RUSH: Edwardsburg, Michigan. Brett, you’re first today. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s an honor to speak with you. Mega Upton Country dittos.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: The media has a love affair with Obama, as you well know, and after killing Osama, I’m wondering — you know, the only one he won in 2008 is because the media was in his corner, and I’m wondering — that with the supposedly skyrocketing approval numbers, are Americans gonna be fooled again into thinking that he’s unbeatable? I mean, I know he’s beatable because I’m a dittohead, but would your average American be fooled into thinking that he’s unbeatable again?
RUSH: Well, I think they’re gonna have a tough time with this. There are certain things that you can spin for the average American but you can’t spin what milk and eggs or beer and cereal cost (if they’re in Rio Linda), and you can’t spin what gasoline costs them, and you can’t spin how their homes have lost their value. There are certain things that people are living. Here’s the one thing they’ll do. This is what the regime is going to do. (I know exactly how they’re going to do this.) They’re gonna position Obama as still in the fix mode, trying to fix this horrible mess he inherited. Their main push will be to say that all the economic circumstances that exist today are the result of so many years of Reagan and Bush.
He was wrong about how fast he could turn it around. It’s going to take a lot longer than he thought. So it depends. The answer to your question depends on how successfully they can portray Obama as still an innocent bystander with no role in any of this. Now, that’s where the Republicans come into play, and whether or not they’re gonna have the guts to have a message that ties all of this to Obama. They’re gonna have to do that — and when I say guts, they haven’t had any up to ’til now. They haven’t wanted to be critical of Obama because they haven’t wanted to be called racist (which still happens). They don’t want to be attacked as being somehow opposed to the historic nature of Obama’s presidency, being the first black president and all that.
But the Republicans are gonna have to be aggressive and they’re gonna have to — with real guts — tie Obama to this. Because the living circumstances for the American people are very real. They can’t be spun. What can be spun is who’s responsible for it, and the regime is counting on the fact that there’s still only 30% of the country that loves George W. Bush; 60, 70% still hate his guts and could be made to believe that all of this is his fault, and that poor old Obama, “Gosh, he’s really trying! He’s doing everything he can. Look at all the hard work. Now they’re starting to show some signs of progress, and do we want to change horses in the middle of the stream?” That’s gonna be the campaign. Mark my words.
So it all depends. At that point what do the Republicans do, and who their nominee is, and how the nominee wants to deal with that. I’ll just tell you, if the nominee — if the Republican Party — accepts that premise, then we could be toast, because accepting that premise would take off the table the thing that they really want to argue, which is Obama’s policies are bad for America. That’s what they want to say. They don’t want to say Obama’s bad for America. They don’t want to go there (I know they don’t have the guts for that), but I’ve talked to enough of them and they do say, “We gotta focus on his policies.” Well, focusing on his policies is going to be focusing on him. His policies are who he is. So we wait here with bated breath to find out what the Republicans do, but I guarantee you I know what the Obama campaign’s gonna be. I just laid it out for you, and we know what the Republicans have to do to counter it.
Howard in New York City. Great to have you, sir, on the EIB Network. Hello he’s gone. Well, then who’s next? Indiana. I wonder what this is about. Duane in Huntington, Indiana. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi there, Rush. Thank you for taking my call —
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: — and I’m gonna address this Mitch Daniels thing. I’ve been a 60-year fighter for conservatism and the Republicans. This guy is just another McCain, and I feel like I’ve been transported back to ’08, Rush. We’ve got the media and the template is the same. The media and their RINO friends, their writer friends, are trying to create the stampede that this particular person or these two people must be chosen from or we’re toast. They want to create our nominee just like they did back then, and the people gotta watch out for this. I wouldn’t vote for him. He’d be another McCain. He would be compromiser, “reaching across the aisle;” he would not attack for fear of being called a racist, and I’m sick and tired of that. I’m tired of being backhanded across the mouth for being critical of this guy and being called a racist.
RUSH: All right, fine. Let me ask a quick question. Thirty seconds. The people you talk about who want to give us another McCain, they saw that McCain lost. Why would they want to repeat that?
