RUSH: The Drive-Bys and everybody going orgasmic — I should say, Obasmic — over The Oprah and the crowd that she drew in South Carolina for Barack Obama, who is a presidential candidate. As you people know, I don’t like to make things about me, I really don’t. I get embarrassed when the discussion turns to me, but sometimes I am forced into doing so. They’re just going nuts. For example, here is Joe Scarborough’s show, MSNBC this morning, David Shuster and the co-host Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist, discussing Oprah and Obama on the campaign trail, and Geist says, ‘Mika’s got some numbers from the campaign, about how many people turned out there, Mika?’
BRZEZINSKI: The Obama campaign just e-mailed me, 65 — 66,500 attended the rallies, 2400 volunteers, 1300 in Iowa and 650 in New Hampshire, 2300 in South Carolina. But here we go: 68% of the folks who signed up for the rally had never communicated with the campaign before, 1300 supporters volunteered the day of the rally. More than 6900 signed supporter cards for the first time. You know, and as Lee pointed out, they were showing up at five in the morning.
RUSH: Yeah, yip yip yip yahoo, so 29, 30,000 people show up in South Carolina for The Oprah and Obama. But let’s go back to August of 2000. My good friend John Carlson was running for governor on the Republican side in the state of Washington and asked me to come out and join him and Bill Bennett at a campaign rally in Puyallup, and we did, and we had 40,000 people, 40,000 people for a statewide candidate, a gubernatorial candidate, John Carlson, as opposed to a presidential candidate headlined by The Oprah. Here’s my introduction to the stage by Bill Bennett and what happened when I entered.
BENNETT: With no further ado — (cheers and applause), ladies and gentlemen, America’s best voice, the voice of America, the man who has changed many minds, the man who runs America’s conversation, Rush Limbaugh. (Wild cheers and applause.)
RUSH ARCHIVE: Thank you, everybody, thank you so much. Thank you.
RUSH: Forty thousand people in a minor league baseball stadium in Puyallup, Washington, and since we’re talking about me, I just want to play — by the way, Bill Bennett, that was a great introduction, and he got a big one himself, too, when he walked out. Here is just a portion of my remarks that day.
RUSH ARCHIVE: I believe this, and I think events like this demonstrate it and elections in recent years prove it. There is nothing more powerful than all of us, the people of the United States, unified in our pursuit of excellence and exercising our God-given freedom to be the best we can be. If we’re unified in that regard, there’s nothing more powerful than we are. And we need not — (cheers and applause) — and it’s a power for good, it is a power for positive things. Now, the vice president is trying to say, when he talks about powerful versus the people, he is trying to parade an endless number of victims before the cameras. He wants to look out at a sea of humanity like this and see helpless waifs. His dream is to see you leaving here crawling to the nearest federal building looking for some kind of help, some kind of check or whatever. It’s the most amazing thing in the world. Folks, stop and think of this for a second. This campaign is very important. The vice president is doing everything he can to divide the people of this country and pit groups of Americans against each other, and that’s not good and it’s not American to make us enemies of ourselves.
RUSH: And the sea of humanity that was out there, it was one of the most — it was nuts. It was one of the most incredible events I have attended. Forty thousand people. So while they’re going on and on and on about how breathtaking and how unique this Oprah and Obama rally was, know full well that there have been larger ones attended by me and Bill Bennett.