RUSH: From Operation Chaos headquarters, I am commander Rush Limbaugh, here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Great to be with you, ladies and gentlemen. Operation Chaos, we can safely say, is now exceeding all objectives. Would you turn up the theme music? I can barely hear it out there. We might have a mix minus problem. There we go. Much, much better. And now it’s gone, as soon as I ask for it to be turned up, now it’s gone.
Yes, Operation Chaos is exceeding all objectives, ladies and gentlemen. This is just amazing. I just got today’s audio sound bite roster. Let me just give you the headlines here: Drive-Bys discuss Limbaugh critique of Obama. We’ve got an anti-Obama preacher from Harlem today. You have just got to hear this. Obama on Nightline, the candidate of race, because I said that yesterday. Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts equates the Reverend J. Wright to talk radio. Feminist icon, ‘I will not vote with my vagina,’ on Hardball last night. They had a big debate over the Limbaugh Effect and Operation Chaos. Bob Schieffer has been asked about Operation Chaos and finds it fascinating. Bob Beckel has proposed a plan to counter Operation Chaos. Obama is burning cash fighting Operation Chaos. Here’s the latest poll numbers. ‘Barack Obama’s big national lead over Hillary Clinton has all but evaporated in the U.S. presidential race, and both Democrats trail Republican John McCain, according a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday. The poll showed Obama had only a statistically insignificant lead of 47 percent to 44 percent over Clinton, down sharply from a 14 point edge he held over her in February. … The poll showed Arizona Sen. McCain, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, is benefiting from the lengthy campaign battle between Obama and Clinton.’ Well, yes, which was the primary purpose of Operation Chaos. (laughing)
Folks, we are doing it! Do you realize, we are doing it! Things are happening out there on our terms. Why, this is just fabulous. ‘McCain leads 46 percent to 40 percent in a hypothetical matchup against Obama in the November presidential election, according to the poll. That is a sharp turnaround from the Reuters/Zogby poll from last month, which showed in a head-to-head matchup that Obama would beat McCain 47 percent to 40 percent. … Matched up against Clinton, McCain leads 48 percent to 40 percent, narrower than his 50 to 38 percent advantage over her in February. ‘It’s not surprising to me that McCain’s on top because there is disarray and confusion on the Democratic side,’ Zogby said.’ Wait a minute. McCain’s on top means Hillary’s on bottom. We were told Hillary will never be on bottom, particularly when it comes to this dream ticket.
‘The poll showed Obama continues to have strong support from the African-American community but that he is experiencing some slippage among moderates and independents. Among independents, McCain led for the first time in the poll, 46 percent to 36 percent over Obama. He was behind McCain by 21 percent among white voters. Zogby attributed this to a combination of the fallout from Clinton’s victory in Ohio earlier this month and the controversy over Wright’s sermons. ‘And, just the closer he gets to the nomination, the tougher questions whites ask about an African-American candidate,’ Zogby said.’
In Pennsylvania, Senator Clinton has widened her lead over Senator Obama. This is according to a Quinnipiac University poll that was released late yesterday. ‘Senator Clinton now leads Senator Obama 53-41% among likely primary voters, and in the latest survey, the split between black and white voters has grown. Senator Clinton has widened her lead among women, likely Democrat primary voters, and narrowed Senator Obama’s lead among men.’ Again, this now is in Pennsylvania. Clay Richards, who runs the Quinnipiac poll, said, ‘The momentum is clearly Senator Clinton’s as she firms up her traditional coalition of women, white males, noncollege, rural and older voters in Pennsylvania.’ Not stupid, just uneducated. So, Operation Chaos is exceeding all objectives. It’s now gotten to the point that the Drive-By Media is having debates about it and what to do to stop it, and how to counter it, which is only going to increase the effectiveness of Operation Chaos.
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RUSH: Operation Chaos, Rush the Vote, is a sticking point. Mrs. Clinton is in Michigan today trying to persuade Michigan to revote, talking about it’s unfair for Michiganders to be disenfranchised. Her ‘campaign accused Barack Obama on Tuesday of standing in the way of a second presidential primary in Michigan, as several state lawmakers expressed concerns over suggested rules governing any revote. … One of the sticking points holding up a possible do-over election in Michigan is a rule that would ban anyone who voted in the Republican presidential primary from voting again in the Democratic one.’ (laughs) Mrs. Clinton wants the Republicans to be able to vote! She is totally aware of what’s going on with Operation Chaos and Rush the Vote, and she wants Republicans to be able to vote in the Michigan do-over if it happens. ‘US Sen. Carl Levin and the three Democratic leaders working on the proposal planned to lobby lawmakers [today]. … Michigan doesn’t require voters to register by party to vote, so the parties have to use other tools to stop crossover voting. Both parties are due to get a list of who voted in the Jan. 15 primary and which ballot — Democratic or Republican — they chose. It’s unclear whether those lists would be used to challenge anyone who had voted in the GOP primary.’
