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RUSH: Rocco in Westchester, New York, it\u2019s great to have you on the program, sir.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hey, Rush, thank you for taking my call.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Earlier in the show you said McCain is worried because Romney may be too damaged. <\/p>\n
RUSH: The fight has been too vicious. The primary fight\u2019s been too vicious and Romney might be too damaged by it, yeah, that\u2019s what McCain said.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, it was Romney who was the biggest damager of all the candidates. And it was Newt Gingrich who warned everyone early on not to go down that road of negative attacks. He knew the liberal Drive-By Media would just feast on the negativity.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay, sound bite time. Grab sound bite nine, ten, 11, and 12. This is to buttress the notion that the Republican Party is not all that ecstatic, despite the outcome yesterday. Admittedly, it\u2019s from the Drive-By Media, and once again it\u2019s from MSNBC. Now, the lone source we\u2019ve got of liberal sound bites — I guess that\u2019s actually good news. We get very little from CNN, other than when they do a debate. But up first, F. Chuck Todd last night on MSNBC\u2019s special super-duper primary election coverage, and the cohostette, Rachel Maddow was talking to F. Chuck Todd about the Republican primary, she said, “F. Chuck, we hear from you that there is a panic in the Republican establishment if Romney <\/a>doesn\u2019t win. Is that true?”<\/p>\n TODD: My own reporting today indicates there has been this finger pointing, if you will, going on among sort of folks outside of Boston who basically look at this campaign and the strategy they\u2019ve been running and saying, “You know what, this is a mistake, don\u2019t just sit here and destroy your opponents. You do have to win over conservatives at some point. You do have to show some leadership skills at some point. And, oh, by the way, you do have to show an ability to organize Republicans in both caucus states and primaries.” There will be a pivot in how this campaign goes about trying to recruit Republicans.<\/p>\n RUSH: Now, that conversation took place before the votes were counted. So F. Chuck Todd, the political reporter talking about his reporting, meaning the stuff people told him, or the facts as he read, however he does it, outside of Boston means outside Romney\u2019s camp, within the Republican Party they\u2019re starting to get a little worried that all Romney\u2019s doing is beating everybody up and that he\u2019s not attracting voters to him but that he is frightening voters away from Santorum and Gingrich.<\/a> And they\u2019re worried that that is not a good strategery, this is F. Chuck Todd talking. This is not a good strategery for unity down the road. So F. Chuck is saying that there\u2019s panic over the Romney campaign in the Republican establishment. So Scarborough, who was also part of the super-duper election night panel, said, “Okay. Well, what is your take from last night, F. Chuck?” This is this morning now, after the votes are in, and Romney has won, Joe Scarborough asks F. Chuck, “What\u2019s your take now, F. Chuck?”<\/p>\n TODD: Mitt Romney survived. He had another near-death experience. He still hasn\u2019t won rank-and-file conservative voters. That\u2019s still an issue. He probably is gonna have one or two more rough moments where — because he still can\u2019t excite conservatives. That speech last night I thought was just such a missed opportunity. He sat there and he made a case against the president. He still doesn\u2019t know how to make the case for him. If you can\u2019t excite Republicans about you, or conservatives about you, at least have them buy into you, and you still get the sense that he knows not everybody\u2019s bought into him. He\u2019s trying so hard to say, “Look, I\u2019ll be okay. Look, see, watch, I can attack the president.”<\/p>\n Now, I did see Romney\u2019s speech after he won last night, and I did not have the same take on this speech that F. Chuck does, but F. Chuck\u2019s looking at it through his prism here of Romney saying he\u2019s not gonna attack the base, or he\u2019s not gonna try to excite the base, and what he heard Romney say last night was, “Look at me, I can attack the president, I can do it,” after saying he wouldn\u2019t do it, and F. Chuck\u2019s saying he didn\u2019t bring it off. It didn\u2019t sound genuine. It sounded like he was trying to please the base. Can\u2019t you just make the case for yourself rather than sit there and rip the president. So obviously F. Chuck thinks that what Romney was doing was trying to excite the base last night in his acceptance speech or his victory speech. <\/p>\n When I watched Romney\u2019s speech, you know what I thought it was? It sounded to me like an acceptance speech. It had the tone, the tenor, the language of somebody who is accepting the nomination. That\u2019s how it came off to me. But I have a much broader tunnel in which I hear and see and view things than F. Chuck. Steve Schmidt, who ran McCain\u2019s campaign, was also on MSNBC\u2019s special super-duper primary election coverage last night. And Chris Matthews said to him, “He\u2019s not gonna be bossed around, Romney, he\u2019s not gonna be bossed around by staff or press people. It\u2019s obvious now, Steve, he\u2019s gonna run out there, he\u2019s gonna be himself, he\u2019s gonna do whatever he wants to do.”