RUSH: Well! Isn’t it shaping up to be somewhat interesting, and the Drive-Bys don’t even get it. The Drive-Bys are clueless! Greetings, my friends, and welcome. Great to have you here. Rush Limbaugh, behind the Golden EIB Microphone at the distinguished and prestigious Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. Political correctness does not exist here. We are fearless. Great to have you. Telephone number, 800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program. Most of you do. And the e-mail address,
Okay. Sometime in either this hour or in the next hour, the House of so-called Representatives — (laughing) that is kind of funny, isn’t it? The House of so-called Representatives is supposed to hold the vote on the new Speaker of the House. Now, as recently as yesterday, most of the pundits, most of the Drive-Bys and most of the Inside-the-Beltway establishment types seem to think that Boehner had it in the bag.
But this morning, and now this afternoon, they don’t seem to be quite as sure about this, and there’s a little nerve-wracking going on within the establishment, within the donor community and in the Drive-By Media. And that is all amplified by the fact that they really don’t understand what is going on because they are so out of touch. Believe me; they really are. Everybody Inside the Beltway, I don’t care where they work or what they do, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people there to have anything in common with people like us who are not there.
It requires effort on their part to understand what’s going on outside their world, and some make that effort to understand it, and some don’t. Exhibit A. I have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a story from TheHill.com: “Boehner ‘No’ Votes Pile Up.” They don’t understand it, and even in this story, it is incredible. They can’t believe at TheHill.com that anybody would challenge Boehner.
And do you know why? Do you know why they can’t believe that? Because if you read — you don’t have to go very far — halfway into the story you find out at TheHill.com it is John Boehner who gets credit for all of the new House Republican seats. I kid you not. It is the most amazing thing. And these people think that they are a cut above, they’re smarter than everybody else. This is their business, not ours. They know it; we don’t. They’re sitting in there and they’re writing — and TheHill.com is typical. It’s not an outlier. They really think, why would these Tea Party types, why would these Republicans be upset with Boehner? Why, he just led to unprecedented victory for Republicans in the House.
They don’t know that Boehner had nothing to do with it. They don’t know that the Republicans didn’t even mount a campaign. They don’t know that it’s the Tea Party that engineered this massive Republican majority in the Senate, as well as the House. They really don’t know this. You might think they do and are trying to ignore it or taint it or whatever, but don’t doubt me.
There are people at the highest levels of the establishment who believe the myths that they create, and they really, some of them, when they write stories like this that they don’t understand why there’s so much upset with Boehner. Why, look what he did, my God, he’s led the Republicans to the biggest House majority since Truman. They really believe that, folks. Now, some of them don’t. Some of them know what’s going on and are staging this for the basic brain-dead status of most of their readers, which are also Inside the Beltway.
It’s just breathtaking. You know, we’ve always grown up thinking that the people that lead us are better than we are. And I don’t mean it in a DNA sense. You know what I mean. We look up to them. We’re inspired by them. It’s not the case anymore. It’s becoming increasingly clear we know more than they do. Maybe not about the intricacies of their business, but we know more about the real world. We know more about living in it, because they don’t and we do. And it’s becoming almost breathtaking to behold this.
Now, a third Republican has thrown his hat in the ring. I guess the major importance of this is that it could fracture the votes of the Florida delegation. It’s Daniel Webster who is now the third Republican seeking Boehner’s seat, along with Ted Yolo, named after the famous Yolo. (interruption) Oh, it’s Yoho? I thought it was Yolo. I thought he was named after the famous Yolo Causeway in Sacramento. It’s Yoho? What’s the first name? Ted? I knew all this. I’m just checking to see that Snerdley — so Ted Yoho and Louie Gohmert, now Daniel Webster. I really did.
Anyway, these people? Can you believe it? Can’t understand. And now they’re getting nervous. They’re getting nervous. The pundits really did think that Boehner had this thing locked up and in the bag, and right now they’re beginning to doubt their own conventional wisdom.
Now, they only need 14 more votes according to reports that at least 15 House Republicans who’ve committed to vote against Boehner, and it will only take a total of 29 to force a second balance. We’re looking first here at essentially a veto vote of Boehner, and then maybe following that, the votes that would constitute the election if there is to be a new Speaker, who that would be. And the second ballot, not the one that’s happening right now or within the next few hours, but the second ballot would cause the House Republicans to turn to somebody besides Boehner if the first vote results in a Boehner veto.
Now, if there is a second round of voting, it would be pretty much unprecedented. The last time that there needed to be a second round of voting for the House Speaker was back in 1923, which was way before we started doing this program here on the EIB Network. Not much before, but clearly before. 1923. This is how rare a second vote is. So 29 votes, if they get 29 votes that essentially vetoes Boehner, then we’re on to the second vote. We haven’t had one of these since 1923.
When you think about it, the Republican leadership’s attitude toward its own base is pretty much unprecedented. The Democrat Party never, at least publicly, rejects its base or impugns its base or makes fun of its base or wishes its base didn’t exist. The Democrat Party never, ever publicly does anything to diminish the image of their base, the reality, the existence of their base. They never do anything to humiliate them, and the Republican Party thrives on it.
The Republican Party is doing everything it can to dismantle its own base, as identified by the Tea Party. It’s doing everything it can to impugn them, to join the Democrats in mocking and making fun and to render their base, their own base impotent, which is why I spent so much time yesterday explaining the modern composition of the current establishment Inside the Beltway.
