{"id":14375,"date":"2012-10-04T16:39:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T16:39:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-10-04T16:39:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T16:39:00","slug":"the_debate_proved_it_conservatism_trounces_liberalism_in_the_arena_of_ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2012\/10\/04\/the_debate_proved_it_conservatism_trounces_liberalism_in_the_arena_of_ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Debate Proved It! Conservatism Trounces Liberalism in the Arena of Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: (Clinton impression) “Hey, everybody, it\u2019s Bill Clinton here. Limbaugh has graciously let me come here to start his radio show today, \u2019cause he\u2019s got three hours and I don\u2019t have any chance anymore. We got skunked last night. We got blown away last night. But I just want to tell you, there is nobody, there is nobody that coulda done any better than Obama did last night. I mean, I couldn\u2019ta done any better. Jimmy Carter couldn\u2019ta done any better. It all started off with that first question. Obama inherited that first question of the debate. It was one of the worst questions since the Great Depression, and there\u2019s nowhere to go after that. Stephanie Cutter said the moderator blew the whole thing. And I just want everybody to know, nobody coulda done any better, not even I, not even I. Okay, all right, thanks, I\u2019m through.” Thank you, Mr. President.<\/line><\/p>\n

Last night is why, for 25 years, I and numerous others have been begging Republican candidates: “Just be conservative.” Just go out there and espouse conservatism. Go out there and espouse conservative principles and ideas and relate them to policy and life and culture, and you cannot lose, because the left has no idea what to do with it. You know, the media today is beside itself.<\/a> Last night they were beside themselves. The media has propped Obama up for four years or five. They have shielded him. They\u2019ve protected him. They\u2019ve run cover for him. And last night he let them down big time. <\/p>\n

He phoned it in. He didn\u2019t even show up. And they\u2019re sitting there saying, “You know, we cover for you for all these years, and you come out unprepared and bored and make us look like a bunch of creeps. Let me tell you, Barack, not even we can cover your butt on this one.” You know what they\u2019re really upset about? I mean, Algore is saying it\u2019s the altitude. Folks, it is hilarious. But if there was a single uniting thing in the media that has \u2019em all irritated, it\u2019s that Obama didn\u2019t use the 47%. I\u2019ve got the audio sound bites, and you will hear it. They are all beside themselves. They thought they had that teed up and all Obama had to do was bring up Romney\u2019s 47% comment and it\u2019s over. And they can\u2019t understand why he didn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

Let me help. Let me tell you why he didn\u2019t bring up the 47%. First thing, you people are lying about what Romney said in that 47%. You\u2019ve taken it out of context. Romney was not writing off 47% of the country. Romney does not have an ambivalent attitude about 47% of the country, and to accuse him of it would have been setting him up for another grand-slam home run, of which he had many last night. Now, you people in the media may not get it, but the Obama campaign understands that 47%\u2019s a nonstarter. Romney did not mean what you in the media have accused him of meaning by it. That would have been a hanging curveball for Romney. I\u2019m sure he was hoping for it. He was prepared for everything else.<\/line><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure Romney was dying to get that 47% question<\/a>, and I hope that he gets it down the road, because, you know, there\u2019s another answer to it. “Mr. President, you really want to bring up old videotapes? <\/a>You want to talk about some things that we found you saying on some old videotapes, Mr. President? You really want to go there? ‘Cause I\u2019ll be happy to. I\u2019ll go anywhere you want to go. You want to talk about Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright and national health care, I\u2019ll be glad to go back and relive everything you\u2019ve ever said on tape.” <\/p>\n

Ladies and gentlemen, I don\u2019t think that very many people on the left have any idea what hit them last night. <\/a>You see, people on the left, including Obama, but pick anybody, they do not have an intellectual understanding of conservatism. They really do not. They have rejected it out of hand their entire lives. They deal with it by treating it as some minority way of thinking, a very small bunch of people. They\u2019re kooks and extremists who believe that stuff. Conservatism to them is a foreign language and very few people speak it. So what they\u2019ve done my whole life, and even longer than that, is impugn the character of conservatives. They attack conservatism with cliches and emotions. But in the arena of ideas they\u2019re lost. <\/p>\n

Obama was befuddled and lost, and there was nothing he could have done last night to change that outcome. Not with Romney showing up as he did. There wasn\u2019t a thing Obama coulda done. Not a thing. Obama, in addition, has been shielded from any kind of opposition his whole life. He\u2019s been protected. If he got a C at Harvard, somebody gave him an A. If he needed to get into Harvard Law, somebody greased the skids. He\u2019s had the way paved for him. He\u2019s protected, he\u2019s shielded, he has a teleprompter, and his words are written for him. His surroundings are carefully crafted. His appearances are assembled. There are no people of substantive opposition permitted. <\/p>\n

