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The GOP Race: Anything Is Still Possible

by Rush Limbaugh - Apr 8,2016

RUSH: This is Abraham in Toronto, Ontario. Abraham is 14 years old. Abraham, how are you, sir? It’s great to have you on the program today. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s great to be here.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I’m a big fan of your show and I listen any time I can. I was wondering, is there any way that Ted Cruz can possibly win the nomination, and if he does, can he beat Hillary?

RUSH: You know, it’s interesting, we had another 14-year-old call here a couple weeks ago asking the same question, a 14-year-old from Texas. I’m gonna tell you exactly what I told him. I think it’s entirely possible. It looks like a long shot to win 1,237 delegates before the convention. It looks like that may be a long shot for somebody.


When you go to a contested convention, it becomes wide open. And Abraham, I have to tell you, the political establishment of both parties is right now dazzled and amazed and a little bit frightened of how well the Ted Cruz ground game is being waged. Cruz, it turns out, has kept a lot of his offices in various states and districts open. And he is out, his people are now actively wining and dining, if you will, working on people who are going to be delegates, because it will be a second ballot win if Cruz is to win this.

Now, you’ve probably heard that the establishment doesn’t want Cruz and once they get to the second ballot or maybe even the third, that they’ll try and put in their own candidate, who maybe has not even been part of the primaries. And I wouldn’t put that past ’em. You know, I hear all these people say, “They’ll never do that. Rush, they’ll never do it. It’s gonna be Cruz; it’s gonna be Trump; it can’t be anybody else. The Republican Party wouldn’t be so silly as to simply disenfranchise millions of people who have voted in these primaries, 70% of whom have voted for either Cruz or Trump, the party would never tell those people that the whole process here didn’t matter.”

And I say to myself, “They sure as heck would.” If it meant holding on to what they have personally. I mean, why wouldn’t they? These are the people out there saying that they would vote Hillary before they would vote Trump, that they would vote Hillary before they would vote Cruz. Because they’re afraid either Trump or Cruz is gonna blow up the existing order. And there are ways that can happen. We maybe next week should spend just a few minutes explaining how that could happen.

But one of the ways, if you are a powerful lobbyist on K Street and you earn five, $600,000 a year, and the reason you’re paid that is because you have an in with certain members of whatever party, Republican or Democrat, either in the Senate or on Capitol Hill, and you’re able to manipulate them and get them to vote the way people paying you want you to, well, if somebody is elected president whose purpose is to eliminate that kind of functioning, in other words, we’re gonna pass legislation, we’re gonna propose legislation based on principles and based on ideas. We’re not gonna propose legislation based on what my donors want.

Well, that throws the whole donor structure in a set of panic. And it means that lobbyist making five or $600,000, if he can’t find an inroad to whoever is close to President Trump or President Cruz, he might be thinking, “I’ve lost my game. I’ve lost my power. I’ve lost my inside. I’ve lost my connections. I really don’t want to lose those, and I’ll hold onto those as long as the Republican Party stays as it is. Even if it loses, I’ll still have my connections to people in the party.” That’s just one example. I think it’s what Cruz and Trump are up against.

I wouldn’t buy for a minute this idea the Republicans, “Oh, no Rush they would never put somebody in there that hasn’t been campaigning, there’s no way they’d disenfranchise.” They haven’t been listening to their voters since 2009; why start now? That could be one cynical view.

So, yes, Abraham, I think anything’s possible still. I think as each day goes on and there are more surprises that occur as news is made, I think it is. Just something to think about. What if there were a Trump-Cruz, shall we say, union? I know, it doesn’t look like it has any possibility. I know. How do you get past the (imitating Trump), “Lyin’ Ted, Lyin’ Ted, he holds a Bible up and lie, lie.” I know, how do you get past that and all the other stuff?

There was a line the other day that a Cruz-Trump ticket or some such thing would set some of the world or something on fire. And I’m not sure that they meant it positively. (laughing) That both sides would try to burn down the other. I don’t know. But it isn’t over. It might be unbeatable, when you combine the two voting blocs, if you could. But, anyway, you just hang in there, Abraham, because, yes, anything is still possible here with Trump and Cruz.


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