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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: I’m not trying to take anything away from Sarah Palin. She excited the McCain campaign like wildfire. Don’t misunderstand. They’re a little bit different. We don’t have McCain on the ticket. A lot of people think there’s not much difference between Romney and McCain. I happen to think there is. But not by any stretch am I trying to diminish the enthusiasm Sarah Palin brought. Maybe what I should better say is I was surprised.


The conventional wisdom is that vice presidential picks do not really matter in November. When people go in to vote, they really don’t matter. That’s the conventional wisdom. And I expected whoever Romney’s picked to be a perfunctory thing that happens in the campaign and accept it as such. The outpouring of energy and enthusiasm for Ryan everywhere those guys went on Saturday — North Carolina, in Norfolk, Virginia — was huge. By the way, how in the world did Romney secure the USS Wisconsin for a political event?

It’s Obama’s Navy!


In Norfolk, they got the USS Wisconsin to do their Ryan announcement. I thought that was cool. But the reaction that people had was a huge, pleasant surprise for me. It was something that I marveled at over the weekend. It’s got tremendous potential. Remember, now, I’ve been on this kick for I can’t tell you how long, that (particularly in presidential campaigns) we have got to talk about our ideology. We have got to talk about our principles. We have got to talk about our ideas.

I think that’s how you get the Hispanic vote. I think that’s how you get portions of the minority vote. I do believe — and I may be a Pollyanna, and my time may be past, but I still believe — that a clear majority of people who live in this country want this country to be what it was as founded. They want it to be made up of those first principles. They don’t want the Obama transformation; they don’t want what Obama’s doing now. Our task, the task that Romney and Ryan have, is a delicate one.

Many Americans think that this economic situation that we’re in is just part of a cycle, and that it’s just different. They probably believe that Obama and the Democrats are working hard to try to bring us out of it. That’s the challenge. The challenge here is for Romney and Ryan to convince people that are not supportive of them right now that this is not a cycle; that this results from ideas which are bad, that this economy… And they’re doing this, by the way.

Ryan is out there doing it.

He’s saying, “We can turn this around! We will turn this around.”

He’s doing it. That’s why I’m jazzed. But this is not part of the cycle. This situation that Americans are in — out of work, hopelessly out of work, hopelessly in debt — is the result of bad ideas. It’s bad ideas and bad principles, believed and held by Obama and the Democrats. It’s not simply part of a cycle. This is not just a really, really bad economy. “Wow, it’s taken longer to come out of this thing than anybody knew. But everybody’s working hard to try and reverse this.”

No, they’re not working hard to try and reverse this. We are where we are because the ideas, the beliefs, the so-called principles of Barack Obama are anathema to the United States of America as founded. And, when properly explained, they are anathema to a majority of the American people. It’s ideas, ideology, that facilitates this explanation and ultimate persuasion.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I checked the e-mail during the break, and I got couple people, “Would you explain to me…” I can sense the snarkiness in the e-mail. “Would you explain to me how the choice of Ryan forces Obama to discuss issues?” Yeah. I’ll give it a shot. Snerdley already showed the way. He didn’t even know what he was doing. Snerdley comes at me, “Well, what about Medicare? Ryan wanted to destroy Medicare.” Well, wait, doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter what you said. The fact of the matter is that to refute Ryan, these guys are gonna have to do what?

They can call him extreme and do all that, but they’re going to have to explain why his plan will cause Grandma to be eating dog food. And when they are forced to explain that, what are they doing? They are discussing specifics, and they will be lying, which opens up the opportunity for it to be refuted. And, in the process, that brings Obama’s record to the fore. The very idea that Ryan will be criticized substantively, they’re going to have to criticize him — look, you’re not gonna be able to get away with making this guy out to be Darth Vader. They’re not gonna be able to pull that. They’re gonna try, they are trying, but he is, perhaps, as I said, our last Boy Scout.

Ryan can explain the Bain Capital crap. Ryan explained it over the weekend. Bob Schieffer, that 60 Minutes interview, Ryan was chomping at the bit to explain Bain Capital. We have the truth on our side. Bain Capital, and Ryan said this, saved businesses. It saved jobs. We’ve got the greatest opportunity to contrast who we are and what we believe with the demonstrable failure of liberalism, Marxism, socialism, whatever. We don’t have to tell people what will happen if Obama is elected. All we have to do is point out what has happened. But you need the right guy to be able to explain it. Ryan is the guy. And I see Romney now even being energized. Romney had a crowd in Florida, which the conventional wisdom says he can’t win ’cause he picked Ryan. They had such a big crowd in Florida, they had to turn ’em away ’cause they couldn’t security screen ’em fast enough, in a state that Romney is guaranteed to lose, if you listen to the right pundits, because he picked Paul Ryan.

I don’t even know that Obama and Axelrod and this crowd has realized yet what’s happened to ’em. I think it’s one of those things, be careful what you wish for. They have the ability to lie to themselves. They have the ability to lie to everybody else. They create this false universe and cocoon of reality in which they live. Ryan’s gonna force ’em out of that. I’m listening to all the analysts and all the pundits, and one of the things I said, “How’s the vice presidential pick gonna do all this? Who reacts to a vice presidential pick?” Well, when the vice presidential pick, I don’t care who it is, when the vice presidential pick starts dismantling the president of the United States and his policies and his ideas and what they have wrought, that’s something they’re gonna have to react to.

They’re going to have to come back at some point with some substance, and when they do that, they don’t have the substance on their side. When they do that, that brings Obama’s record to the fore. They’re not gonna give up on the Bain Capital stuff, and I don’t think they’re gonna give up on “Romney murders guys’ wives” and stuff like that. But it’s gonna be made to look all the more foolish. Now, I got an answer. It makes perfect sense. ‘Cause I was wondering over the weekend, how in the world do they secure from Obama’s Navy the USS Wisconsin for a campaign. It’s a museum. It’s not an active ship anymore. It’s open to anybody. It’s a museum.

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