CALLER: Well, they want to force us to choose these people — one of these people — as being unbeatable; and a parallel thing, he wants to set aside morality issues, which are an integral part of conservatism, and of course Gingrich doesn’t dare mention them. The thing is…
RUSH: Oh, yeah, Newt will mention ’em. Newt’s not gonna run… He’s got an answer for it already. Newt’s not gonna run away from it. He was working so hard for the country that he straight ahead. That’s his official answer.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, let me review it one more time, what the Obama campaign is gonna be. It’s all becoming very clear now. It’s taking a lot longer than we thought. If there was a bumper sticker that will codify — not the exact word I want here. (Again, folks, I was up very late last night consuming adult beverages.) But if there’s a bumper sticker that could sum up the campaign: “It’s taking a lot longer than we thought. The mess was even worse than we knew.” In fact, I predicted this before Obama was even immaculated, that they would use that as a means for passing really Draconian legislation like the stimulus bill, or Porkulus.
“Oh, my God, they didn’t tell us how bad it was! Folks, this economy is horrible! We had no idea it was this bad.” They’re gonna revive that. “Not even we realized ’til we got here and rolled our sleeves up just how bad this was, and it’s taking a lot longer,” but we’re starting to see signs of it. They’ll lie about it. You’re starting to see signs. They’ll say, “See those 244,000 jobs created last month? We’re going in the right direction! Do we really want to change horses in the middle of the stream?” That really is going to be the campaign. “Do you really want to turn it back to the people who ran the car in the ditch in the first place?”
That’s what this campaign is going to be — and then, of course, whoever our nominee is, they’ll tailor a message to that person as well, and that will end up being the double whammy. At that point, it then depends on the Republicans and how they choose to engage on this. Because I’m here to tell you right now, Obama is landslidable beatable, if we have somebody with the guts to tie him to everything that’s happened since 2007. That’s when the Democrats took over; that’s when the Democrats won the House and that’s when all this began. That’s when unemployment started trending up, and in November after the election of Obama it really jumped.
You go back and look at the charts. It spikes upward like crazy. Small-business people knew what was coming and started letting people go then, even before Obama had been immaculated. Quite simply, the Republicans are going to have to tie everything in this country’s economy — all of the destruction, all of the economic malaise — to Barack Obama and his policies. Which, to me, tees us up better than we’ve been teed up in I don’t know how long. This is the problem I have with the RINOs in our party, the problem I have with our moderates. What an opportunity this is! It’s the greatest opportunity we’ve ever had to contrast who we are.
What has Obama done that has been productive for this nation?
What’s he done?
He is eviscerating NASA. There’s a story in the Stack today, by the way, that he is going to renew his outreach to Muslims (after double tapping Osama). He has hampered the military. He has hampered our intelligence service, despite what he says. He’s done nothing that can help grow jobs or strengthen homeownership. Everything he’s done has weakened both areas. His policies have mattered, and they have been destructive. He’s done nothing to increase oil drilling. Honestly, what has he done? Even if we want to accept a premise — even if we want to accept the premise that it was worse than they thought when they got there, even so — what have they done to reverse it?
What have they done that is productive?
What have they done that is positive?
The answer is: Nothing!
He has not built the fence on the border. He hasn’t built anything. All this money spent, all these deficits, what has he accomplished? What he’s accomplished is saving the jobs of unionized Democrat voters. What he’s accomplished with a stimulus bill and all these other bailouts is to save the jobs of public sector union people so that they continue to be paid, so that their dues continue to flow to the Democrat Party. That’s what he has saved. Now MSNBC is out there lying to people, saying the Democrats are telling them it’s possible the DREAM Act could be signed into law by November? So we just had the call from Indianapolis. “I don’t want Daniels! He’s just another McCain. We lost big with McCain.”
