RUSH: This morning in Livonia, Michigan, Romney held a press conference, and there was a Q&A and a reporter said, “What would you say to Republican Party members who say that Michigan should never have been this close, and the greater concern that you have yet been able to excite the Republican base as a whole? What would you say to that?”
ROMNEY: It’s very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments. We’ve seen throughout the campaign that, if you’re willing to say really outrageous things that are accusative and attacking of President Obama, that you’re gonna jump up in the polls. I’m not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am. I’m a person with extensive experience in the private sector, in the economy.
RUSH: All right. Gosh, these guys are making it so hard for me. So Romney’s not willing to say “incendiary” things about Obama to excite the base. Well, what does he say? Nice guy, just in over his head. What does this tell you that Romney thinks of the base? That it takes incendiary comments to turn you on. That all you want is somebody beating up on Obama. Somebody to come along and beat up Obama or set their hair on fire to get attention, something like that, and that’s all you care about. And maybe not all you care about, but that’s what really gets you off your duff. And Mitt Romney says, “I have got extensive experience in the private sector. I am not gonna criticize Obama.” If he’s not careful, you know how we joke about John Kerry, who, by the way, served in Vietnam — been pointing that out now for eight years — it isn’t gonna be long before everybody’s gonna say, “Mitt Romney, who had extensive experience in the private sector.”
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RUSH: Look, Romney people, you got to know, I love you. But I’m not the one saying what he’s saying. I did not raise the white flag in Michigan today. I didn’t say I’m not gonna say incendiary things just to attract the base. At least McCain waited until the general campaign to make it clear that anybody criticizing Obama would be fired. Here it’s happening in the primary. I’m not gonna make any incendiary comments to attract the base. I have extensive experience in the private sector. Obama can say whatever he wants about us and does, and the media can, and we’re not talking about incendiary, we’re talking about truth, I thought.
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RUSH: Romney today in Livonia, Michigan, was asked by an unidentified reporter, “What would you say to Republican Party members who say that Michigan should never have been this close? It’s your home state. The greater concern that you have yet been able to excite the Republican base as a whole. What would you say to Republicans who are worried that you’re unable to excite the base?”
ROMNEY: It’s very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments. We’ve seen throughout the campaign that if you’re willing to say really outrageous things that are accusative and attacking of President Obama, that you’re gonna jump up in the polls. I’m not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am. I’m a person with extensive experience in the private sector, in the economy.
RUSH: So, I’m not gonna say incendiary, attacking things about Obama. We’ve been through the campaign. If you’re willing to say really outrageous things that are accusative and attacking of President Obama, you’re gonna jump up in the polls; and I’m not gonna do that.
Well, I’m a member of the Republican base, I assume most of you are, and so what I hear is that we’re incendiary and we react to that, and all we want is for Obama to be attacked. Well, it is what Democrats say about us. But I remember January 16th of 2009, before Obama had been immaculated by five days or so, the famous “I hope he fails.” I remember how everybody got scared: “Oh, no, what did Limbaugh say? Oh, gosh, can’t say that, first black president, aw, gee,” ’cause everybody in Washington was just going the other way.
That was considered incendiary and attacking and all of that. And now of course everybody has pretty much acknowledged that they wished I was right. They wished he had failed, too, because in his mind and his agenda he has not failed. So that’s where we are. We’ve got the audio sound bites of all the robo-calls going back and forth and the analysis. I know a lot of people are upset with Santorum doing this Operation Chaos business. I got the e-mail. People are upset Santorum is crossing the aisle and trying to get Democrats to vote in the primary today.
Now, maybe I’m in the minority here, but as the original architect of Operation Chaos, I don’t have a problem with it if it’s done for the right reason. There are, and particularly in Michigan, there are a lot of Reagan Democrats who are more socially conservative than there are moderate Republicans. And it’s an open primary state, Santorum’s appealing to ’em. There are a lot of Reagan Democrats, and Obama has said he’s not gonna go after those voters. Those are the traditional white working family voters, that’s who the Reagan Democrats were. And, of course, everybody’s discombobulated with the fact the social issues have come up, but as I said, that only happened because Obama and the Democrats threw them out there.
Now, the Republican base, I’m sorry, folks, I hear what people say. You know, I live in Realville, and I hear the Republican establishment say we’re gonna need these voters to win. We can’t just win with the base. You know damn well the Republican establishment is embarrassed of its base. And you know damn well they don’t think they can win a general election with just Republican base voters showing up. You know as well as I do the Republican establishment is out there saying, “We gotta get independents.” In fact, they’re more worried about getting independents than they are us. They’re more concerned with being loved and adored by the independent voters than they are their own base voters.
