{"id":31437,"date":"2009-01-16T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:50:35","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T02:50:35","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:50:35","slug":"mccain_campaign_manager_blames_rush_limbaugh_for_mccain_s_loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2009\/01\/16\/mccain_campaign_manager_blames_rush_limbaugh_for_mccain_s_loss\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain Campaign Manager Blames Rush Limbaugh for McCain\u2019s Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, have you thought back to the 2008 election? Have you asked yourself who was responsible for that loss? Have you asked yourself who really should shoulder the blame and the burden for the defeat of Senator McCain? A lot of people have been speculating this, a lot of postmortems on the election. Let\u2019s go to the BBC. BBC World Service, host Stephen Sackur spoke with former McCain campaign manager Rick Davis and asked Rick Davis on whose shoulders rests the burden of the McCain defeat.<\/p>\n

DAVIS: We didn\u2019t successfully reach out to them. I mean, but you look at the leadership John McCain gave which is counter to the direction that the party was headed, when you have the Rush Limbaughs of the world who, you know, literally almost feed the nativist attitude toward immigration reform, what do you think the Hispanic voter, the Latino voter is gonna remember? They\u2019re gonna remember the attacks, not the efforts by people like John McCain to try and reform.<\/p>\n

RUSH: So there you have it, Rick Davis, the campaign manager for McCain, has dumped on my shoulders the reason McCain lost and others like me alienated Hispanic voters. This is so wrong on so many levels, but it explains why this campaign was so inept. A brief time-out. Just wanted you to hear that so you could stew over it. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Look, I don\u2019t want to spend a whole lot of time on the McCain campaign because it\u2019s the past. I got some e-mails and Mr. Snerdley said, ‘Is that all you\u2019re going to say about it, that it just proves the ineptitude of the McCain campaign?\u2019 I\u2019ll say a little bit more but it\u2019s the past. The thing about McCain that\u2019s more interesting to me than he lost is what I\u2019m hearing from a lot of people, and that is, you know, the Democrats in the Senate right now are happy. They have 58 or 59 seats. Depending on what happens in the finals of the Stuart Smalley\/Norm Coleman race, they can have 58 or 59 seats. Everybody says, ‘Well, whew! Whew! Boy, that means they don\u2019t have their 60 votes.\u2019 Au contraire. You know who\u2019s going to get the 60 votes for Obama in the Senate? Do you know who\u2019s going to get the 60 votes for Harry Reid? <\/p>\n

It will be John McCain. John McCain does not want his legacy to be that he lost the presidential race. He wants his legacy to be that he\u2019s a deal-maker. He wants his legacy to be that he walked across the aisle, that he\u2019s bipartisan, that he\u2019s bigger than life, blah, blah, blah. So I guarantee you, McCain will be the guy that shepherds wayward, liberal, Northeastern Republicans to vote with Democrats on some issues, some bills, in order to give the Democrats their filibuster-proof majority of 60 or more votes. Now, that\u2019s in the cards. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any question about it. It\u2019s exactly who McCain is, and that\u2019s why he lost! Most Republicans perceived McCain as a Democrat. When you get right down to it, that\u2019s how he was viewed. <\/p>\n

To the extent that 55 million people voted for him, a good percentage of those 55 million were simply voting against Obama. Now, the fact that Rick Davis goes to the BBC to blame me for McCain\u2019s loss because of my ‘nativism\u2019 that I somehow infuriated Hispanics, I reject the whole notion. We were talking about ILLEGAL immigration, and McCain, just like in campaign finance reform, had authored legislation that would have granted amnesty to 12 million to 20 million people that we all knew would become Democrats. We also knew that Republicans succeed not when they go after groups, but when they go after Americans. Groups are victims, and when the Republican Party is going to emulate the Democrat Party, ‘We gotta get the Walmart middle class voters! We gotta show that we\u2019ll spend in early money on them and we gotta get women and we gotta go get blacks and Hispanics, Asians, whatever minorities.\u2019<\/p>\n

I mean, that\u2019s what happened to the Republican Party. They became Democrat Party Light. McCain gave nobody any substantive reason to vote for him. Essentially, he ran a Democrat campaign when it came to illegal immigration, global warming, campaign finance, interfering in the private sector. And this is why McCain is far more comfortable working with congressional Democrats than Republicans, and McCain will be the guy that gets Harry Reid his 60 votes in the Senate whenever Reid needs them. Mark. My. Words. Now, this immigration issue, sure. Minor little things like the rule of law, economic conditions in border states. There\u2019s an exodus of people from California for a whole host of reasons, but among them, it\u2019s simply too expensive to do business and live there. <\/p>\n

