honestly believe — see, this is the kind of thing —
CALLER: Now I know it’s humor.
RUSH: Did you honestly believe that I thought I was saying I’m God?
CALLER: No, of course, I just thought you were arrogant for making such a comment. Of course I didn’t believe that.
RUSH: I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Sometimes it’s necessary. Sometimes magicians do let you see one of the tricks.
CALLER: Hm-hm.
RUSH: Now, I hear the pompous a lot, I hear the arrogant, I hear cocky. Now, when I was growing up women loved John Wayne. There was nothing wussy about John Wayne, and John Wayne wasn’t out there taking polls on whether the pioneers ought to go after the Indians. I have been in relationships, dates with women where if I left the choice of where to go to dinner with them they weren’t interested. They wanted me to make the decision. Now, we all have formative experiences in our lives. When I was growing up in my twenties women did not like being complimented on their appearance. It was an insult because their brain, they thought, was being ignored. But when it comes to this talent on loan from God stuff, first off, it’s thanking God for the blessings of creating me as I am.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: I know it’s only temporary. Well, I haven’t revealed the magic trick to you here yet, and I’ve just run out of time. Can you hang on for awhile? I don’t want to mislead you or anything. I’ll reveal the magic trick to you in mere moments. Every magician must release one now and then.
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RUSH: Anyway, I want to go back to Mary Ann in Redding, Connecticut, because we ran out of time. Mary Ann, would you set the table again ’cause there might be some people that didn’t hear the first portion of your call.
CALLER: I said that for many years I resisted listening to you. Every time I tried I turned you off because I perceived you before I knew you to be arrogant, and it just turned me off. Especially your comment at that time about being on loan from God and the tone in your voice, and there was one other thing that I didn’t get a chance to mention, I don’t know if you want me to spring it on you now.
RUSH: Fire away.
CALLER: It’s something that you say now that I can get past, but when I listen to it with my 13-year-old middle schooler, I cringe, and it’s when you refer to feminists as being ugly. I perceive to be myself a conservative feminist more along the lines of Sarah Palin.
RUSH: When did I say feminists were ugly?
CALLER: Oh, you make a derogatory comment about the looks of feminists. I’m a little nervous so I can’t remember exactly how it goes.
RUSH: Well, I’ll tell you in a minute. Did you happen to see Obama’s State of the Union show?
CALLER: Yes, I did.
RUSH: Well, you want to talk about ugly, I mean, politics is show biz for the ugly, and I didn’t invent that phrase, but it’s true. I mean, I don’t care where the camera turned in the audience that night. They looked like the Star Wars bar scene.
CALLER: You know, I may not disagree with you, and maybe I’m trying to think of it to help you attract more female listeners.
RUSH: I understand that.
CALLER: And my child really thinks an awful lot of you and has learned a lot about government and politics from you, and although I realize the humor in it, I just find it unattractive, and I think it would benefit you to tone that down.
RUSH: All right, I appreciate all this. Now, see, we’ve actually, since it’s Open Line Friday, there are no limits on what people can say, so we’re actually doing a Women’s Seminar today, and Mary Ann here from Redding, Connecticut, is attempting to help me in my quest to close the gender gap. So let me address first your child, and you get uncomfortable when you think you hear me say that feminists are ugly.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Okay? And I promised you that I would reveal a magic trick, all magicians have tricks.
CALLER: Hm-hm.
RUSH: So what you’ve heard me say is Undeniable Truth of Life Number 24, which I wrote while living in Sacramento in 1987. I had a newspaper column then, and my column was due in a matter of hours, and I had writer’s block, meaning I couldn’t think of anything to write 750 words on. So I started jotting down one-line thoughts, trying to spur myself into a full-fledged column of 750 words. And by the time I got to 25 or 26, I said, you know what? I’m about 600 words into this. Why not just keep writing these one-line things down, and voila, the 35 Undeniable Truths of Life were born. And number 24 reads like this: Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society. Now, did I know that this was going to offend people when I wrote it and said it? Yes. Do I believe it? Yes. Am I trying to offend? No. I’m trying to spur thought. Do you realize how many brain dead people there are? Do you realize how many people who are afraid to even think certain things?
CALLER: I live in the land of the liberals. I know.
RUSH: Okay. Do you understand how fearful people are of saying certain things outside their bathroom or outside their home, and even if you have somebody in their home, you might not want to say what you really say because you just don’t want to deal with the grief of maybe having them not understand it or getting into an argument with you.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: I don’t care about that.
