RUSH: To Oakville, Missouri, this is Faith. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I think that everything that you’ve said so far on the radio has been a waste of our time to listen to and your time to talk about.
RUSH: When, today, or the whole time I’ve been on?
CALLER: Just today.
RUSH: Just today.
CALLER: Well, the last couple weeks.
RUSH: That’s really insulting. That is really insulting. It’s been a waste of your time to listen to?
CALLER: Wouldn’t you like to know why?
RUSH: Yeah, I’d love to hear why.
CALLER: Well, because I think for the most part all you’re doing is preaching to the choir and chewing the fat over what inevitably seems is going to happen, which is the election of Obama. It’s not making it any more likely that McCain could win, because it’s going to take something really powerful and noticeable for McCain to win at this point, and I’ve heard an idea suggested on your program a couple of times before which I think would be worth doing because what have we got to lose at this point, and you have not been in favor of it whenever it’s been brought up, and I don’t know why.
RUSH: What is it?
CALLER: It is getting somebody likable and, you know, whatever, like Dennis Miller or Laura Ingraham or somebody like that, and putting like 30-second information educational spots on TV during primetime.
RUSH: I’ve never heard of this idea.
CALLER: Well, I’ve heard it on your show.
RUSH: Well, you have not heard it from me because this is the first time I’ve heard it. And I don’t care what other people want to do, if they want to go out and put these charismatic figures on TV in 30-second spots.
CALLER: Why wouldn’t you want to do it?
RUSH: ‘Cause I work on the radio.
CALLER: Well, that’s not a good enough reason.
RUSH: You know, I am not — (laughing) — here we go again.
CALLER: It’s not a good enough reason.
RUSH: You have wounded me to the heart. You have wounded me to the heart. Who has more charisma than I do? Who reaches more people than I do? Why in the world are you sitting here and telling me that what I have done the past two weeks has been a total waste of your time and my time? Is it not a waste of your time to call here and tell me I’ve been wasting your time?
CALLER: Rush, you’re preaching to the choir, that’s my point. You’re not reaching the people who need to hear it.
RUSH: Madam —
CALLER: — and since you watched all seven segments of John Adams over the weekend, I just can’t believe you can sit there and say, ‘This is what I do. I only do radio,’ when you saw the sacrifices and the things that he never dreamed he would have to do to get this country off the ground. And it’s just not a good enough excuse to say, ‘Well, this is what I do and I’m not going to do anything else,’ when you have more capability of doing other things than anybody else in this country, and you know it. I’m not saying you have to do it all by yourself. I’m saying other conservatives who have the money and the clout and everything could band together and put these spots on TV and educate the other side, who are not listening to you right now.
RUSH: Yes, they are. That’s the point. This program is not preaching to the choir, and if you scoured the Internet, if you spent any time at the news sites, the mainstream Drive-By news sites or the blogs or whatever, you would find out that they’re listening and they’re taking notes.
CALLER: Well, a lot of people aren’t doing that. I had a garage sale at my house yesterday —
RUSH: This is anecdotal evidence.
CALLER: I had a garage sale at my house recently, and when it was slow I started talking about the election with some people, and I said, ‘Well, I’m going to vote for McCain, but I’m not happy with his position on immigration,’ and a lady said, ‘Oh, do we have an immigration problem?’ There are plenty of people, Rush, who just do not pay attention.
RUSH: Madam, that woman, whoever asked you that question is not only not listening to me, she’s not listening to anything else in the news —
CALLER: But she’s watching primetime TV.