A guy named Brewer ‘said he’s sorry some Democrats won’t be able to vote again. ‘I regret that that might be the case, but it’s a national party rule and we have no choice but to follow it.” Well, Clinton can’t put up with this! She can’t tolerate this. No voter should be disenfranchised! That was the focus of her speech today in Michigan. As Democrats keep saying, ‘Count all the votes, as many times as you can, from all the voters. Every voter should count!’ But now national rules are suggesting that some people won’t be able to vote if they do a redo in Michigan. This is the result of Operation Chaos and Rush the Vote. And besides, there are no ‘rules.’ There are only traditions and customs. Mrs. Clinton will find a way. Then there’s this, liberals are ‘a little antsy.’ This is Jim Kuhnhenn, the Associated Press. ‘Liberals are antsy. They haven’t seen Democratic voter enthusiasm like this in a long time and they’d rather not wait until the party’s August convention to harness it to the party’s presidential nominee. [Hillary and] Obama are still fiercely competing just when liberal activists and labor leaders wanted to mobilize voters and gear up their message for the general election [in November]. Activists who gathered at a Washington hotel this week said Obama and Clinton have energized the electorate with their prolonged contest, but several warned that a convention fight could be fractious and leave little time to mount a general election campaign against Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain. ‘There is always that danger,’ said Karen Ackerman, the political director for the AFL-CIO…. ‘The way that this plays out in terms of how the nominee is eventually chosen matters a lot.” So they’re cheering the voter enthusiasm out there, but they are worried that this is going to go to the convention and that it is all going to fall apart. They somehow want a nominee chosen before they get to the convention. That’s going to be very difficult to do.
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RUSH: Here’s Mark in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Great to have you, sir. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Thank you, El Rushbo. I just want to get back to the possible Michigan primary. They can’t make up their minds what they are going to do, but anyway, my point is this. This is not a do-over if they have the Michigan primary on the Democrat side because this will be the first time. The first time we were told the delegates weren’t going to count. I voted Republican the first time around. But both my wife and I talked about this. Had the Democrats had a full slate, we may have crossed over because we could see what was happening back then but they didn’t have that opportunity then. We do now.
RUSH: So you knew about Operation Chaos before there was an Operation Chaos?
CALLER: I’m not saying that. I wasn’t sure you were going to do anything like this, but I can’t say that I’m surprised that you’ve done it, and I’m glad that you did it basically because it exposes a few things, number of things. I helps expose the Democrats for who they are, and then it also shows their hypocrisy. You know, they can do what we just did or what you’re doing, and it’s perfectly okay. Of course, you’ve mentioned that point many times before. But my point is this, as far as Michigan goes. If they’re going to do it at all, they’ve gotta open it up just like they would have had it the first time assuming they’d had a full slate of candidates.
RUSH: See, that’s why they’re calling it a do-over so they can use national rules on this, so they don’t have to open it up to everybody, because they know full well…
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: They don’t want Operation Chaos taking place in Michigan, but that’s why Mrs. Clinton is in Michigan lobbying for there to be a new primary. She wants Operation Chaos to be part of the festivities, if you will.
CALLER: Yeah. Well, I can understand that. You’ve helped her in a way, but I’m hoping that McCain is not a benefactor of all this, but we’ll see.
RUSH: It’s too soon to say.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: This is not even… You know, we’re not even halfway through March.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: We’re halfway through March. Look, I’ve done my part.
CALLER: Yes, you have.
RUSH: I’ve done exactly what I said I was going to do.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I said I wanted to create chaos. I wanted to get Obama bloodied up politically. I’d say he is, is he not?
CALLER: Mmm-hmm. Oh yeah.
RUSH: And I would also say that McCain would have never have done this and Republican National Committee, Republican Party would have never done this, which is why we did it. We needed Obama bloodied up politically. We knew that Hillary would do it. We knew this stuff. It just had to happen — and the polling data that we have now from Reuters and Zogby shows that McCain has pulled ahead of both of them in the last week. It’s not an accident.
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RUSH: On Hardball last night, a montage of a report by David Shuster on Operation Chaos.
SHUSTER: In the January and February Democratic primaries, Obama tracked on average 57% of self-identified Republicans compared to about 25% for Hillary Clinton. But this month, things changed, and a lot of people are pointing to one man — Rush Limbaugh. At the time of Limbaugh’s remarks, John McCain had practically wrapped up the Republican nomination, and Barack Obama had reeled off 11 straight Democratic victories. That’s when the Clinton campaign launched its kitchen sink strategy and Limbaugh launched his vote-for-Hillary strategy. Did it work? Approximately 119,000 Texas Republicans voted for her in a state where Clinton’s margin of overall victory over Obama was about 101,000. In other words, Republicans helped turn a virtual draw into a slight Clinton victory. While Obama won Mississippi in a landslide, Republicans favored Clinton three-to-one. Swelling her vote totals is costing Obama, according to analysts, a few delegates. The next big Democratic primary in Pennsylvania is a closed contest, meaning registered Democrats only. But Republican tactical voting is still a potential factor in Indiana, Montana, and Puerto Rico, and conservatives who identify themselves as independents can vote in North Carolina and West Virginia. That means out of the nine remaining major Democratic contests, conservatives could cause mischief in five of them. The question is, will it make any difference or not?
