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<\/p>\nRUSH: Now, I was reading the sound bite roster today, and there\u2019s a couple sound bites here. One is from Charlie Cook of the Cook Report. Charlie Cook has a great reputation for political prognostications, polling, polling analysis, predicting election outcomes and so forth. Highly respected inside the Beltway. And Frank Luntz, ditto, he runs focus groups, and both these guys are highly reputed.<\/p>\n
And there are sound bites here where both of them think the election in 2018\u2019s over. The midterms. It\u2019s over, and the Republicans are gonna get skunked like nobody\u2019s been skunked in the midterms. It\u2019s over. Let\u2019s listen to Charlie Cook first. He was on Meet the Press yesterday.<\/p>\n
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COOK: Other than the Senate map, which states are up, I can\u2019t see anything good for Republicans this year, nothing, whether it\u2019s the kids and the gun issue or whether it\u2019s the teachers and parents that are uprising, there\u2019s a lot of bad, bad — if I were a Republican, I\u2019d be — I\u2019d be nauseous right now, with what\u2019s coming up.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Many of them probably are. Here\u2019s Luntz. Luntz was on Howard Kurtz\u2019s media show yesterday morning on the Fox News Channel.<\/p>\n
LUNTZ: Let\u2019s go on record. I think the Republicans are in deep trouble in the House and the Senate as well. If the election were held today, frankly, I think Republicans would lose both. And if Donald Trump wants to keep a Republican Congress, he has to differentiate when he\u2019s attacking Congress in general versus the Republicans in Congress. Differentiate when he\u2019s attacking the press versus when he feels he\u2019s not getting a fair shake.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay. I read these things today. And you know me, I\u2019ve always looked at polling data way, way in advance of an election date is irrelevant. It doesn\u2019t mean anything. It can\u2019t possibly mean anything. Let\u2019s go back one year ago and it\u2019s the presidential race. Can anybody item what the polling data showed Trump versus Hillary on April 9th, 2017? Can anybody tell me? You can\u2019t. You\u2019d have to go look it up. You don\u2019t know what the polls were. But the day the polls came out, you had a reaction to it. And it either lifted you up or depressed you. But you absorbed it, you took it all in and you probably believed it until the next polls came out. Then you measured those polls versus the previous ones and then you had a mental exercise, do you feel up, things getting better or, “Oh, no, do I need to be even more depressed?”<\/p>\n
Can anybody tell me what the polling data was six weeks before the election? Hillary was leading? Well, the answer, Hillary was leading in every damn one of them. Never was never leading in any presidential polls. But nobody can tell me the exact numbers. So what does it matter? What does a poll today mean? Nobody\u2019s voting today, nobody\u2019s voting tomorrow, nobody\u2019s voting next week.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ve always thought that judging the outcome of elections months down the road with polling data that early is specious. It\u2019s idiocy, actually. What was the polling data in, say, August 2017, and then what was the polling data when the Access Hollywood video was released? And in polling before the Access Hollywood video was released, did anybody know the Access Hollywood video was gonna be released so that it could be factored into what those polls would be when — Well, hell, no, nobody knew it was coming until it came.<\/p>\n
Then the polls that were taken after the Access Hollywood video was released kind of rendered every poll prior to it as meaningless and irrelevant, right? This has long bothered me. It\u2019s bothered me in the sense that so many people in the media and in politics in general use these polls to actually make policy or to make decisions on campaigns and elections, and it\u2019s just senseless to me. Because they don\u2019t tell us anything. And I have long believed — let me just put it this way. I don\u2019t think that the events that are gonna shape the election in November have even happened yet.<\/p>\n
And you know what? I am right, and there\u2019s not a single person that can disagree with me. We don\u2019t know what\u2019s gonna happen, but all kinds of things are gonna happen. We don\u2019t know what they are, and we don\u2019t know anything about them, and we certainly have no idea, since we don\u2019t know what they are, what their impact is gonna be on any aspect of the election, on turnout, on the vote, we don\u2019t know anything.<\/p>\n
And so polling data today might tell you what would happen if the election were today, but the election isn\u2019t today, and people are not in that frame of mind. People aren\u2019t gonna be voting tomorrow, so they\u2019re not even thinking the same way they\u2019ll be thinking a week or few days before the election when the pollster talks to them. There\u2019s literally nothing in common here in polling data. But yet look at how many people have written it off already!<\/p>\n
The Republicans are already smoked. In fact, we may as well not even have the election, because Charlie Cook and Frank Luntz have said the Republicans don\u2019t have a prayer. (interruption) What about the generic ballot? Okay, the generic ballot, ballot with no names, just party preference, look at how that changes depending on things in the news.<\/p>\n
I also do not believe that people\u2019s voting decisions are a roller coaster like the polls are. There\u2019s not a single poll that\u2019s gonna change the way I vote, my friends, and I don\u2019t know how many of you are in that boat, either. How many of you, your vote is up for grabs based on the latest poll, based on what other people think? You people in this audience, I know have your own minds, you do your own thinking, and you\u2019re not subject to that kind of peer pressure. A lot of people are.<\/p>\n
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But this is the kind of stuff that ends up negatively impacting the way people think, the way they react. If an election is already over because there\u2019s so much hatred for Trump, then why are Republicans even gonna run for office? Rick Scott, the governor of Florida said he\u2019s gonna seek the Senate seat held by Ben Nelson. Why, if he doesn\u2019t have a chance?<\/p>\n
Luntz and Cook don\u2019t give him a chance in hell. Why is he gonna waste the time and money? Why doesn\u2019t he just punt, play golf or do something? But they do run, don\u2019t they? And they all try to win, despite the brilliant pollsters and everybody telling them it\u2019s a lost cause.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
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They\u2019re either surprised the stock market went up. They\u2019re either surprised jobs went down or up. If they\u2019re experts, why are they surprised? If they\u2019re experts, why don\u2019t they know? If they\u2019re experts who are always wrong, why do they continue to be hired or quoted or brought back? Because their value is not in being right or wrong. Their value is in projecting and advancing the agenda of the, quote, unquote, media or the establishment or what have you.<\/p>\n