RUSH: The is a most amazing story. I have never heard of this before. It’s on The Politico. ‘After being forced to respond to three separate incidents in recent weeks of conservatives alluding to Barack Obama’s middle name, John McCain’s campaign manager today sent a memo to top supporters urging them to stick to the campaign’s preferred message — and to avoid taking gratuitous shots at their Democratic rivals. ‘Overheated rhetoric and personal attacks on our opponents distract from the big differences between John McCain’s vision for the future of our nation and the Democrats,’ wrote Rick Davis in a document the campaign e-mailed to Republican officials and staffers this afternoon. ‘This campaign is about John McCain: his vision, leadership, experience, courage, service to his country and ability to lead as commander in chief from day one.’ McCain, Davis added, ‘has held himself to the highest standards and he will continue to run a respectful campaign based on the issues. We expect that all supporters, surrogates and staff will hold themselves to similarly high standards when they are representing the campaign. To help guide you, please find talking points below.”
So the McCain campaign has sent out talking points to supporters, surrogates, and staff telling them what to say. ‘Those talking points focus entirely on McCain’s biography and positions on key issues.’ This is Jonathan Martin’s blog at Politico.com. I have to tell you, this doesn’t apply to me, folks. No, it doesn’t. I’m not trying to be provocative here. This does not apply to me. I’m not a surrogate. I am a liberated American who will discuss the candidates as I see fit, without the help of the McCain campaign and their talking points. Can you believe this? Talking points? This is going to extend beyond just surrogates and staff and anybody that speaks for McCain, is going to be asked to stick to these talking points. I’ve never heard of a candidate issuing talking points to supporters, telling them to stick to those points and not to express their own views their own ways. (laughter) You know, this is why they don’t like us on talk radio, folks, because they can issue all the talking points in the world but, you know, what are we going to do with them? (tearing paper) So they can… (doing McCain impression)’I knew Limbaugh would do this! I told you not to put those talking points out! I knew he was going to make fun of it. Damn it! Damn it to hell!’
This is still pandering to the lib media, folks. Just stick to this, if you would, please. Just say that McCain has the experience, the judgment, the character to lead America in a dangerous world. That’s one of the primary talking points. So anyway I wanted to get that out of the way, get the Republican stuff out of the way, because the chaos that we’ve created here in the Democrat Party is too juicy. We have sound bite stories all over the place. Romney says that he would take the vice presidency, and went out there and called McCain the ‘big dog.’ Mitt Romney said in his first interview with — it was with Hannity, wasn’t it? Yeah. ‘I think any Republican leader in this country would be honored to be asked to serve as the vice presidential nominee, myself included.’ So Romney wants it, if it’s offered. Some people said it will never happen because there’s just too much animosity between these two guys. Romney was the most hated guy in the campaign. Huckabee. Oh! By the way, by the way, I meant to mention this yesterday and it slipped my mind. I know that there are many of you Republicans out there still in a tizzy over my Operation Chaos in the Rush Vote, urging Republicans to vote for Hillary in these primaries.
‘This is not the way we Republicans do things. We don’t do this. You’re — you’re asking us to compromise our principles. This is something the Democrats do.’ You remember the calls. ‘Where is your integrity on this? Blah, blah, blah.’ You remember all this. What I meant to mention yesterday, remember what happened in the Republican primary or caucuses I guess it was in West Virginia? After the first round, who was leading? Mitt Romney was leading by quite a lot. And then what happened? Before going in and voting in the second round, the Huckster threw his support — or McCain, one of the two — threw his support to the Huckster. I guess… Who was it that won West Virginia? Was it McCain who won West Virginia or Huckabee? It was Huckabee. So McCain said, ‘Okay, I’ll throw this state out. I don’t need it,’ and the McCain forces joined the Huck forces to oust Romney in West Virginia. Now, what do you think of that? That’s our side doing it. Does that bother you? Does that give you pause? Does it make you question the integrity of Governor Huckabee and Senator McCain? Because they clearly ganged up on Mitt Romney. They hated Romney, because he was running all these ads and he was paying for them himself, and there was nothing that was going to stop them, and they thought the ads were personal and unfair, direct hits and so forth. Romney said, ‘No, these are ads that are just on the issues.’ So, I meant to mention that yesterday.