Okay, fine. You believe that. That’s what Santorum is doing in Michigan. They ought to be patting him on the back. Santorum is implementing their strategy, admittedly in a primary election, not general, but he is doing it. And he’s doing it amidst all this talk that Romney is the one who actually appeals to the independents and the Reagan Democrats. We’ve heard from the establishment that Romney’s the guy to do that, Romney’s the only guy in this Republican bunch that can go out and get the independents, and yet who’s doing it?
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RUSH: Mitt Romney, this morning on Fox & Friends, he was on with Brian Kilmeade, who said, “Governor, as you know yesterday it was learned that robo-calls were being made, wasn’t a big secret. Senator Santorum had paid to get Democrats out in the polls to vote for him and to not vote for you, essentially. Do you feel as though that’s a fair tactic?”
ROMNEY: Well, it’s a dirty trick. It’s outrageous. To see Rick Santorum team up with the Obama people and go out after union labor in Detroit and try and get them to vote against me. Look, we don’t want Democrats deciding who our nominee’s gonna be. We want Republicans deciding who our nominee’s gonna be. I know why Obama doesn’t want me to face him, but I just think it’s outrageous and disgusting, a terrible dirty trick at the last hour, by the way. Late in the afternoon on the day before the election, maybe hoping no one would notice, they start sending out calls to Democrats, union members, telling ’em to go into the Republican primary and vote against Mitt Romney. This is reminiscent of the dirty tricks of the past, and it’s gotta end, and I think Rick Santorum has a lot of explaining to do.
RUSH: Okay, folks, what am I supposed to do with this? Do you realize the gold mine that’s in that sound bite? Dawn, do you realize? This sound bite is a line by line gold mine. Am I supposed to ignore it? I know. I know. I like all of these guys. One of them’s gonna win. And whoever it is, I want so badly to beat Obama. I’ll be in there for whoever it is, as I have stated over and over again. But also, folks, I want them to be the best they can be. I want them to do this right, because I want the best shot at beating Obama. “It’s outrageous to see Santorum team up with Obama people to go out after union labor in Detroit and try to get them to vote against me.” What is “my wife owns a couple Cadillacs” an attempt to do? Get union votes, is it not?
I mean, I know he’s speaking to the Economic Club of Detroit. But to list that he owns five Detroit-made automobiles is an attempt at what? He doesn’t have to prove he loves Michigan; he was born there. It’s his home state. In addition, Romney has stated over and over again that he’s not all that opposed to Big Labor. “We don’t want Democrats deciding who our nominee is going to be.” I understand that. We don’t want the media picking our nominee, either. I totally understand that. We don’t want Decembers deciding our nominee. Would you grab audio sound bite 25. We don’t want Democrats deciding our nominee. Okay, well, who then should be the people who decide our nominee? Republican base members, right? Fine. All right, what was said about them this morning?
ROMNEY: It’s very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments. We’ve seen throughout the campaign that if you’re willing to say really outrageous things that are accusative and attacking of President Obama, that you’re gonna jump up in the polls. I’m not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am. I’m a person with extensive experience in the private sector, in the economy.
RUSH: All right, I’m not gonna attack Obama, he said it over and over again. The Republican base, have to be incendiary and attacking of Obama, and I’m not gonna do that. But we don’t want Democrats, we don’t want the base picking the nominee, I don’t want to appeal to the base. Well, then where are we? Governor Romney, I’ll take care of that for you. See, that’s the bottom line, they expect me to do the dirty lifting, and all of talk radio. They expect us to do the heavy lifting. They expect us to take it to Obama, because they’re afraid of ticking off the independents. They’re afraid of angering the independents. Okay. Well, what’s Santorum trying to do today? He’s trying to reach across the aisle, and that’s dirty politics.
This whole Republican primary has been about getting the moderates and the independents from day one. Not the conservative base. “I know Obama doesn’t want me to face him but I just think it’s outrageous and disgusting, a terrible dirty trick.” I don’t know, folks, I think when you’re throwing hard balls in politics, when finally somebody throws one back at you, you swing at it instead of ducking. I don’t know. This is hazard pay for me. This is hazard pay. Dawn just said, “Well, you can kiss your invitation to the Lincoln Bedroom goodbye,” as though I’m angling for that. I’ve already been there, done that, but I know what she means.
“At the last hour, by the way, late in the afternoon, day before the election, maybe hoping nobody would notice, they start sending out calls to Democrats and union members telling them to go into the Republican primary and vote against Romney. This is reminiscent of the dirty tricks in the past and has gotta end. I think Santorum has a lot of explaining to do.”