RUSH: Chris in Manhattan. Great to have you, sir. Thank you for waiting. You’re here on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It really is an honor to speak to you. I’ve got so much to say I’m probably not gonna get any of it out, but I wrote down kind of what I wanted to say. About Santorum, I’m a 58-year-old white Christian person. I know Israel is our ally. We should defend them and stick by them no matter what happens. I think Santorum is unelectable because he’s too far to the right. We have to appeal to people that are sitting on the fence and some people on the left that could stomach voting for somebody like Romney. I realize he’s not the ideal candidate, but the main thing that the Republicans and just intelligent people should be focused on is getting rid Obama. That should be the main issue. We’re not gonna have an ultraconservative in the White House. It just can’t happen or if it can he’s gotta be disguised —
RUSH: What’s an ultraconservative?
CALLER: You know, I listen to you and Hannity and Mark Levin religiously. You guys are the holy trinity. And I hear Mark talk about it’s not just the candidate, it has to be the right candidate. It has to be somebody that’s against abortion. It has to be somebody for sealing up the borders. You can’t have all these things all at once. I mean it’s gotta be gradual. You can’t have somebody that’s so radical that people on the left will think that we’re too radical. That’s what we feel about the people on the left.
RUSH: Well, wait a second, now. The left already thinks that about Romney. The left thinks all of us are too radical. Why do we want to try to come up with a candidate or even an issue set that appeases the left? That’s why we’re in this problem, think that we compromise with these people?
CALLER: We need some of their votes. We can’t ignore that they’re there.
RUSH: No, we don’t. No, we don’t. There aren’t enough of ’em. We don’t need all the votes of the left. That’s a big myth.
CALLER: Not all the votes, we need some of the votes.
RUSH: No, we don’t need any votes from the left. And we’re not gonna get any votes from the left, unless they switch to become conservatives in the way they live their lives and register to vote. I don’t care who we nominate, we’re not gonna get any votes from the left. Why do you want votes from the left?
CALLER: So that we have a chance of taking back the White House.
RUSH: We can win the White House with everybody on the left voting against it. We outnumber them two to one.
CALLER: Oh, man, I would love to… listen, my wife’s a physician, okay?
RUSH: You don’t realize that because you live in Manhattan where you’re outnumbered eight to one.
CALLER: And I’m terrified. I mean it’s so rare to find somebody who agrees with me. But listen, just a quick note, my wife’s a doctor, and she works with this other doctor who’s a black lady, and they were talking, and her friend said, “I know Obama’s not doing a good job and everything, but he’s a black man, and I have to give him another chance.” There’s so many people like that who are just gonna vote for him —
RUSH: Right. And we’re never gonna get their vote. We’re not gonna get the votes of people like Pauline Kael, who couldn’t believe Nixon was elected in ’74. She said, “My gosh, I don’t know anybody who voted for him.” We’re not gonna get Manhattan liberals to vote for our candidate. Ain’t gonna happen.
CALLER: If they knew the facts, I mean listening to these shows we’re preaching to the choir. The facts alone should be enough to convert — if not to convert Democrats to Republicans, at least for the Democrats to see what he’s really doing.
RUSH: Well, now —
CALLER: And Obamacare, you talk about it all the time, there are so many things that are hidden in this bill —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — that Democrats will be affected by this —
RUSH: Now you —
CALLER: — the sales tax on real estate sales over $200,000 —
RUSH: You are singing my tune.
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: I’ve been doing this 23 years. I think I’ve got enough evidence to know that no matter what I do, the left is focused on only one thing: getting rid of me. They’re not interested in joining. The facts don’t matter. We’re dealing with pure ideologues who have an entirely different view of government and this country than you do, and there’s not a one of them that we should waste a minute trying to get because every time we do we through away our base.
CALLER: Okay. Well, anyway, thank you very much. I wanted to say that. Thanks very much.
RUSH: Look, I’m glad you called. I understand exactly where you’re coming from, but I can’t help but observe that your mind-set — and its impossible for you to be otherwise — your mind-set is, as a result of being as outnumbered as you are where you live, and, as such, you have a misconception about the mind-set of the rest of the country. Using his own example, “I know people are gonna vote for Obama just ’cause he’s a black guy. We gotta be fair, give him a second chance.” What in the world could we say to that voter to change his mind? What issue could we possibly bring up that would change that voter’s mind? What appeal could possibly be made to change that voter’s mind? Nothing. There’s not one thing.
The Republican Party’s problem, I maintain is — well, many problems, but one is psychology, as illustrated by this call. For some reason, we’ve gotta get those people joining us. And the truth is, we have to find a way to beat them. Not compromise with them. Not find a way to make them like us. Not find a way to get them to cross the aisle to us. How many election cycles now have we crossed the aisle or nominated somebody who talked about having the qualifications to pull it off? Did it work? Has it ever worked? It never does work. The people who are going to vote for Barack Obama need sympathy at the best. They need contempt at the worst. They are as much a problem, if not more so, than Obama is.