RUSH: Mr. Shuster, don’t forget Pennsylvania. You left it out there. We have operatives who are registering Democrat up until March 25th to vote for Hillary in Pennsylvania. It is happening there, too. Operation Chaos, Rush the Vote, exceeding all objectives. Now, on Hardball, Chris Matthews hosting former New York City Mayoral candidate Mark Green. He’s also the president of Air America, whose audience you could put in a thimble, phone booth certainly. Matthews says, ‘Mark, what do you think here? Is this going to be the greatest example of political sabotage in history? Republicans sneak into Democrat voting booths, elect the candidate that they think is easiest to beat? Not always right, by the way, there were a lot of Democrats that rooted for Reagan to win the nomination only to learn he could beat any Democrat.’
GREEN: Rush is thin in weight but he’s also thin in logic. I think Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham are laughing to themselves how when they say, ‘Jump,’ some progressive pundits, gullible, say, ‘How high?’ First of all, voting is ingrained sacrosanct habit. It’s very unlikely that many Republicans or Democrats will vote strategically in primaries they otherwise wouldn’t vote in. Second, this reminds me why I like Pennsylvania and New York closed primaries. Democrats should decide who the Democratic nominee, so no Republicans can game it.
RUSH: Yeah, but you guys clearly love gaming ours. You love choosing our nominee. So Matthews says, ‘Mark, the problem you have is the numbers, and David Shuster just reported the enormous number of Republicans that have switched over, and only after Limbaugh began his effort here to try to get them to vote strategically. Did they shift from voting, the ones who voted were inspired by Barack and were voting for him, all of a sudden after he said go vote for Hillary to screw the Democrats, they started to do that? How do you explain that? That’s a fact.’
GREEN: It’s a fact that those numbers voted for Hillary. It’s total congestion —
MATTHEWS: No, but only after — only after Limbaugh made his call.
GREEN: How about this. Today, USA Today/Gallup did a poll. Hillary Clinton is more ahead of McCain than Obama is. Hillary Clinton has pulled ten points ahead of Obama. By the way —
MATTHEWS: What did you change the subject for? Are you jealous of Rush Limbaugh’s ability to get his people to do what he wants them to do?
GREEN: Unfortunately, Chris, you, me, and Ed don’t have Dittoheads. We have thinking people.
RUSH: Yeah, and this guy has lost every election he’s ever waged, which, one way of looking at it, you could say Mark Green is an expert on the way people vote, and that is, they don’t vote for him, no matter how hard he tries to get them to vote for him. How does he really know what voters do when they go in? It was a great question from Matthews. ‘Are you jealous of Rush Limbaugh’s ability to get his people to do what he wants them to do?’ Operation Chaos rolls on.
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RUSH: Once again, Operation Chaos is now exceeding all objectives. I am Rush Limbaugh coming to you today, as every day, from Operation Chaos headquarters, the heavily fortified and bunkered EIB Southern Command. Bob Beckel was on Fox News Channel’s Election Headquarters show last night. This is their five o’clock show with Bill Hemmer and the newlywed, Megyn Kelly. Did you see that story about her wedding in the New York Times? Wow. If you didn’t, it’s a fascinating story. Anyway, Beckel here has a plan to counter Operation Chaos. Hemmer says, ‘Is Rush Limbaugh winning with his message? The conservative radio talk show host, instructing listeners to keep Hillary Clinton in the race, saying the more they duke it out, the more harm they will do to themselves?’
BECKEL: Democratic leaders are saying that, you know, we can’t get all the way to Denver. Well, guess what? They’re superdelegates. They could vote. So instead of whining, make up your mind and cast a vote. The last vote is June 3rd, and I think that superdelegates should decide on June 4th. All the evidence will be in, and so then we’ll have almost three months ’til the convention. I don’t think it’s quite as dire as Republicans dream about or that Rush Limbaugh dreams about.
RUSH: We’ll take June 7th, Bob. June 7th is Puerto Rico. Or June 3rd, whenever it is. But did you notice what he’s suggesting here, Bob Beckel, who, by the way, ran the campaign of Walter F. Mondull in 1994, Bob Beckel is suggesting superdelegates vote as soon as you can, end this, don’t take it to the convention. I don’t know what the rules are — of course the Democrat Party, there aren’t any rules, see, there are just customs and traditions. That’s why they can say they never break the rules. We’ll have to check and find out if there has to be a custom or tradition change for superdelegates to vote prior to the convention. Because they’re still going to go through the roll call at the convention. They’re still going to call the states, when they get to Michigan and Florida, may even call their names, (laughing) and there’s going to be riots and protests and even Reverend Jeremiah Wright notwithstanding, if the superdelegates after all this give it to Hillary, Sharpton’s promised to march. Operation Chaos, Bob, I hate to tell you will go on even after the superdelegates vote, especially depending how they vote.