Anyway, it’s fascinating to watch all this take place, and you all are flooding the zone in Washington, phone calls and e-mails, text and Twitter messages, hashtags. They’re being inundated in the capital city by many of you who are simply fed up at the fact that they don’t get it and are not listening.
I mean, I can’t emphasize how really unprecedented this situation is for the Republican Party leadership, its attitude toward its own base. Can anybody name a time when the party’s own leadership turned on its base the way the GOP leadership has turned on the Republican base? Can you think of a time when the Democrats have turned on their base like this? And that base deserves to be turned on. If there’s ever a base that deserves to be ignored and apologized for, it’s the Democrat base.
They have turned those people literally insane, and yet they still embrace them. (interruption) Well, but that’s not the same thing. Democrats turning on the Republican establishment, that’s nothing compared. This is really unprecedented, in my lifetime. You know, during the Reagan nomination battles of 1976 and 1980, the Republican leadership was very much aligned against the base of the party at that time, which was becoming Reaganesque, and certainly didn’t succeed in becoming the base of the party in 1980, but that was within the confines of an election. It was within the confines of a primary race where you would expect these.
Here we’ve just given the House Republicans the biggest majority in both houses they’ve ever seen, and they’re out actively attempting to impugn, destroy, mock, make fun of the people that gave it to them, their own voters. It’s a stunning thing to behold.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Many people think the Republican Party needs new leadership. For many people it couldn’t be more clear. Republicans across this country spoke and have been speaking, but they spoke most recently in the November elections. But it’s not just elections. Landslide elections to recent polling demonstrate overwhelming no confidence in current leadership.
I don’t think there is any mistaking the direction Republican voters seek. I don’t think there’s anything ambivalent about any of this. And I don’t think there’s any room for misunderstanding. You can do all the Google analytics you want, but I don’t think there’s any level, any reason, there’s not even any room for misinterpretation here. This is perfectly clear what has happened. As far as Republican voters are concerned, from amnesty, to Obamacare, to spending, to the budget, there is no uncertainty; they want Obama stopped.
They don’t want bipartisanship. They don’t want cooperation. They don’t want Washington to work. And they don’t want to hear people brag about the definition of Washington working equaling how many bills have been passed. How many bills have been passed is where the problems begin because every time a bill has been passed, some kind of freedom has been lost, in some cases a lot of it. From separation of powers, to borders, there isn’t any gray area. Republican voters are stand-out clear about their desires. And the demarcation lines are very simple, and Republican Party leadership need to follow the Chamber of Commerce and the donor class where they can follow their voters. They’ve thrown in with the donor class.
Now, the former Speaker of whatever it was, the legislature, I think it was the Speaker, some big muckety-muck out in California by the name of Jesse Unruh, or Un-ruh, as Willie Brown pronounced it, is the author of the phrase: “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.” And that’s undeniable. The Chamber of Commerce and the donor class, that’s the source of big bundled bucks, the kind of big bundled bucks that demand policy consideration in exchange for the big bundled bucks.
Now, those of you who are individual donors, when added together, yours are big bucks, too, but individually you don’t have the power that the head honcho of the Chamber of Commerce does, at least with this current Republican leadership. And it isn’t just the Chamber. It’s certain people on Wall Street, certain people in finance. But that’s pretty much the line of demarcation. And the Republican leadership, I don’t think there’s any gray area about this. The Republican leadership seems to have thrown in with the Chamber and the donor class rather than follow its voters, which, if they did, they would thrive.
It’s exactly as I stated yesterday. I think if the Republican Party would get rid of this absolute inane fear they have if they could somehow be lobotomized, take the name “Goldwater” out of their brains. If they just got simply rid of this silly notion that their route to success is a Northeastern liberal to moderate Republican that can work with the Democrats or whatever and finally nominate a conservative, I don’t think they have any idea the groundswell of support that would descend upon them from all corners of this country.
Unfortunately, the people running the party don’t like those who comprise the party, the Tea Party, the base. Let’s face it, they think the Tea Party’s a bunch of kooks. They think the Tea Party’s a bunch of — well, some they think are decent people, they just don’t get it how Washington works. They’re rubes, and they just don’t get it. The typical way the Democrats have always looked at people. Democrats hold average Americans in contempt, by definition. Democrats look at individuals and see helplessness and hopelessness, and the Democrats believe that everybody needs to be saved from themselves because nobody has the guts or the ability to take care of themselves.
The Republicans are quickly morphing into the same attitude. Not about dependence, but almost with an air of superiority. Look at the body politic and say, “Yeah, they don’t know what we do. They don’t understand. They don’t have the ability to understand what we do. They don’t have the ability to understand how laws are made,” blah, blah, blah. And so the Republican Party, which used to have a real connection with the people who make this country work, Republican leadership’s in the process of losing that connection, losing their audience, is the term, if this were media. It isn’t media; it’s politics. They’re losing their base.
They’re losing the connection they have with their voters who are the ones who really make this country work. And those people, people who make this country work in increasing numbers, don’t trust Boehner and others in the Republican leadership, and they don’t trust Washington as a whole. They trust in God. That’s another story from yesterday we’re gonna get to, the fact that American exceptionalism is actually rooted in Christianity and — it’s a Wall Street Journal story, December 30th — about how many people in this country actually are Christian. It will stun you.
The Republican base trusts in God, trusts in families, free markets, Constitution. And they’re sick of the BS. Sick of being told what to eat; sick of being told what to drive; sick of being told how to keep warm; sick of being told it’s cold in Chicago in December, January, when it’s supposed to be, they already know it’s cold. And they’re sick of being told how to stay warm when it gets cold. They’re sick of being insulted.