As such, Barack Obama has never faced opposition. He\u2019s always been able to reject it. He\u2019s always been able to pooh-pooh and have media people take care of the mess for him. He\u2019s never had to deal with it. What happened last night is precisely why I and a bunch of others have been shouting, have been imploring, have been begging every Republican candidate, particularly in national campaigns: Just be conservative. You can\u2019t lose. Just espouse conservatism. Go out there and espouse the principles and apply them specifically to policy and to culture and to your life and the way you live it and the way you see America and the way you dream and hope for the future of America, and they can\u2019t touch us. And last night was evidence. Just be conservative. <\/p>\n

<\/a>You see, ladies and gentlemen, we know — we know and understand — liberalism maybe better than they do. I understand what Obama\u2019s gonna say and do before he does it. That\u2019s why I said on January 16, 2009, “I hope he fails.”<\/a> I saw all this coming, and not because I\u2019m a great sage, but because he\u2019s a liberal and I know who they are. I can argue liberalism. I do on this program. Everybody says this program is unfair.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more liberalism on this program, offered by me as I tee it up to be rejected, than there is conservatism anywhere else in the rest of the media. There\u2019s more balance. And I don\u2019t need a liberal guest. I can do it. I tell you what the liberal thinking on an issue is. I tell you what they\u2019re gonna say, and then I debate myself. And I, the conservative, always win. I always will!<\/p>\n

In the arena of ideas, liberalism has no chance. It has never succeeded. It has never triumphed as it\u2019s advertised. “The best for all” never happens. It never produces that. They can\u2019t argue conservatism. They don\u2019t understand it; they\u2019ve rejected it. They treat it as a joke or something a small little bunch of kook extremists believe. They don\u2019t understand it. That\u2019s why they don\u2019t know what happened to them last night.<\/p>\n

Everybody\u2019s saying, “Who is this Romney guy?”<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure that these people really believe that Romney is the guy they\u2019ve put together in these ads, that he did kill a guy\u2019s wife.<\/a> They think that! They do think Romney\u2019s a felon<\/a>; they do think Romney\u2019s doing all these horrible things that they have characterized him as doing in their ads. That\u2019s who Romney is, because that\u2019s what a conservative is to them. If it weren\u2019t Romney, if it was Newt that had won the nomination, the ads would be the same.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

A conservative is a certain set of things to them that is in no way close to reality. They have rejected conservatism out of hand to the point that it really doesn\u2019t even exist. It exists as they characterize it. And, of course, they characterize it and set it up in a way that makes it easy for them, in their minds, to defeat it. They just say. “It\u2019s racism, sexism, bigotry and homophobia and tax cuts for the rich.”<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nothing but a series of cliches that they attempt to characterize us with and describe us as being. But Mitt Romney was not one cliche last night. That\u2019s why they\u2019re all saying, “Wow, who is this guy?” (chuckles) Half of you are probably saying, “Who is this guy? Where\u2019s this guy been? This guy\u2019s better than his own campaign,” and there\u2019s no question about that.<\/p>\n

But the liberal worldview was blown up last night, and they still have no idea why.<\/p>\n

They think it\u2019s Jim Lehrer.<\/a><\/p>\n

They think it\u2019s the altitude.<\/p>\n

They think Obama didn\u2019t study.<\/p>\n

They think Obama didn\u2019t care enough.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

They think Obama whatever.<\/p>\n

As long as Romney shows up as he shows up last night, they don\u2019t have a chance. What is the most often heard question today that we\u2019re asking? “What\u2019s the next level of scum they\u2019re gonna descend to to try to take Romney out? What\u2019s Chicago gonna do next?” You\u2019ll note that whatever you think — whatever you can see when you start thinking whatever new tactic they come up with — it isn\u2019t gonna be an idea.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not gonna be a way to beat us in ideas. It\u2019s gonna be a way to get even slimier and dirtier in a way that they think they can impugn and take Romney out on the basis of whatever character assassinations they make. But in the arena of ideas, they don\u2019t have a clue, folks! It\u2019s what\u2019s so frustrating to me. Last night could be every day in this country.<\/p>\n

If every elected Republican went about his day as Mitt Romney went about 90 minutes last night, every day in America could be last night. There\u2019s no way that they can now run against Mitt Romney as stupid. There\u2019s no way all of these elitists, liberals — thinking they\u2019re the smartest people in the room — and their voters can run around and say that Mitt Romney\u2019s an idiot or he\u2019s a dumb hick like they could with Bush.<\/p>\n

They can\u2019t call what happened last night extremism.<\/p>\n

They can\u2019t call what happened last night racism.<\/p>\n

They can\u2019t say that what happened last night was mean-spirited.<\/p>\n

They can\u2019t say that what happened last night was bigoted.<\/p>\n