RUSH: Now, folks, as I mentioned just before the conclusion of the previous hour, this should be the year for Republicans. Now, this sort of dovetails with calls we had yesterday from two women who were very upset and scared over their future. They’re both doing well financially but they think it’s all going to be taken away from them in taxes. The rising cost of gasoline is the root of this, because it’s raised the cost of everything that needs to be transported, which is everything. It’s shot up fast. It’s been a very hefty percentage increase for everybody in a lickety-split matter of time so it’s had a big shock. I’m thinking, ‘Why are the Republicans running from this?’ If the Republican Party cannot win with these gas prices and Democrats — now, keep in mind who is leading the Democrats, The Messiah, Barack Obama, is an inexperienced moron elitist who does not seem to understand why anybody would object to continuously rising gas prices, which will drive up the cost of everything. Here you have the Democrat Party through their anointed one basically suggesting the status quo is fine, these gas prices are fine. In fact, Obama said the only thing he didn’t like about these prices was how fast they went up. Had they not gone up so fast he’d be a little happier about it.
But the Democrat Party is opposed to virtually anything and everything, no matter what the idea, that would lower the cost of gasoline. They are against the increased supply of crude oil worldwide, which would naturally reduce the price. We get things from Obama like, ‘Okay, we could drill tomorrow, but that’s not gonna lower the price of gasoline.’ This ought to disqualify him. Why go to college if you know you’re not going to get out for four or five years or seven if you go to graduate school, why even start? Why even grow up? Why not just stay five all your life, because you can’t become 21 tomorrow. This is absurd. Everything, be it rollback on federal and state taxes, whatever, anything to lower the price, to lower the pressure on the living conditions of average Americans is opposed by the Democrat Party. And they are the party that gets away with claiming to be the party of the little guy, the average American, the plebe. It’s the average American that’s getting hurt. Every American’s getting hurt by this. The Democrat Party claims that they are the ones that can protect the little guy from the excesses of the rich, and yet what does Obama plan on doing? He plans on raising the capital gains tax; he plans on raising income taxes on the people who hire other people.
The very people that Obama claims to be a staunch ally of and a great protector of are the people that are going to get hurt by his very policies. You can raise taxes on the rich, they’ll find a way around it or they’ll pay it, but they’re going to be okay afterwards, in real terms. They’re not going to be happy, but they have to make some adjustments, if they’re small businesses that file their personal return as a Subchapter S. They don’t have bottomless pits of money to just soak up all these new Obama taxes. So the very people that Obama plans on helping are going to get laid off, they’re going to lose their jobs, and he doesn’t seem to care. This is a gold mine for Republicans if they had any onions. Frankly, I’m a little tired of hearing Republicans tell us that they can’t win. I’m tired of Republicans telling us how many seats they expect to lose in the Senate, how many they expect to lose in the House of Representatives, that this isn’t their year. BS. This year has been served up on a silver platter. People vote with their pocketbooks, and Democrats are wrong on the biggest issue since 9/11. They are all, universally, on the wrong side of this. I mean, you almost get the impression here the Republican Party is being led by a bunch of tards. Little high school lingo there for those of you unfamiliar with the term.
But I look at this as a giant opportunity. Some people say, ‘Rush, you’re too optimistic. You gotta get more immersed in reality.’ I am immersed in reality. I’m looking at a Democrat Party that in a sane political world couldn’t win one state in November. I’m looking at a Democrat Party whose ideas fail every time they tried ’em, be it ethanol, be it Social Security, be it the Great Society and everything they try, the unintended consequences, everything they do, they have opposed victory, they have sought defeat, and yet we are winning big in Iraq. You remember at the Republican convention not long ago a Democrat snuck somebody in there dressed up as a cigarette to try to show how the Republicans were aligned with Big Tobacco? It was Butt Man. Well, let me tell you what ought to happen in Denver, both outside when Obama does this silly acceptance speech — and, by the way, who’s running this show? I am convinced it’s the Kennedys. The Kennedys and Mayor Daley are running Obama. Caroline Kennedy now remains in the campaign as finding the veep, and they’re moving this thing outside to Invesco Field at Mile High. It’s not covered. We can pray for rain.
The last time Obama drew a crowd of 75,000 they had a rock group in there as the lead-in. So 75,000 people, whether they do it both places, at his acceptance speech, at the Invesco Field at Mile High or the Pepsi Center. Republicans need to have a guy dressed up like an oil well running around at their convention or a guy dressed up like a gas pump or a sandwich board with gas prices, whatever they are then, something smart. But this is the issue. There is nothing else. The Republicans ought to be all over the radio, everybody in a car who has a radio is a potential target for the Republican campaign. You know how mad you get every time you pull up to the pump, every time you know you gotta go to the gas station, you know how mad you get at this, and every time you go, the price has snuck up just a little, few extra cents more. Every gas station owner is a potential Republican voter, every cabdriver. You heard about what’s going on in New York City? There’s 14,000 cabs in New York, and these guys are having huge trouble and now they have asked the city for a one-dollar surcharge on every passenger just to accommodate the rise in fuel costs. They’re losing money.
