RUSH: To the phones! Rosalinda in Seymour, Indiana. Rosalinda, I remember you.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: I’m just fine. You know how I remember you?
CALLER: What’s that?
RUSH: You have the dog that you named ‘Mr. Limbaugh.’
CALLER: That’s right.
RUSH: And the last time you called and told me this, after you hung up I got a little concerned, because didn’t want you to start calling the vet and saying, ‘I need to bring Mr. Limbaugh in to be neutered.’
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: ‘Mr. Limbaugh has rabies.’ I didn’t want you to call the vet and say that, because that’s how rumors get started.
CALLER: Yes, I was laughing for about 15 minutes after that, so…
RUSH: Well, how are you, Rosalinda?
CALLER: I’m doing great. I wanted to let you know that we bought a new home and it came with a barn, with which we inherited a cat, and so we decided to name her ‘Hillary’ because we’re not fans of cats — heh, heh — and she likes to torment Mr. Limbaugh and our other dog, Mattie, so…
RUSH: You just keep adding to it, don’t you?
CALLER: (laughing) Yes. But I also wanted to thank God, because tomorrow is my husband’s birthday as well, Tim. So happy birthday to you and Tim.
RUSH: Well, thanks, Rosalinda, I appreciate that, but is the cat, Hillary, just a regular, run-of-the-mill mutt cat?
CALLER: I don’t know what she is. She’s black with like gold spellings all over. She’s very interesting looking.
RUSH: It could be a reverse leopard.
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: Does this Hillary make Mr. Limbaugh foam at the mouth?
CALLER: (giggles) She makes him very aggravated because he’s on a chain and so he can only get so close to her, so she likes…
RUSH: Oh, that’s not good, either: ‘Mr. Limbaugh on a chain,’ but it’s typical.
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: What kind of dog is Mr. Limbaugh?
CALLER: Well, they said he was a beagle, but he’s looking more like a boxer.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: So we think he’s a boxer.
RUSH: All right, all right. That’s good. That’s cool.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Now, Rosalinda, another question before we get to your topic. I’m stunned. We live in a depressed economy, we’re almost near a recession, and yet you bought a house.
CALLER: A second house, we own two now.
RUSH: A second house, with a barn.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Now, this, frankly, does not compute to me, with, you know, here we are on the verge of ‘a recession.’ How is this possible? You could buy a second house, has a barn, with a throw-in cat?
CALLER: I don’t know. God has blessed us. We have good jobs, and we make a good living.
RUSH: You mean you and your husband work?
CALLER: Yes. (giggles)
RUSH: Well, that must be it!
CALLER: That must be it, yes.
RUSH: Good. Then that means there are jobs to be had. All right, Rosalinda, in these economic times, I know you live out there in Seymour, Indiana. I don’t know what there is in public transportation there. Do you take the bus? Do you take light rail to get where you’re going?
CALLER: No, we actually have to drive vehicles and we actually just got a new truck.
RUSH: Oh!
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: Do you realize this is not fair of you? Here you are bragging about your affluence to a nation that is cringing in fear, cowering in the corners, fearing a recession.
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: Listen to you! You just blithely, proudly brag about all your acquisitions.
CALLER: Well, again, we’re blessed, and I actually work in an industry where I encourage people to save for retirement and save in the stock market, so…
RUSH: What is that industry? That’s rare.
CALLER: Yeah. 401(k)s. So, I’m definitely sending out the opposite message of most people.
RUSH: Terrific. Well, it’s great to know that you are in the audience. People like you are greatly appreciated. Now, enough banter: What was it that inspired your call today?
CALLER: Well, I watched the Republican debate last night, and I was really excited to see Fred Thompson more fired up, more passionate. But my one concern with him is that the media claims that his campaigning efforts are very kind of lazy, and so with this whole Obama rock star kind of thing going on, would he really be able to compete with that? Would he really be able to get people behind him?
RUSH: You know something, this is so… Have you listened to that? That upset you?
CALLER: What.
RUSH: That, what the media is saying?
CALLER: Well, they just keep lifting Obama. ‘Oh, there’s so much energy in his campaign.’
RUSH: Of course they are. Let me tell you what they’re trying to do here. I hate to be redundant, but you’ve been so busy buying things you may not have had a chance to listen to the whole show today.
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: But the whole purpose of this is to dispirit conservatives like you into not supporting Thompson or the candidate of your choice. They’re building up McCain. They never say McCain can’t afford a loss anywhere. They never say Huckabee can’t afford a loss, but they’re out there saying, ‘If Fred loses, his campaign is too late. It doesn’t matter. It got started too late. If Rudy doesn’t win soon, he’s out. If Romney loses in Michigan, why, he’s done,’ and so forth. They’re trying to build up candidates on our side that they think Obama or Hillary could easily beat. They will tell you who the conservatives are each and every time by trashing the Republicans they fear who are conservative, and they’ll go soft on the Republicans they think are moderate, not as conservative. Don’t fall for this! With you, it appears they’re succeeding in doing exactly what they want to do.
CALLER: Well —
RUSH: You liked Fred’s performance last night, but, ‘Eh, he got started too late. Where has this been?’ We’ve only had two states!
CALLER: Well, they haven’t succeeded because I was a Mike Huckabee supporter. I’m an evangelical Christian so at first when he was way down in the polls I thought he was like a pretty interesting guy, but as more scrutiny has come and I’ve been listening to it, I’ve moved on to other candidates. So, even though I’m an evangelical I’m not behind Huckabee. I think there’s other things —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — that are just as important.
RUSH: Look, you’re making a great point. It’s fluid on both sides. It was just five days ago that Obama had gone from three-point victory in Iowa to what was going to be a 5- to 12-point victory in New Hampshire, to a 2-point loss. Five days. The Drive-Bys are beside themselves. We had two states. We’ve had states where the Republican population, voting population is mostly conservative, haven’t even weighed in yet. Be patient.