RUSH: The news is not good for The Messiah, ladies and gentlemen. He’s getting no bump whatsoever out of his college campus tour, little summer camp trip, none whatsoever. And this has the Drive-Bys very, very much concerned. Joe Klein at his blog at Time Magazine: ”Obama Trip Overload’ — Lots of speculation on the web, and in whispering circles, about why Obama’s foreign trip–a slam-dunk success substantively and in photo-op terms hasn’t resulted in a polling bump. The emerging conventional wisdom seems to be that the trip is a bit too grand, too… presumptuous and voters are wary of that. (And presumption, of course, always comes with the subterranean tinge of racism.)’ So the Drive-Bys are saying Americans are racists. And what Klein is saying here is the reason there’s no bump is because the Americans are watching this and they’re thinking, ‘Who does this uppity black guy think he is? He’s not the President yet.’ That’s what they think. We’re going to have to listen to this kind of crap even after the election’s over. Klein and his buddies are doing their best to get this guy over 60% in the polls and he can’t get beyond 47. They are doing everything they can, and they can’t get a bump. He didn’t get a bump when he won the nomination, didn’t get a bump out of this, or hasn’t yet. They are working hard, and remember this trip is about them. This trip is about them, the Drive-Bys making history, and they are pushing for everything they got.
So, of course, when they fail, they had to turn around and blame it on the American people. Well, yeah. Presumption, of course, always comes with the subterranean tinge of racism. See, American people think that Barack is too presumptuous here by acting presidential when he’s not even the President yet. In fact, when he’s not even the official Democrat Party nominee yet, if you want to know the truth. That’s what the Drive-Bys are saying. The Drive-Bys are saying, ‘No, they wouldn’t think that if he’s white.’ The Drive-Bys, look, you need to understand how they look at people in this country, a bunch of rubes, a bunch of unsophisticated rubes. Obama, the first black guy. That’s what they’re chalking this up to. They will not chalk it up to their failure. They will not chalk it up to the fact that people are sick and tired of seeing this, that people are sick and tired of seeing this kind of out-of-balance, out-of-kilter reporting, not even reporting cheerleading. If we want to watch cheerleading, we’ll watch the competition on ESPN or watch for college football to start. The people who watch cheerleading are the Drive-By media in a presidential campaign.
Joe Klein says, ‘But I have another theory. People may be thinking, what on earth is Obama doing over there when we have so many problems back home? Why isn’t he talking about the economy?’ Bingo, my friends, this was my point, too. When this trip was first announced, when he first left on the trip, that’s when I said, ‘McCain, go to a oil well, go out to a derrick, go out to a gas pump because it’s gasoline, gasoline, gasoline, jobs, jobs, jobs, the economy, economy, economy, energy, energy, energy, and nobody cares about Iraq anymore, it’s not that big of an election issue, what’s he doing over there?’ And Joe Klein swerving into an EIB prescient prediction: ‘No doubt, the Obama staff figured they needed this week abroad to establish the image of Obama as a potential Commander-in-Chief…and, no doubt, he will turn to the economy– a Democratic strength, according to the polls.’ But he still goes on to lament there’s no bump here. It got even worse, because last night on the NBC Nightly News Brian Williams interviewing Chuck Todd, reported that this election has suddenly become a referendum on Obama. Look, I’m not bragging, you understand this, where did you first hear this? On this program. I try to tell people in this audience, ‘It’s not about McCain, this election is not about McCain. Right now it’s an up or down referendum on Obama.’ You might think, ‘So what Rush? So they get it. They always get it late.’ They want this to be a referendum on Bush, folks. The Democrats and the Drive-Bys want this to be a referendum on Bush. Now because Obama has inserted himself so prominently and is acting presidential when he doesn’t even have the nomination secured people are going to start thinking. It’s about him, and there’s no way that that is not true.
It is true. The election will be about him. But that’s not the big news out of this. In this NBC poll that they reported last night on the Nightly News at the Natonal Barack Channel, 55% of those surveyed felt it’s Obama that’s the riskier choice. Chuck Todd, explaining the polling data to Brian Williams, ‘Yeah, they’re trying to figure this out, this guy out. They’re trying to figure out who Obama really is, what these leaders overseas are doing. And then we’re trying to figure out why is Obama doing this trip, why did he feel they had to do it? Well, when we asked our voters who is a riskier choice for President, McCain or Obama, 55% told us that it’s Obama who is the riskier choice. We asked who would be the safer choice for President and they picked McCain, 46%. So we see why Obama is over here doing this. He’s trying to allay those fears that he’s risky and not ready to do these things. Then Chuck Todd said the good news for McCain, he connects on values, 58% in the NBC survey, the National Barack Channel survey, say that McCain reflects their values. Only 47% say that Obama does. A lot of folks will tell you Obama needs to improve that number, Brian,’ said Chuck Todd to Brian Williams. Of course, a lot of people will tell you Obama needs to, but striking that they would air these results on the NBC Nightly News. So not only is there no bump, there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot of commonality here on values, at least in these polls and McCain seems less risky than Obama.