They’re not even breaking even and of course the mayor, Mayor Bloomberg, says, ‘We don’t need a surcharge for cabs, we need a surcharge on every automobile.’ The guy who banned trans fat, who banned smoking, it’s absurd. He calls himself a Republican, but he’s a liberal, he’s a liberal Republican. Every cabdriver is a potential Republican voter. Every trucker is a Republican voter, potentially, everybody that owns a boat, anybody who drives anything is a prime target for Republicans. All this doom and gloom from Republicans is insane. Why go out and create your own negative self-fulfilling prophecy? ‘This is not our year, we’re going to lose all these seats in the House.’ Why? Latest Rasmussen numbers have the congressional approval rating at 9%. Here’s some more details on that, by the way. Per Rasmussen today, strongly disapprove of the job, 47% for Bush; 52% for Congress. Disapprove Bush, 18%; Congress is doing a 36%, fair job. Bush, 19% approval; Congress 7% a good job. No matter where you look the numbers in Congress are below President Bush’s, and who’s running the place? The Democrats.
With Harry Reid going out there and saying, ‘Oil and coal are making us sick.’ Have you been to your own state lately, Senator? Have you gone to Las Vegas? Do you know what it is that keeps the lights on in Las Vegas? Have you ever heard of coal? Have you ever heard of oil? And yet nobody responds to this stuff. The Democrats are sitting ducks. The Democrat Party views this country and wants this country to be in a permanent state of decline. Most Americans do not want a permanent state of decline. Most people want opportunity and growth, not just for themselves, but for their children and their grandchildren. The Republican Party has always stood for that, even when it’s been run by the Rockefeller country club blue-bloods, it has always stood for growth; it has always stood for this. The Democrat Party does not. Growth and more opportunity equal more freedom and less dependence, and they don’t want that. They are sitting ducks! I know the president’s in the White House, and I know the economy is said to be tanking, which it isn’t, but it’s said to be. And I know that the president gets the credit or gets the blame, as does his party. So, battle it. Make some ads, go on radio, go on television, and tell the American people it’s the Democrats.
Here’s the president up there: ‘I hope that the Congress will pass the legislation I want to drill way offshore,’ and so forth. You hope? Get out there and do a speech and lay it on them, and explain who’s obstructing the very growth and progress, explain who is obstructing any plan, any action that would significantly increase the supply of oil and thus lower the price of gasoline. Now, this all may sound obvious to you, and if so, I congratulate you. I’m just telling you the Democrat Party ought to be the party on the run. The Republican Party ought to be full of optimism for what tomorrow brings. That’s what this country is all about. Tomorrow is a better day than the previous day in this country. Remember Ronaldus Magnus talking about the shining city on a hill. Well, there is no shining city on a hill without domestic oil, coal, gas, and nuclear power. There is no shining city on a hill with windmills and solar panels and compact fluorescents and hybrids and ethanol. That has never equaled a shining city on a hill, and it won’t. The Democrats have turned the dimmers on in the shining city on a hill. The Democrats would prefer a blackout in the shining city on a hill.
This is such a golden opportunity. The Democrat Party can be made to run and be on the defensive. All one has to do is remind the American people of the greatness of this country, American exceptionalism, how they, the American people, are the ones responsible for this. A little lesson on growth, how do you think salaries increase, how do you think gasoline prices come down. None of the things that people want right now are going to happen via conservation. There’s nothing wrong with conservation, don’t misunderstand, but conservation is not growth. And there is no earthly reason why the United States of America needs to ever be in a state of decline, and yet the Democrat Party not only revels, but celebrates, that notion. It’s time they paid the price once and for all.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I don’t know everything, but close. And one of the things I know is that a vast majority of Americans do not want this country in a permanent state of decline. A vast majority of Americans have much higher expectations. I don’t understand how the Democrats have a prayer. Well, I do, because I know that there have been 50 years of lies about Republicans and Democrats promulgated and spread by the Drive-By Media. But that’s a battle that we are winning. We are taking huge chunks out of the influence of the Drive-By Media. It’s certainly no reason now to cash in the chips, not when one of our political parties basically wants the demise of the capitalist system that’s created the greatest opportunity and standard of living in the course of human history.
How does a party which seeks to undermine those very stats, the greatest standard of living, the greatest opportunity in the history of human civilization, how does a party like that stand a prayer, yet they do. Fifty years of class envy or more, 50 years of telling people that they can’t take care of themselves because there’s not enough of the pie left for them, that the rich are taking it all from them. It’s easy to sit around and do nothing if you think somebody’s going to take care of you. It’s easy to sit around and be resentful. But none of those characteristics built this country, and yet they are the characteristics of the Democrat Party. So go figure.