CALLER: And that’s what’s so great about you. I wouldn’t change a thing about you.
RUSH: Yes, you would. You want me to not say that when your son is listening.
CALLER: Well, you know what? I want you to say what you want, but I just want you to know that it’s perceived in a way that —
RUSH: I know exactly how it’s perceived.
CALLER: I want you to have more listeners.
RUSH: Here’s another dirty little secret. I know exactly how it’s perceived. What do you think I do, among many things, on this program? If you had to describe — it’s a tough question, there’s no wrong answer here, and it’s not a test — but if you had to describe this program to somebody who doesn’t listen to it.
CALLER: I would say it’s the truth. If you want the truth, listen to Rush Limbaugh. If you want to hear what nobody will say, listen to Rush Limbaugh.
RUSH: Okay. One of the things that I — and this is not the magic trick — one of the things that I absolutely love doing, and I have become an expert at it, I can do it any time I want, and that is tweaking liberals. I love irritating them. I love them gnashing their teeth. I love them just getting mad as hell at me. So when I say I want Obama to fail, I know full well that they are going to have a conniption fit, because I have violated political correctness. He’s too big to fail because of the historic nature of his presidency. You can’t wish the first black president would fail. ‘Why do you want your country to fail? That’s a horrible thing to say. Why, only an idiot would say that.’ Well, we all agree, I’m not an idiot.
CALLER: No. But —
RUSH: The dirty little secret, Mary Ann, is that every Republican in this country wants Obama to fail but none of them have the guts to say so. I am willing to say it. We want him to fail because we want to preserve our country as we found it. We do not want to see a successful attack on capitalism.
CALLER: Amen. I agree with that.
RUSH: I know full well that women are going to get irritated when I say these things. I know it full well. I’m not going to give away a full magic trick, but here is an explanation. Where do I work? I work on radio. Do you know how many radio stations there are that do talk?
CALLER: Oh, a lot, I’m sure.
RUSH: Two thousand. When I started in 1988, there were 125. Never forget, by the way, Mary Ann, I am a businessman, another thing I make no apology for. I’m a businessman. There were 125. I had zero national competition when I started and for two or three years. Now look at it. Everybody and their uncle, people that have never been on the radio are given talk shows. Psychiatrists, car mechanics, insane callers are even given talk shows. There is so much noise out there. Now, anybody can come behind a microphone and tell you what you think. ‘I really don’t like President Obama. I believe in low taxes.’ Ho-hum. Well, that’s exciting. That’s really thrilling. You see, when I say talent, so much talent, so much I wish I could share some of it with you, on loan from God-d —
CALLER: You have been endowed with gifts from God.
RUSH: But I know full well that brain-dead leftists are going to say, ‘What a cocky SOB. I’ve never heard anybody say he was God,’ until Obama came along and tried to make people think he had a close relationship. But in truth, in truth, I love tweaking. I know exactly how these things are going to be interpreted. Talent on loan from God, as you said, I’m thanking God for the blessings of my creation and since none of us live forever, it’s a loan. It’s going to be returned somewhere when I pass away and ascend to the great studio in the sky.
CALLER: Well —
RUSH: The Female Summit.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Let me tell you about the Female Summit. I’m so tempted to give — I’m so tempted, I know we’re going to do more of the summit. Mary Ann, let me tell you what we’re thinking of doing for the next summit.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Next women’s summit, since we’ve learned that the real gender gap is with independent women. Democrat women, yeah, and Republican women love me. But independent, moderate women, they’re the ones that just can’t stomach me, they cannot abide me. So we need to narrow our gap and get my approval numbers up by focusing on telephone calls from those women. Now, what I’m thinking of doing is reprising something that I did way back in 1989 when this program first started because it would be much easier to do it now. I want to get your opinion of this. Tell me what you’re thinking. I’m thinking of before we do the next women’s summit, that we require every woman who’s going to call here to first have e-mailed us a picture of herself so that we will know who we are talking to. Looks matter.
CALLER: You’re a piece of work, Rush.
RUSH: You’re talking to people in person, you know, we need the whole picture. We’ll give an e-mail address and they can send a digital picture, it’s easy, don’t have to go through the mail and we’ll have a proof set up so that we can tell if you do have your picture on file, it will be identifying characteristics and so forth and only if you have the picture on file would you be able to participate in the summit. What do you think of that?