RUSH: Okay, she’s watching entertainment programs like Bachelorette or Bachelor —
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: — or what have you.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Look, I’m not McCain’s campaign manager, never have been. Not my job to get McCain elected. And I’ve said this from the get-go, that’s his job. I’m not gonna let you or anybody else blame me when this all blows up, if it does. I’m looking at the clock here figuring if I can move on. I’ve gotta take a break here. Faith, thanks for the wonderful call.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, what I was going to say when I decided I didn’t quite have the time to say it, that last caller, Faith, where was she from, Oakville, Missouri? I was beginning to wonder if she was a plant or not because she sounded a little bit like a liberal, wants everybody else to do the heavy lifting, you know, she’s got her community, she could have proselytized at the garage sale. We have statistical evidence, audience makeup of this program, 30% of the people that listen to this program disagree with me and they listen every day, and I am a force multiplier. The people that do agree are out there shouting from the mountaintops and persuading themselves, too. I’m not the McCain campaign chairman, thank the Lord. By the way, speaking of McCain, here is — (interruption) well, no, Snerdley, you’re misunderstanding. He thinks I’ve just delivered an insult. I couldn’t be McCain’s campaign chairman because my ideas are not his. There wouldn’t be enough common ground. That’s all. I’m not a politician campaign chairman anyway. (interruption) I did not, so just stop that. Just stop that. See, now they’re thinking, ‘The reason you’re getting hassled like this, Rush,’ my staff, loving, devoted staff, ‘the reason you’re getting hassled is because you elected Bush, and if you elected Bush, why don’t you go out and elect McCain?’ Well, this is one of these rare moments where just trust me, folks, and believe me, folks, it’s better I don’t answer that because then I’ll really hear from you. It’s just better that I don’t answer that. Here’s McCain’s new ad. Well, actually it’s a Republican National Committee ad, and it’s about Obama.
WOMAN: Record gas prices. A climate in crisis. John McCain says solve it now with a balanced plan, alternative energy, conservation, suspending the gas tax, and more production here at home. He’s pushing his own party to face climate change. But Barack Obama, for conservation, but he just says no to lower gas taxes, no to nuclear, no to more production, no new solutions. Barack Obama, just the party line.
RUSH: So that’s the Republican ad. Some of you might like it because it does characterize Obama properly, and it does sort of cement Obama here in the no-oil-drilling camp. But McCain is pushing his own party to face climate change? See, this is such a golden opportunity. There is such a great chance to contrast who we are with the Democrats on this one issue, climate change, global warming, whatever you want to call it. And this ad probably got it right. Most Republicans don’t believe what McCain believes on this, so McCain’s trying to push us to believe it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Who’s next? Looks like Toni with an ‘i’ from Virginia. Hi, Toni. Great that you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’m calling about your caller, Faith, that called a while ago, and I’m so glad to listen to all the little sound bites you had, because I want to talk to her directly and say to her that I think she’s just desperate. I think she’s looking to you because we are desperate out here, and let me give you an example why I feel her desperation and I need you to help me, but I’m only saying that in a figurative way. I’m a professional, master’s level professional worker, my husband is a professional, we have three children, we make a wonderful income, and the Democrats tell me that I make too much and I need to give to everybody else, and I’m watching as my food bill and my gas bill are eating away at my income. We put ourselves through college. We did everything on our own. We never asked for help. We paid back our student loans, and now I’m living paycheck to paycheck. And so if anyone like you could get out there with us and say, ‘Hey,’ even on TV, ‘Help us, you guys are being lied to, lied to,’ that’s where I think she’s feeling desperate. I don’t think she was a plant. I think she was really just feeling desperate like I am as a professional worker. I’m scared. I’m scared that I’m going to lose everything I have that I’ve worked for because of a man like Barack Obama, who, by the way, is half white, and nobody talks about that. It’s only his blackness that everyone talks about.
RUSH: Oh, yes, they are. Some Democrats are talking about it, that he’s not authentic, he doesn’t have slave blood, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, but they’re doing it selfishly so they can continue to promote the race industry. Let me confide something in you. I feel the same thing. I feel like they’re going to take everything I have away from me. I feel like that’s what Democrats want to do to anybody who is their target or their enemy, and that would mean anybody who has enough money to be independent from any type of government involvement in their lives. I’m afraid they’re going to try to take away the radio show with the Fairness Doctrine.
CALLER: I’m very scared. I have three little children, and I’m trying to show them what we’ve accomplished because we did it on our own. I worked my butt off through school, and my parents couldn’t help me out, and I did it, and now I might have to go to socialized medicine? I mean, what the heck — I’m just so — here’s an example of why I’m desperate. My father —
RUSH: Let me make a prediction to you, by the way, before you finish that. Not trying to add to your desperation, but at some point, with his brain cancer, Senator Kennedy is going to pass away, and I just want to prepare you, shortly after that happens, the Democrat Party will advance officially socialized, nationalized medicine and they’ll call it the Ted Kennedy Whatever It Is Bill, and they will use the sentiment and love that the Democrat Party has for Ted Kennedy to get that passed. And if we have some weak-kneed Republicans who will not oppose the bill because Senator Kennedy’s name is on it — well, it may not happen, but I think it will.
