RUSH: I said this two weeks ago, maybe three now. I said by the time we get to the actual presidential campaign in 2008, the Iraq war will not be a major issue. The Democrats cannot win it in their current iteration. I said, ‘What’s going to be the primary subject matter net presidential campaign will be the future of the country and where we are headed as a country. It will not be Iraq, further alienating the base, further disappointing them.’
Now, don’t misunderstand, the Democrats are not going to abandon it. But it’s not all sweetness and light out there. Well, from The Politico today, a story by Martin Kady II. ‘Democrats Turn to Traditional Issues,’ turning away from the Iraq issue. ‘With few Iraq votes expected in the next several weeks — a marked departure from the first nine months of the new Democratic-controlled Congress — Democrats are trying to build an agenda that’s heavy on health care, community policing, housing, tax reform and other issues. ‘Iraq has always been the 800-pound gorilla in the room, but there are other issues to deal with.” They are getting ready to abandon it, as we get into the ’08 election season, because it’s a loser, especially as they currently argue it, and they know it is a loser, and since their candidates have all said we’re keeping the troops there ’til 2013, they’ve gotta move on; the future of country is going to be what the campaign is about, mark my words.
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RUSH: Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, it is. It’s Bill, nice to have you, sir, welcome.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. God bless you. And don’t run for office. We need you to do what you’re doing.
RUSH: I appreciate the understanding, sir. It all hinges on whether or not I win the Nobel Peace Prize Friday, because I made a promise just mere moments ago.
CALLER: Well, if you win it, I’ll vote for you. Okay.
RUSH: I didn’t say when I would run; I just said I would run.
CALLER: (laughing) Now that the Drive-By phony media has reduced its Iraq coverage and the Democrats seem to be trying to get it off the table, and that means we’re winning, and obviously we are, you just don’t see it in the papers nowadays. My question for you, as an expert opinion, would be, when do you think the public in general will recognize the win, and when will President Bush’s approval numbers finally reflect that, an increase to be reflective of a winner, and then, importantly, begin to play as a positive on the table for the Republicans in the presidential race and the congressional race next year?
RUSH: I don’t think it’s going to happen that soon. I don’t think Iraq is going to be a number-one or even number-two election issue next year, precisely because of what you said at the beginning of the call. The surge is working, we’re winning. More than that, the Democrat presidential candidates have all said we’re not pulling out of there by 2013, regardless which candidate. If a Democrat wins, they’ve all said, ‘No, I can’t commit to doing that.’ So they failed to get their resolutions passed. What they were trying to do was saddle defeat around President Bush’s neck. It has failed. They’re taking the Iraq issue off the table because it is a loser for them. It’s not because we’re winning. That’s, I guess, a factor; but it’s a losing issue for them, and they know it. The position they have on Iraq is un-American. It’s why Hillary Clinton will not adopt that position as a Democrat presidential candidate. It’s why the Democrat presidential candidates who do adopt that, like Kucinich and others, don’t even score an asterisk. Despite the so-called power and influence of the Democrat Party base, the people on that Democrat presidential rostrum that reflect their views haven’t a prayer.
Iraq is a losing issue. So it’s off the table, the press is taking it off the table because we don’t want to embarrass the Democrats with it. Regardless what happens in Iraq, President Bush is not going to get due credit or a proper analysis, historical analysis, until this generation is long gone and dead. The people that write the history of today are going to write what the press has been writing about Iraq for the last four or five years. Historians, who are not even yet born, or who are recently born and are infants, who don’t even know they’re going to be historians yet, will look back on this, and it will be accurately written about, or at least more accurately written about than today. But I don’t think President Bush’s approval numbers are going to be significantly enhanced by whatever happens in Iraq, particularly in the sense of influencing the elections, unless something so unexpected happens, such as Al-Qaeda surrendering or a set of pictures of a rebuilding Iraq and a happy Iraq and the enemy in disarray. It’s going to take something like that for there to be an immediate impact in the next 13 months. But since the issue of Iraq is not going to be a paramount campaign issue, mark my words on this, I don’t think the approval numbers on it are going to be a factor.
Gotta run. Back after this.