<\/p>\n SCHMIDT: Unless you\u2019ve gone through this, it is as physically and mentally demanding as an experience that I think almost anyone could have. And I wonder if he\u2019s tired, whether he\u2019s not getting enough rest, but when you have these statements pile on top of each other like they have with him, they create a narrative that\u2019s been really terrible for him, which is that he\u2019s no better than these other candidates in a race against Obama. The chances of Mitt Romney winning versus Obama are no greater or less great than Rick Santorum. And of course that\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n RUSH: Okay, now, let\u2019s see if we could follow that. Romney\u2019s tired and therefore saying not smart things, which are giving you idiots out there the impression that he\u2019s not more electable than Santorum, which guys like Steve Schmidt know he is because they\u2019re the experts. They know Romney\u2019s much more electable but they\u2019re frustrated. Mitt Romney can\u2019t bring it off. Now, this is before Romney won. We went back to last night. But they\u2019re still puzzled. Why can\u2019t this guy do it right? Why can\u2019t this guy bring it off? If I\u2019m Romney, “What do I have to do to please you people?” If I\u2019m Romney, “I won this thing. I led this thing, what do I have to do?” It appears that no matter where you look there\u2019s some people… I guess the establishment is what we\u2019ve heard is true, getting nervous. <\/p>\n And let\u2019s see. One more. David Brooks from the New York Times. Where was he? Ah, we have something other than MSNBC. He was on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Oh, wait, Jim Lehrer retired, didn\u2019t he? Did Jim Lehrer retire? That\u2019s too bad. I don\u2019t get to say The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer anymore. Ah. Darn it. So it\u2019s The NewsHour with Gwen Ifill. By the way, I saw a quote from Gwen Ifill today. This is pretty indicative, too. She was very happy. She was thrilled and excited when she learned that Jon Stewart watches her show. That made her day. She was saying, (imitating Ifill) “Yeah, Jon Stewart listens to me. Jon Stewart watches my show.” That\u2019s what she said, Snerdley, that\u2019s what she said. Everybody\u2019s got their own standards. Judy Woodruff was the fill-in coanchor on The NewsHour on PBS talking to David Brooks. She said, “When we hear Romney today again taking some responsibility, saying, ‘Well, if I were willing to make incendiary comments, if I were to light my hair on fire, I might be doing better,\u2019 what does that mean?”<\/p>\n BROOKS: That\u2019s another mistake. You don\u2019t say, “Ah, these Republican voters are so crazy, if I would light my hair on fire they\u2019d be impressed.” You don\u2019t — A, politicians should never use the word “the base,” because it\u2019s your voters, they\u2019re not the base. And second is, it denigrates the voters. It\u2019s a sign of his awkwardness. There\u2019s been awkwardness. “I have a lot of great friends who are NASCAR owners.” There\u2019s just been a constant stream of the mini-gaffes.<\/p>\n RUSH: Mini-gaffes. Never forget, now, folks, in the Republican establishment, Romney was their guy. Romney\u2019s the only guy that could beat Obama. Romney\u2019s the only guy that had any chance whatsoever. Has Brooks not seen the crease in Romney\u2019s slacks? Is that the problem? Maybe Romney needs to go to sit-down with Brooks and have freshly pressed slacks on. Get \u2019em right out of the dry cleaners, put \u2019em on right before the interview and sit there, cross his legs the right way so Brooks couldn\u2019t help but notice the crease. And then that\u2019s how you get his approval. That\u2019s how you get the support of Brooks. You gotta have the right crease in your slacks. (interruption) That\u2019s true, Romney\u2019s wife yesterday said she wanted to strangle the news media. She said if she could just strangle the news media. Then they said, “Oh, she\u2019s just kidding. She\u2019s just gonna disinvite some of them from the bus.” That\u2019s right, she\u2019s gonna disinvite some of the media people from the Romney bus. A Cadillac bus, maybe it\u2019s a Ford truck. It was a made-in-Detroit bus, by the way, too.<\/p>\n BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n Here is Sue in Manchester, Connecticut. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.<\/p>\n CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call. I was calling because just looking at Massachusetts in the past probably 30 years, any social conservatives that were running as governor — or Senators, actually — have never been elected as a social conservative. And, you know, it just seems like for the whole country to have someone running and to get elected, they don\u2019t get elected unless they are social conservative for Republicans. But in Massachusetts, just looking back 30 years, there haven\u2019t been any.<\/p>\n RUSH: So in Massachusetts social conservatism loses but everywhere else it wins, is that your point?<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/RushROmneyOreilly.jpg\"\/)
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<\/a>CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n