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RUSH: Speaking of McCain’s talking points, they’re all upset here about the use of Obama’s middle name and they’ve had three instances now where it’s happened, so the McCain campaign’s put out some talking points and told the surrogates and staff and supporters, ‘Just talk about McCain. Don’t talk about Obama. Don’t mention his middle name.’ There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, a story, rather, Bret Stephens. Do you know who the first person who started this Hussein business, the first person to use the middle name of Barack Obama, was? It was Barack Obama. This was October 18th, 2007, talking to Tavis Smiley, PBS. ‘Well, I think if you’ve got a guy named Barack Hussein Obama, that’s a pretty good contrast to George W. Bush. If you believe that we’ve gotta heal America and that we gotta repair our standing in the world, then I think my supporters believe I’m the messenger who can deliver the message.’ The point being that on October 18th of last year it was Obama himself using his middle name, saying the fact that my middle name is Hussein and whatever connotations are attached to it, why, this is going to help bring us together. This is going to help America heal. This is going to increase our standing in the world.
How do we deal with this, folks? Obama was the first to use his middle name. He did so in the context of healing and improving our standing in the world, and now McCain has ordered nobody to use the middle name. Maybe McCain’s campaign — Rick Davis, I know you’re out there — send Obama McCain’s talking points. We gotta stop this. Obama’s wrong. He can’t use his middle name. It makes McCain look bad, so you’ve got to send those talking points over to Obama. Somebody’s gotta get hold of Obama and let him know what the right thing to do here is. This is kind of like the Boston Globe story we had Monday or Tuesday pointing out how back in 2004, Obama’s out there saying, ‘We can’t leave Iraq until the job is done.’ And they said in the headline, yes, his position has evolved on this.
Kathy in Plano, Texas, we’re going to start on the phones with you on the Rush Limbaugh program. Great to have you here. Welcome.
CALLER: Thank you! Good to talk to you.
RUSH: I know. Thanks.
CALLER: I’ve listened to you for a long time, and I really love you, but I’ve got a question for you.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: How is your criticism of the manager, the campaign manager for McCain and his suggestion to others about what not to talk about, how does that differ than your suggestion to the Republicans who to vote for in the primaries?
RUSH: Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding, Kathy.
CALLER: No. I’m not.
RUSH: I’m not demanding anything.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: You have free will out there.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: The people on McCain’s support staff, his surrogates, do not. They have been ordered to only stick to those talking points that McCain’s camp has put out. Their speech has been limited, yours hasn’t, I can’t do that to you, wouldn’t even think of it.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: Mine is a suggestion that you go out and create the chaos, but you don’t have to. I’m not going to kick you out of the audience if you don’t.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: McCain might kick you out of the campaign if you violate his talking points.
CALLER: Well, that is different.
RUSH: Yeah, it’s a major difference, major difference out there. Absolutely.
CALLER: If he’s making a suggestion to supporters of how to keep it on the up-and-up or to not be critical of the other candidates, then I think that, you know, that’s his suggestion and trying to keep the campaign positive.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I’m not a big McCain supporter, don’t get me wrong, but I would rather it be him than Barack or Hillary.
RUSH: You think I wouldn’t?
CALLER: No. No, no, no, not at all. I just want to —
RUSH: Don’t you understand what I’m doing here is about winning? I’ll tell you something, Kathy, just between you and me, don’t tell anybody else.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I actually think that the McCain campaign loves the fact I’m doing this so that they can take their so-called high road, because they know I’m not going to stick — you have to know. You just have to know that in the bowels of the Republican Party complex, they’re sitting there laughing themselves silly over Rush the Vote and Operation Chaos. They don’t have the gonads to do it: We’re doing it. They can sit around and laugh and yuk it up, then McCain can go out there and take the high road while we create the chaos they ought to be creating. They’re happy to let us do it.
CALLER: And they do need the free advertising, airtime, you know, it will help them because they don’t have the finances–
RUSH: Wait a second, wait a second, whoa, whoa, whoa. I need free advertising time for what?
CALLER: No, no, no. Not free, the airtime, just the exposure for the McCain camp. You’re talking about them. And they don’t have the finances that the Democratic Party — I mean candidates, either one of them.
RUSH: Oh, you say I am already doing that. I am offering them cost-free support in a roundabout, circuitous way.
CALLER: In a roundabout way, yes.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: Because you’re talking about them.
RUSH: I’m talking about the Democrats. We’re creating chaos on the Democrat side, which can only benefit the Republicans. I don’t care what these high and mighty Republicans are out there saying, ‘Oh, we would prefer this not to be happening, we, of course, play on the up and up.’ They are loving every minute. But I don’t care whether they love it or not. That’s not the reason that I’m engaged in this.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: I’ve explained it. This is all about winning.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: This is about our side winning.
CALLER: Well, it’s about the future of our country.
RUSH: Same difference.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Same thing.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: It really is.
CALLER: All right. Well, keep up the good work.
RUSH: At the end of the call, now it’s good work. Thank you, Kathy.