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RUSH: Here\u2019s Cynthia, Chestertown, Maryland. Hi, Cynthia. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, hi, Rush. I\u2019ve been one of your supporters for so long I can\u2019t count back that far, and my friends put “Mrs. Limbaugh” on my place cards, and when I go out to dinner.<\/p>\n
RUSH: (chuckling)<\/p>\n
CALLER: And I think we might be having a problem here in our relationship because I have been to the EIB Network College and I look at things factually and I believe there are two candidates in the Republican primary that have the business experience: One is Herman Cain; the other is Mitt Romney. I feel Mitt Romney has more global economic knowledge. I would love to see a Romney-Cain ticket. I could accept it the other way around. But I\u2019m so distressed that for some reason I think you have Romney only, you know, half a point behind Obama in your hate.<\/p>\n
CALLER: And if anybody is gonna depress the Republican turnout it\u2019s gonna be you because you\u2019ve just decided that you don\u2019t want Mitt under any circumstances.<\/p>\n
RUSH: No, no, no. I\u2019m not gonna depress or suppress the Republican turnout. I\u2019m not saying anything about Romney that isn\u2019t already known by most Americans. You talk to most of the people in the conservative base, Romney\u2019s not their number one choice. Romney is the choice of the establishment. For a lot of people, he\u2019s not conservative. He will not do enough to roll back what the Obama agenda has been, is what a lot of people fear.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, I think they\u2019re wrong. I knew a lot about Mitt when he was working in the Olympics and I saw him work with the Olympic Committee. Probably nobody has a bigger ego and is harder to work with than the members of the International Olympic Committee. They\u2019re worse than senators if you can believe that and he managed to turn that Olympics around and he listened to them and he smiled and he did everything right and they were doing everything wrong, and he ended up saving those Olympics financially, and it is a point I know that he will do the right thing for the United States economy, and I feel that that\u2019s the key to everything. We need someone who\u2019s gonna not just fix the economy — you\u2019ve taught me this — internally, but has to be global, and I just don\u2019t see any of the other candidates who can do that.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, let me tell you just to assure you, \u2019cause I have to take a break. Just to assure you: If Romney is the nominee, you needn\u2019t worry where I\u2019m going to be. There is no way, there is no way I\u2019m gonna do anything to suppress turnout if Obama is on the other guy\u2019s ticket. It ain\u2019t happening.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Don\u2019t worry, folks. I don\u2019t know how many times I have said: “Whoever this nominee is is gonna have my full support because of what we\u2019re up against.” Don\u2019t have any doubt about that. But until such time, I\u2019m not gonna be dissuaded from talking about what I think our optimum could be.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay, Romney. Let\u2019s take our last call and try put things in perspective here. Romney was governor of Massachusetts after the Olympics. We have something more recent to judge Romney on than the Olympics. When he ran for governor of Massachusetts he ran to the left of Ted Kennedy. Now he\u2019s moved more toward the center, but he instituted Romneycare. He has attacked Rick Perry on calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme. It\u2019s all a matter of public record. And Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, and countless elected and unelected people have said that it is. All we\u2019re doing here is discussing at length the background of all of these candidates. Newt, Santorum, Bachmann, Cain. <\/p>\n
But, now, no, no, can\u2019t talk about any of that with Romney, we gotta go ahead, and we gotta nominate — what\u2019s the latest — Romney\u2019s newest backers, ABC News\u2019 The Note. New York Congressman Michael Grimm, who\u2019s backing Romney, said, “Republicans should put aside their ideological differences and back the candidate who has the best chance of beating President Obama.” This is Michael Grimm in New York, who is backing Mitt Romney and thinks New York could choose the former Massachusetts Governor over President Obama in 2012. So this guy thinks, yeah, Romney could win New York, so let\u2019s put aside our ideological differences. <\/p>\n
