RUSH: Bridget, Springfield, Missouri. Hi, Bridget. I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. It’s wonderful to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank very much. I appreciate that.
CALLER: Last hour you analyzed the strategy of the Republican establishment, that they want Romney and they want to wrap it up early.
RUSH: Yep. That’s pretty obvious to me.
CALLER: My question, then, to you is: With this election coming up being the most critical in decades, maybe ever, are you going to do something about the Republican establishment strategy?
RUSH: Yeah. Would you help me out here?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: As a loyal, longtime listener, would you tell me what you — and I’m serious now. Don’t misunderstand the tone in my voice that I don’t mean to use. I’m genuinely curious. You’re a listener. What would you hope to hear me say or do within this context.
CALLER: I’ve thought about it. I was thinking it again waiting to be on the air.
RUSH: And?
CALLER: We have to have a real conservative.
RUSH: I understand, but what do you…?
CALLER: What do I want you to do?
RUSH: You have hopes and expectations of me.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: I’m asking you what they are.
CALLER: I would like for you to meet with the conservative candidates — those who will genuinely, if elected, roll back the horrible things Obama has done to this country. I do not believe Romney will do that. I think he’ll sit in place —
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: — will go the progressive direction, just more slowly.
RUSH: Right. Okay. Now, I’m only interrupting because of the constraints of time.
CALLER: That’s okay.
RUSH: You want me to meet with the conservative candidates, but then what?
CALLER: Pick one! Pick one; put your full support behind him. I don’t think it will be Bachmann. I like her, but I don’t think it will be her. Whoever you pick, you vet them. You look them straight in the eye. You ask them if they have skeletons, a la Clinton scandal. When you determine that person does not have that sort of thing then you back them to the hilt and you talk to others in the conservative movement and they back them to the hilt.
RUSH: How much time do I have for this?
CALLER: I don’t think you have very long —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — because of what you just reported while I’m sitting waiting on hold —
RUSH: Well —
CALLER: — what you just said about Christie —
RUSH: Let me tell you: I saw a fascinating Gallup poll from October of 2007 this morning. Now, hear me out on this. I didn’t print it out; I don’t have it right in front of me. But it was a Gallup poll October 2007, and the point of the poll was how it was over for McCain in October of 2007. Here we are in October of 2011, a year before, and it is assumed that it’s Romney. This poll Gallup was all about how — and McCain was in third place in this poll, a year out from the election — it’s over for McCain. He doesn’t have a prayer. Let me print that out and give you more details of it. Thanks for the call, Bridget.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The White House knows that if Republican voter enthusiasm is suppressed, then The One has a chance. And they rightly conclude that Romney might depress or suppress Republican enthusiasm. Now, the GOP establishment, their thinking is that Romney is electable in a general, but the base, the Republican base is not jazzed. Turnout is obviously gonna be crucial. Now, the woman from Springfield, Bridget calls, wants me to meet with the Republican — by the way, I keep leaving Newt out. Newt is actually climbing in the polls. Newt is actually getting stronger. He’s in double digits. So you have Newt, you have Bachmann, you have Santorum, you have Cain, and you have Perry. Republican establishment is doing everything it can to wipe them all out, Christie going up there to Dartmouth today to endorse Romney.
Now, just as an aside, why would Governor Christie spend a year going back and forth publicly, privately, on and on about whether he would run for president or not; only a week after saying no, run up to Romney’s side? What’s changed? I mean if in the past year you’re thinking you might run, part of that is that whoever else is running isn’t the answer. If Romney is the obvious superior candidate, why go through the rigmarole of considering whether to run yourself for a whole year? But you know the story’s gonna — it’s already the headline on Drudge, “Christie to Endorse Romney” — that’s gonna be a bigger story than what comes out of the debate tonight. Christie’s endorsement is already the story. No matter what happens in the debate tonight, when it’s all over, no matter who does what, the story, “Christie Endorses Romney.”
Now, as to Bridget in Springfield. She wants me to meet with the candidates, pick one, go public. I wish it were that easy. I mean I could do that, that is easy. I mean I wish putting somebody over the finish line was that easy. I wish it were as easy as me saying, “Okay, I’ve decided, it’s X. From now on that’s who you vote for.” At the end of the day it’s up to Republican voters to make the difference. Now, if you think — I hope this isn’t the case — if you think a majority of Republican voters are gonna wait around for an endorsement from me or anybody else before they decide who they’re gonna vote for — look at the polling data. The polling data is one of the reasons that Romney’s a little frightened out there. If the voters of the Republican Party are given a chance here, if they’re not able to close this out too soon, then it isn’t going to be open and shut Romney.
But the sad and ugly truth here, I must be honest, folks, in everything I do, particularly what I do for a living and how I do it, the sad truth is that you are not mind-numbed robots. You’re not gonna do what I say in uniformity. (interruption) If I had been an enthusiastic supporter of McCain? Are you asking me if I had been 150% behind McCain from the get-go he might have been elected president, is that what you’re saying? No, I don’t think there was any way McCain was gonna beat Obama. There was no way McCain’s gonna beat Obama because McCain wasn’t running a race to beat Obama. (interruption) Well, McCain wasn’t running a race to beat Obama. He may not admit that, but when you’re gonna shut down any criticism of Obama, when you’re gonna shut down any questions of Obama, you’re not serious about winning. (interruption) Well, I don’t deal with those kinds of ifs. What do you mean if McCain had been the type of candidate that I would get behind? He wasn’t! McCain didn’t lose ’cause he didn’t have me. McCain lost because of who he was in that campaign. Pure and simple.