I asked him, “Well, okay. Why would these people, why would these RINOs and so forth, nominate another loser? If they know that McCain lost, why would they go the route again?” I’ll give you the answer — and I’ve mentioned this on a number of occasions. It’s hard for you to believe (you don’t want to believe it), but the Republican establishment has people in it who dislike conservatives as much as the Democrat liberal establishment dislikes us. The Washington establishment’s a big clique. Actually, you know, it’s a very small clique — and that’s what makes it exclusive. That’s why so many people want to be part of it. including people on our side.
It is, maybe, the ultimate club, to be an accredited, accepted member of — and there are certain things that you have to be and do in order to be accepted into that clique. And one of the things that you have to have, there can be no doubt about you, is you must be believable when you disparage conservatives. We are the big enemy. I don’t care if it’s the Democrat establishment you’re talking about or the Republican establishment, mainstream conservatives are the enemy. They dislike us almost as much as the left does.
Now, look again at the attacks on Sarah Palin, from so-called Republicans, from RINOs, from the establishment — or, for that matter, their attacks on any unvarnished conservative candidate. What do they say about them? “Palin? She’s unelectable. Unelectable.” They’ll say it about any number of conservatives. “Unelectable!”
That’s the keyword — “unelectable” — and then they cite each other. Columnist A will cite Columnist B, who will cite Blogger C, who will then agree with Blogger Z, and you’ve got a giant circle you-know-what going on with all the smartest people in the room writing for each other, to each other, using each other’s phrases, impressing each other that their minds are unique and alike.
Oh, they’ll occasionally have arguments over who cited something first or who came with some point of view first or what have you, but for the most part… You’ve read these blogs. You know what I’m talking about. The irreplaceable blogger name. “Yesterday in a post (that nobody saw) by the irretrievable, unmistakable, couldn’t do without (name the blogger)” and then they write about each other this way, and they all get themselves worked up into a lather about the same things — and the RINOs have, as their first mission, to defeat conservatives in the Republican Party. Ronald Reagan knew it; nothing’s really changed, which is why those people were out there saying the era of Reagan is over.
But have you ever heard them say, “The era of Gerald Ford is over”? Have you? You haven’t. You’ve never heard them say, “The era of Gerald Ford is over,” or, “The era of Bob Dole is over.” In fact, you will not hear them say, “The era of John McCain is over.” So that’s the answer to the question, and that’s what we’re up against — and it matters, because how we deal with what we all know the Obama campaign’s gonna be will be crucial in defeating Obama. For example, here from Commentary magazine is a story from yesterday. I think it’s a blog post, but it’s Alana Goodwin. “As Jonathan wrote a little earlier today,” is how it starts.
Apparently there’s another blogger over there named Jonathan who apparently wrote something that’s right on the money. So Blogger A cites Blogger B and says, “Obama continues to profess immigration reform, but many Hispanic leaders are growing frustrated at his lack of action, and more notably, his lack of a viable plan for action. They are also understandably wary that he’s only now turned his attention to immigration reform — now that the 2012 campaign season is starting, and now that congressional legislation on this issue seems highly unlikely. The question is whether his belated push on immigration will solve the president’s problems with the Hispanic community.”
So all of this happens to have element of truth in it. There is a little disgust at Obama in the Hispanic community. “Why didn’t you do this when you had the Democrats and the House in charge of everything?” I know I can’t expect you to remember everything, but during the fight for the stimulus and during the health care fight, the Hispanics were out there raising a little hell, saying, “What about us? Where’s your big push for immigration?” and then the Michael Moore crowd was out there with whatever their pet issue was, and Obama wasn’t doing it all. They were especially ticked off because for a long time it looked like health care wasn’t gonna pass.
They looked at that as a total waste of time in terms of their pet issue. So now the Hispanic community is said to be a little peeved because Obama is coming forth at election time pushing for immigration reform. They are interpreting that as, “He really doesn’t mean it. It’s just a campaign issue for him.” So here we get the story: “Frustrated with Obama, Hispanic Voters Might Stay Home in 2012.” Now, and you can couple that with Obama mocking his Republican enemies by saying they want to get a moat with alligators along the border. That tells me that Obama does realize he got a problem, and it does tell me that he thinks he’s gotta insult Hispanic voters along with insulting Republicans in order to get them on his side.
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