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Mr. Grimm and the rest of you, I\u2019m gonna just tell you, give you a little clue, Mitt Romney will only win by being conservative both in the primary and in the general election. If we once again nominate somebody who thinks because of the precious independents and they might lose \u2019em and they gotta tack to the center in the general election, you are going to blow it. You\u2019re going to blur the differences between our guy and Obama and that\u2019s not what we need. We need a very wide line of demarcation that stresses the differences, not mushes them, not waters them down. I\u2019ve been telling you I don\u2019t know for how long the Republican establishment just doesn\u2019t want conservative. For whatever the reasons. I\u2019m tired of going into them. <\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s one thing to personally viciously attack one of these Republicans, which I\u2019m not doing and I haven\u2019t done. But it\u2019s quite another to honestly discuss during a primary cycle the merits and demerits of a candidate based on their record and their public policy. That\u2019s permitted. That doesn\u2019t violate Reagan\u2019s Eleventh Commandment. Now, you can call here and tell me that I shouldn\u2019t talk about these candidates in certain ways, I shouldn\u2019t give my opinion about the politics of a situation or something. That\u2019s not gonna happen. I\u2019m gonna tell you who I am. I\u2019m not on any of these campaign teams. I\u2019m not being paid by anybody. I have a responsibility to you, as I always do. <\/p>\n
The audience always comes first here, and by that I mean I have an incumbent responsibility to be honest with you on substantive issues. That\u2019s what I do and I\u2019m not gonna silence myself at an urgent time like this. I mean look at what we\u2019ve had today. And I\u2019m not trying to gin up sympathy for me, I\u2019m just trying to illustrate here. On the one hand I\u2019m being told to meet with the candidates and pick one, and then rally the troops. On the other hand I\u2019m being told, “Look, don\u2019t say all this stuff about Mitt unless you\u2019re for him. Don\u2019t say all this stuff. I call myself Mrs. Limbaugh at the dinner table, but I\u2019m not gonna do that anymore if you don\u2019t be quiet about Mitt.” So, on the one hand, I\u2019m supposed to meet with the candidates and pick one and go for it, on the other hand, I\u2019m supposed to shut up. <\/p>\n
Now we\u2019ve got Michael Grimm, a New York congressman, saying let\u2019s stop the primary process, put aside our conservatism and pick Romney. That\u2019s what he\u2019s saying: You conservatives, drop it, check your conservatism at the ballot box when you go in there. I wonder if Michael Grimm is aware the last time a Republican won a landslide in New York. It was Reagan. What was Reagan? He ran as a proud conservative. The last Republican to win a landslide in New York was named Ronald Reagan. A very ideological guy and we were not told to check our ideological at the door there. What an amazing thing to say. Put aside their ideological differences. I\u2019m just telling you Romney is not gonna win by going mush. He\u2019s not gonna win by following the prescriptions, if you will, of the Republican establishment. Not gonna win. If you try to blur the ideological differences between us and Obama, it\u2019s Obama that will win. <\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay, here\u2019s that poll I mentioned earlier — the Gallup poll from October 2007 — and here\u2019s the headline: “October Gallup Poll Has Obama, McCain Down by Double Digits.” It\u2019s at the same point in the campaign as we are now. McCain was at 16% in October of 2007. You know who was leading the Republican nomination at this time in 2007? Take a wild guess. I\u2019ll bet nobody comes up with it. I\u2019ll bet nobody comes up with it. Rudy Giuliani at 32%. Fred Thompson was two at 20%. John McCain in third place at 16%. Romney in fourth place at 9%. Huckabee in fifth place with 7%. Ron Paul in last place at 2%. On the Democrat side, Obama was also down by double digits to Clinton and Edwards. Clinton was Hillary. She was near 50. Edwards was around 28, and Obama was at 11.<\/p>\n
This time, 13 months out. Now, given that, keep in mind here that we\u2019ve got everybody telling us, “Let\u2019s just put it all to bed, here. Let\u2019s just drop our ideology, put it aside, and let\u2019s just go ahead and nominate Romney. Let\u2019s just go ahead and nominate Romney,” and our eventual nominee at this time in the 2008 campaign was McCain at 16%. And what changed? I\u2019ll tell you what changed was West Virginia and Florida. That\u2019s what happened. That\u2019s where McCain teamed up with Huckabee. Giuliani bombed in Florida, and Romney and Huckabee teamed up in West Virginia to give McCain Romney\u2019s supporters there and then of course Charlie Crist endorsed McCain in Florida, and pfft! That was it. But it was the primary process that flushed all of this out. Look what\u2019s happening now. Republican establishment says, “Ah, let\u2019s put everything aside, here. We have our nominee. We need our nominee now. We need to get going on this.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: Here\u2019s Cynthia, Chestertown, Maryland. Hi, Cynthia. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Well, hi, Rush. I\u2019ve been one of your supporters for so long I can\u2019t count back that far, and my friends put “Mrs. Limbaugh” on my place cards, and when I go out to dinner. RUSH: (chuckling) CALLER: And I think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n