CALLER: I think it will be very interesting to see how many women and the women who call, who do actually call, what they think like, if they’re truly independents or if they’re really fans of yours.
RUSH: Well, that’s our challenge in the screening process. I mean, there are fakes, liars, and frauds out there, we are experts as detecting them. But what do you think of requiring them to have a picture on file with us?
CALLER: Well, that puts me off a little bit but —
RUSH: Why?
CALLER: — well, because what does it matter? The human being is, you know, the shell of what we are is —
RUSH: What does it matter?
CALLER: Of course, I mean —
RUSH: Well, then —
CALLER: — you’re getting our opinion.
RUSH: Could you tell me why the race of our president is so important?
CALLER: It’s not important to me.
RUSH: Oh, but it is.
CALLER: To some people.
RUSH: Oh, but it is, oh, but it is. The racism that was found in the Democrat Party during the campaign, it was worse than I’ve ever seen expressed in this country since the civil rights days.
CALLER: Well, if you’re talking about from the country, of course it’s a very big deal for the majority of people. I mean, I was implied to be a racist just because I didn’t support him.
RUSH: As I said, looks matter.
CALLER: My point to you is your female followers who understand you would have no problem sending their pictures in —
RUSH: Right. We would be deluged.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And many of them would take them in swimsuits on the rocks on San Francisco Bay.
CALLER: But I think women who are truly on the fence about you it would just be another reason not to listen to you.
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: That’s my opinion.
RUSH: I happen to think you’re right. I happen to think you’re right. So, you and I agree, if I required pictures from the independent women who despised me before they could get on the program, it’s pretty logical to conclude I’m not going to get any pictures from them and they’re going to rip me to shreds wherever they can and the whole effort of closing the gender gap is going to fail, correct?
CALLER: Lost forever. Maybe not forever.
RUSH: And yet I know full well that’s what I’m doing, right?
CALLER: Hm-hm.
RUSH: Okay, so you tell me why I would do that.
CALLER: Because you’re Rush and the magic about you, it may just work.
RUSH: No. It’s a very flattering thing you say. Why would I tweak ’em? Because I can and because I enjoy the hell out of it.
CALLER: But, Rush, don’t you think that it’s important to have the women like me, I mean, we are raising the children —
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: — of the future.
RUSH: Yes, but you see, you’re different, Mary Ann. You were not converted by calling here and talking to me and discovering the real me. You did it on your own. You listened for a couple years and finally something worked, something snapped. We’re not going to do the picture thing. I’m just using it as an example. And the rest of you women out there, we’re not going to do the picture thing. I’m trying to reveal the trick but not reveal the trick at the same time. So, you see, I know the effect everything I do is going to have. I know who it’s going to tweak. I am a Stradivarius. I know exactly what I’m doing. I know exactly why I’m doing it. I’m doing it for a host of business reasons. I’m doing it for a host of professional reasons. And I’m doing it ’cause I have fun doing it. I don’t say anything I don’t believe. Undeniable Truth of Life Number 24, I’m telling you, I know it firsthand, and I actually have sympathy with women who are discriminated against because certain people hire other women that are more pleasing to look at. We can’t deny this happens. I just happen to have the gauche ability to bring it up, speak the unsaid.
CALLER: That’s not offensive. That’s not offensive when you say that.
RUSH: See, I assume a really large amount of intelligence in my audience ’cause I’m smart, and I suspect only intelligent people listen. See, I figure some people are gonna understand this and figure it out. And the ones that don’t is the fun of it.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: All right?
CALLER: Well, I just feel —
RUSH: So don’t doubt me.
CALLER: — feel passionate that I would love to see you have more female listeners. We are the mothers raising the children of tomorrow. Brings me to one other point I hope you’ll indulge me —
RUSH: I agree with you. And don’t worry, it will happen. That’s the purpose of the women’s summit. It will happen, Mary Ann. Well, okay, but I gotta take commercial break.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Hang on, Mary Ann, because it’s time for an obscene profit time-out.
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: All right. See, we care about money here just as much as your opinion, maybe even more so.
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RUSH: Okay, what’s your other point, Mary Ann?
CALLER: It is twofold. First, is parents need to realize — mothers — how poor America’s public schools really are. I find most of my very educated peers here in Connecticut to believe our schools are good, and they’re not. Their kids are happy and that seems to be enough for them. We’ve made the sacrifice of taking our kids out of the public school at the cost of we’re no longer saving for our future because their education means that much to us.