One of the reasons it\u2019s too expensive to live there is because of all the benefits and services that are parceled out to illegals. We\u2019re going to have to refight this all over again, I just know it, because it\u2019s going to be at the top of the agenda because these are 12 to 20 million future Democrat voters. They were never going to be Republican voters even if McCain had not been criticized on this. They were being appealed to as liberals. They were being appealed to, ‘Trust us, the government, to take care of you.\u2019 That\u2019s not the Republican message; it\u2019s not a conservative message, but that\u2019s what McCain and the Republicans want because the Republicans don\u2019t care how they get \u2019em, they just want votes. You know, sometimes I think I\u2019m the Republican in name only. Not those guys. I think I am!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m the last man standing here. Common sense is gone. It\u2019s blown out the window. But I enjoy it, don\u2019t misunderstand. I\u2019m not complaining about being the last man standing. Democrats don\u2019t care about crime and the decaying culture in border states or economic conditions. They\u2019re driven by their beliefs, not facts. McCain\u2019s no different in this regard. McCain lost people because he couldn\u2019t generate enthusiasm for his candidacy. You know, people have long memories, something that you… Rick Davis, you know what you ought to stop and think about, too? When your guy went into the tank with the mainstream media and did everything he could to make the mainstream media love him, calling the mainstream his ‘base.\u2019<\/p>\n

You Republican consultants, you\u2019re going to have to learn something very fast: Republican voters that you need to win elections think the mainstream media is as much the enemy as any Democrat candidate is going to be. And sidling up and trying to get the approval of a bunch of incompetent boobs who have sided with Democrats for the last 50 years is not the way to engender support, ongoing support and get a mandate. This campaign never had a prayer and everybody knew it from the get-go. It never had a prayer. (sigh) I mean, for crying out loud, McCain became Sominex. There wasn\u2019t any caffeine until Palin came around and it just wasn\u2019t enough. I\u2019m glad that at least he didn\u2019t blame Palin. I think he\u2019s a little off message. The Republican Party\u2019s message is to blame her! Stop and think that. Back to the phones, or to the phones. We haven\u2019t been there yet. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is Laurel, Maryland. Ivan\u2019s been holding on for a while. Great to have you here, Ivan. Welcome to the EIB Network.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, thank you very much. I gotta say I\u2019m a little bit nervous, it\u2019s my first time calling, but at any rate, I\u2019m a proud black Christian conservative, and you were just talking with Ann about taking blame, and I think strategy-wise, to me, I think some of the talk show hosts, including yourself, could probably take some blame that Obama\u2019s going to be inaugurated because back in the primary, when Huckabee — there was a time in the election when everybody wanted Huckabee to drop out so the conservatives could coalesce behind Romney, but then as it turned out, Romney dropped out first, but then, you know, nobody coalesced behind Huckabee. To me, if you were going to have to hold your nose and vote for a conservative, Huckabee would have been a far greater candidate than McCain.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Let me help you with something here. You are asserting here that I had the power to coalesce people around Huckabee, and since I chose not to do it, we got McCain, and therefore you are somewhat blaming me — <\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes, I am.<\/p>\n

RUSH: — that we lost because McCain is the nominee. All right, you tell me what I am supposed to do when I am sent an e-mail quoting a Huckabee campaign advisor speaking anonymously saying, ‘We don\u2019t care about Limbaugh, he\u2019s just part of the Republican National Committee talking points, he just says what he\u2019s being fed to say by the Republican establishment.\u2019 I mean the e-mail I got was entitled, ‘Huckabee Forces Attack Limbaugh.\u2019 Now, what am I supposed to do there, Ivan?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, Rush, what I want to say is —<\/p>\n

RUSH: I don\u2019t endorse people during primaries anyway. Candidates are supposed to win elections, not me.<\/p>\n

CALLER: You\u2019re absolutely right, Rush, and I\u2019m gonna say I agree with what you said, but at the same time I believe that for the sake of the country, I believe that you are bigger than that, to jump past it, and you have to look at what\u2019s best for the country, and I think, you know, while I don\u2019t know a lot about Huckabee, I just know that Huckabee would have been a better candidate than McCain.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, I should be a bigger man than that. It\u2019s not that it insulted me, it\u2019s not that I was being petulant and saying, ‘Oh, yeah, you\u2019re sending your guys out to anonymously insult me, then screw you,\u2019 that wasn\u2019t my attitude. My attitude was why did these guys need to start taking shots at everybody else in the Republican Party? It showed a temperament and a campaign organization that kind of did not inspire confidence. So it had nothing to do that I was offended and decided I wasn\u2019t going to support. Besides, at the end of the day what happened out there, Ivan, was that McCain and Huckabee teamed up because Huckabee at some point realized he was not going to win the nomination and both McCain and Huckabee hated Romney, because of the negative ads he was running, and so they sort of combined forces, starting in West Virginia, where Romney won in the first ballot, but not enough to win, so Huckabee and McCain combined forces in the second ballot to beat Romney, and that pretty much is what started the Romney decline, and then of course there\u2019s what happened in Florida with Charlie Crist on the Saturday before the election endorsing McCain, when he had said he was going to endorse somebody else. It was a comedy of errors. But what it boils down to, and the reason the Republican primary — and I will agree with you, by the way, Ivan, I will agree with you that I have the power you have assigned to me. I don\u2019t doubt it at all, and it\u2019s just a question to me of the responsible use of the power. And I must tell you as I — well, I\u2019m long here. I gotta take a time-out. Nobody inspired me, is the point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, have you thought back to the 2008 election? Have you asked yourself who was responsible for that loss? Have you asked yourself who really should shoulder the blame and the burden for the defeat of Senator McCain? 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