RUSH: Pat in Columbus, North Carolina. It’s nice to have you with us.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How you doing?
RUSH: Fine, very well. Thank you.
CALLER: Okay, I’ve got a quick question about Huckabee and Thompson, and then if you have time, I have a football question.
RUSH: Sure.
CALLER: But I have to say hi to my sister Mary in Stoughton, Wisconsin, because I got in really big trouble last time because I didn’t say that. So, hi, Mary.
RUSH: (laughter) Hi, Mary. How are you doing, Mary? She’s been said ‘hi’ to three or four times to make up for all the lapses in the past.
CALLER: I know. I really got in big trouble that time. Hey, what I wanted to ask you about was, when people say they’re for Huckabee because he’s pro-life, it’s not like there’s not another pro-life candidate out there. Thompson has always been pro-life. I mean I understand some of the other candidates aren’t or they’ve switched and that makes people nervous, but that’s what I don’t understand. It’s not like they don’t have any other choice.
RUSH: It’s called ‘identity politics.’
CALLER: Oh.
RUSH: Huckabee is a former Southern Baptist preacher. He’s closer to the issue, thus the people who care about that issue than anybody else can be, in their minds.
CALLER: Okay. It doesn’t make sense to me, but —
RUSH: Sure it does. I can explain how it makes sense. It makes total sense, if you understand the power of identity politics, and its appeal to people. You know, you have to understand something here about the conservative Christian right and the evangelicals. They think that everybody is out to get ’em. They think the Democrats want to wipe ’em out (and that’s true), and they think there’s a bunch of Republicans that don’t like ’em (and that’s true). So here’s their guy! Huckabee is their guy. If their guy can win, they feel secure. They don’t like being pariahs. I understand it emotionally. I understand their emotional attachment to it. That’s what the purpose of identity politics is. It causes you to abandon introspection and investigation of anybody else and their issues, or even your own candidate’s stand on other issues. Pure and simple.
CALLER: I guess. Can I ask my football question?
RUSH: Oh, yeah! What is the football question?
CALLER: Well, I’m a big cheesehead because I’m originally from Wisconsin.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: So what do you think about the Packers? I mean, I’m surprised they’re this far. Of course I love Brett Favre.
RUSH: I think a lot of people are surprised they went this far because the expectations of this season were not that high. They didn’t have a power running back, they didn’t think. They ended up with one. The Packers are a great lesson here that you should not overspend for a running back in the NFL. Their guy is like a walk-on free agent. Willie Parker for the Steelers was the same thing: a walk-on free agent. He was not drafted, and up until the time he broke his leg in a Rams game in that cheap artificial turf in St. Louis, he was the NFL’s leading rusher. There were a lot of surprises. The Packers game this year has been pretty much Brett Favre, the offense, ’til they found this running back. I find it fascinating a lot of people are suggesting here that the worst thing that could happen for the Packers is to have a home game in that inclement weather because they got blown out by the Chicago Bears in Chicago on a typically favorable Green Bay weather day. It was cold and blustery and windy and so forth. The biggest problem the Packers have — I think they’ll probably survive their home game — is they gotta go to Dallas, and they just have not won in Dallas.
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: They just haven’t won there. Favre, I don’t think he’s ever won a game there.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: Certainly not in the playoffs there. So that’s it.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: But there’s always a first time. The Cowboys limped into the playoffs. Terrell Owens is still not practicing, he may not be back. A high ankle sprain is a bad injury. Plus, it looks like Bill Parcells in Miami is going to raid the Dallas coaching staff.
CALLER: (laughs)
RUSH: He’s already hired his general manager from the Cowboys. That won’t affect the playoffs this year and all that. But a lot of teams limped in based on the last couple weeks of the season. You know, the Dallas Cowboys in their final game against the Redskins had one yard rushing!
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: One yard!
CALLER: But, you know, Rush, one thing: Maybe since we look like such wimps in Chicago, maybe playing in Dallas would be a good thing because they’re warm there.
RUSH: That’s the mitigating factor. Exactly. But it’s still Dallas.