RUSH: Well, look, when I do informative and educational things on this program, Mary Ann, seriously, I don’t target it to women or men. I look at people as people.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: You know, I really don’t see blacks as blacks and women as women and so forth. And when I’m doing this program when I think of national issues and people, and policies to improve the country, I don’t… You know, everybody needs to understand how poor the public education system is, not just mothers. I understand that mothers are the ones that go to the PTA, some of them, and this kind of thing, but I am not the segregationist that people think I am.
CALLER: I don’t think you are. I just say this because I feel so frustrated not having been effective in making changes where I live because of the apathy.
RUSH: I know, but see, I have been effective in making changes in what I do, and I’ve got a very good track record at it. Now, as to this, the independent women. You want me to do this to get these women and that to get those women. Let me tell you something. These women are going to have to come to this show on my terms. I’m not going to be a McCain and try to be a liberal here and a liberal there, and I’m not going to be a George Bush with a ‘new tone.’ They come here on my terms on they don’t come.
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RUSH: I wanted to ask Mary Ann one more question, but I’d spent a half hour with Mary Ann, and I’ll tell you why I did that. A lot of you people think it was unfair. In fact, I got e-mails from women. Mary Ann, don’t get your feelings hurt here. Just to show you the folly… No. I got a couple e-mails from women begging me not to take any more calls from women, that they were beating their heads against the wall because of the way you sound. Women are the harshest critics of other women. Forget me. Now, am I supposed to listen to them, Mary Ann? Am I supposed to say, ‘Well, I got two e-mails that said, ‘Don’t put Mary Ann back on”? Should I have said, ‘Mary Ann, I can’t talk to you anymore because I got a couple e-mails that say they want to listen to you’?
Of course not, Mary Ann. I determine that. I got 15, 20 million people every day telling me how I ought to do this and live my life in other ways, and I listen to about…none of it. Now, one thing I wanted to ask Mary Ann. As you know, we have a sponsor for our women’s summit. BG Products. You’ve never heard of BG Products. That’s why they have become a sponsor. They want you to know what they do. They make lubricating fluids for your automobile engine. If you, because of the economy, need to hold onto your car rather than get a new one, you need to go to a website that’s called BGfindashop.com and find out where either auto dealerships or repair service centers, mechanics use it.
Find out which of them use BG Products, and take your car there for your next oil change or anti-freeze, hydraulic fluids, transmission, whatever, power steering, brake systems. Because BG is the one brand of automotive fluid that service managers prefer and use more than any other because it requires less service. Some manufacturers in their own dealerships use BG Products to reduce oil changes to once every 5,000 miles instead of 3,000. In some cases, 10,000 miles. BG Products, fluid maintenance for your engine offers lifetime coverage for your car for all major fluid systems. It’s unlimited for as long as you own your car, transferable if you sell your car — and it’s free with each fluid service. But you can ask for it. If you go to the dealer and say, ‘You have to use BG Products,’ and they say, ‘Oh, yeah? Duhhhh, we heard about it but we I don’t want to,’ find someplace that does.
I was going to ask her that she thought of having an oil change fluid as the sponsor of the women’s summit. I never got to it, but I would have been fascinated. (interruption) I don’t know who could be against it. That’s the thing. (laughing) But my experience guided by intelligence tells me that even now fits of rage are happening all over the country where women are listening and have heard what I just said. Also, there is raucous laughter occurring among those who get it.
Now, the gender gap. That’s where I got this all started. I have a fascinating story here from CNN about the Republican gender gap in 2012. Now, listen to this.
‘As the first unofficial ballots are cast in the next race for the White House, a new national survey of Republicans indicates that the GOP doesn’t have a clear presidential front-runner — but does have a clear gender gap,’ but it’s not what you think. Among Republican men, the same pattern emerges: No clear advantage for Palin, Huckabee, or Romney. But among Republican women, it’s a different story. Among Republican women, Sarah Palin has a ten-point edge, winning 32% support among that group to 22% for Huckabee, 20% for Romney. Republican women, in polling data right now, prefer Sarah Palin to the guys. Yet they’re running polls on a gender gap in the Republican Party — and, of course, on me, El Rushbo. There is a gender gap except it’s a male gender gap among women in the Republican Party thinking about Sarah Palin versus the other guys as we head down to 2012.