CALLER: It’s not out of possibility.
RUSH: I think that’s the exact kind of thing that they’ll try.
CALLER: Well, it’s not out of the possibility for sure. Can I ask you a quick question?
RUSH: Yeah, fire away.
CALLER: Okay, my father, who listens to you forever, and he’s the one that got me into both you and Sean Hannity. He was at a weekend Fourth of July celebration at my brother’s house and he confided to me and said, you need to put money in your house, cash, get it out of the bank, put it in your house because if Barack wins, you don’t know if the banks are going to fall. Should I listen to that? I’m nervous.
RUSH: See, there is so much panic out there. I don’t even think that has to do with Obama. I think most of this has to do with the media. I think a lot of this doom — I’ve got a stack of media stuff today I didn’t bother getting into, it’s just one story after another, nothing but doom — you’re going to lose your house, the banks are going to foreclose on everything and the banks are going to get foreclosed on by the Fed, everybody is going to lose credit, we’ve got nothing to look forward to. It’s really a shame because all these things are not traumatic, they’re not apocalyptic or catastrophic, but your life situation, the circumstance you describe is real.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: And there are reasons for it, and you are desperate because you think it can get even worse with the wrong people running the show.
CALLER: That’s right. And I don’t rely on my government to help me survive, and the Democrats are making everyone believe that we should rely on them. Well, they don’t realize that that becomes worse; I could lose everything.
RUSH: They don’t care about you. You’ve just described yourself as somebody outside their control. They don’t care about you. They’re going to get you in their control if they can by taking enough of your liberty away and taxing you enough to where you’re gonna become dependent on them. That’s what they care about.
CALLER: But how do I stop that, then? That’s what I feel like Faith is saying to you. We’re at a loss. I don’t have power to tell — who am I going to tell, my neighbor that? You know, they don’t listen to me.
RUSH: Well, what does your neighbor think?
CALLER: I’m in northern Virginia, Rush, and I can’t believe the amount of Obama stickers I am seeing on cars, and my dad’s like, ‘That’s the state that really counts.’ And you wouldn’t believe how much northern Virginia is becoming — I’m afraid to say who I vote for because —
RUSH: Yeah, I’m well aware of it. That’s because so damn many government employees are living there, growing left and right.
CALLER: It’s a weird area to live in northern Virginia. You should see the immigration problem we have and it’s just amazing. I just wanted to tell you that I don’t think she was a plant. I think she’s just desperate and we’re all desperate, people like myself who are educated and put ourselves where we are. We put ourselves here, and —
RUSH: Look, let me tell you something. Gotta confide in you again, I am just as frustrated as you are. I’ve tried to make it plain without doing damage. I mean, do you see anybody ready to release balloons over our nominee?
CALLER: (laughing) No. I keep saying, ‘Where did he come from?’ But here’s my sister, my younger sister, who is an educated woman saying to me that she was going to vote for Barack because she can’t stand McCain. I’m like, are you loony? You cannot do that, I don’t understand. And then my dad’s like, well, if he gets in at least then we can blame it on them if things fall apart. Well, I can’t live like that. I have a one-year-old daughter. I need to be able to give her something to look forward to.
RUSH: Okay. Look, Toni, I appreciate this, we’re down here to a mere 25 precious broadcast seconds.
CALLER: Thank you. I appreciate you listening to me.
RUSH: I’m going to address this obviously tomorrow when I have a little bit more time, ’cause I appreciate you spending this time being honest about your circumstance here, but there are answers to this, and I’m going to try to give you as many of them as I can when we meet tomorrow, but I have to run now.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, folks, it’s been great it’s great to be back with you, and I look forward to tomorrow. You need more Rush Limbaugh, does more broadcast excellence then, so be here.