The scary thing is there are people who vote for Obama. The scary thing is there are people who want to vote for him again. It’s scary because they haven’t the slightest idea what they’re doing. Most of them hate us so much it doesn’t matter what Obama’s gonna do. Denying us victory is what matters most to them, no matter what they cause to themselves. Don’t doubt me on this. I know better than most the type of people we’re up against. We are a bigger threat to the left that Chris here was talking about than Al-Qaeda is to them. We are a bigger threat than any international enemy. We scare them. We anger them more than anything else in their lives. Now, you’re probably saying, “Well, why?” Folks, I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist. All I know is it’s irrational and to try spend time analyzing irrationality is a waste of time. They have to be defeated.
By the way, where is it written that we can’t secure the border and stop health care and reassert an American moral core in one candidate? Why don’t we have to gradually do that? We don’t have the time to be gradual about it anymore. We did have the time in the past to be gradual, but we squandered it. Now we’ve got a genuine crisis and emergency. The very future of the country as founded is at stake. We’re losing it. We are losing this country, and sometimes that’s what overtakes me, and that’s what makes me mad. That’s what causes me to make mistakes, is I am so enraged by it, and I can no more explain people on the left than you can. All I know is, they have to be defeated.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, Gallup is out with some news, and we shared it with you at the top of the program. The real unemployment number in this country, according to Gallup and their survey, is 9.1%. But there’s also another number that Gallup is out with, and it dovetails nicely with Chris’ call mere moments ago. Fifty percent of Americans say Obama’s presidency is a failure. Fifty, five-o. This is not a man who is an automatic slam dunk, guaranteed-to-win reelection. The first thing we have to realize here is that we’re not dealing with somebody superhuman. I think what depresses everybody is the media.
If you can imagine life in America where the media was as equally accusatory, equally suspicious of Democrats as Republicans, we’d have an entirely different national mood and national landscape. We don’t have that, and that isn’t going to change. That I think leads people to think that we are forever in a minority that cannot win. And then if you happen to live in a very blue area, then you’re really up against it psychologically. Fifty percent of the American people say the Obama presidency is a failure. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s something to build on. “A national Gallup poll of adults shows that 50% of Americans believe Barack Obama’s presidency has been ‘a failure.'” Forty-four percent say it’s been a success.
“The 50% approval mark is a crucial one for presidents in a re-election year. All incumbents who have been elected to a second term had a 50% or higher average approval rating by February of that year.” Obama’s approval average is 45% in February. Now, I know, records, statistics, made to be broken. “All incumbents who have been elected to a second term –” this according to Gallup “– had a 50% or higher average approval rating by February of that year.” Well, February’s come and gone, and Obama averaged 45%. So, according to this stat, he’s toast. But, like Chris said, there are people out there who feel sorry for the guy. One of the things the media does is no matter what people think of the economy or the government, the media keeps his personal likability numbers up.
Contrast that to what they did with George Bush for eight years. They ginned up hatred for George W. Bush. It’s the exact opposite with Obama. If people were told what’s really happening with the Keystone pipeline, with any economic aspect of the stimulus, if people were told the truth, if people were told why by the mainstream media, we’d have a whole different landscape, but we don’t, and they don’t, and it isn’t going to change. That’s the lay of the land. That’s what has to be dealt with. There’s a lot of historical trends Obama’s gonna have to buck out there, folks. Another historical trend, this unemployment number. No president’s been reelected when unemployment’s 8% or higher. Well, if we have unemployment under 7% it’s gonna have been ginned up. It’s not real. They’ve already taken two million jobs out of circulation by just saying they don’t exist.
The real unemployment number in this country’s about 15 or 16%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, it’s called the U6 number, it includes everybody who’s stopped looking for work in addition to those who are. And that takes us to, “Well, Santorum, too extreme, too radical, too ultraconservative.” Can’t win. Somebody tell me, give me the last time a genuinely proclaimed moderate Republican won the White House. I wanna know when did it happen. And don’t cite George W. Bush. George W. Bush ran as a conservative. Full-fledged. I want to know. I want to know the last time this great moderate won the White House. I want to know who it was that got the votes from the left that we apparently need to win. Who was it that convinced hard-core Democrats to abandon their candidate. How did it happen? I want to know. Who was the last moderate that did that?
You can’t name one. No, not George H. W. Bush, either. George H. W. Bush in 1988 ran on another term of Ronald Reagan. George H. W. Bush ran on Reagan’s third term. The closest that you can get would be Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972. And look at the circumstances in both of those elections. You had the Vietnam War and you had the nation protesting the Democrat Party in Chicago, 1968. You had the country on fire, coming off a Democrat presidency. But I don’t say this ’cause of any bias. Somebody give me the name. Give me the name of this magical candidate who convinced Democrats to vote Republican. Every four years we’re told this is the only way we can win. I want to know, when did it happen? Tell me. Who was that candidate? In your lifetime, even. Who was that candidate?
I think Nixon’s the only one you can mention. And, by the way, Nixon was a moderate, and look how loved he was. Yeah, I remember. I remember how the left loved Nixon. And I remember how they respected him. Boy, he did everything he could to be liked. He gave ’em OSHA, he gave ’em the EPA, Department of Education. He didn’t stop. I mean he blew up government like crazy. He was really bothered by the fact that the Democrats hated him. He wanted to be loved. And he did things that he thought that they would appreciate, and, gosh, all they did was basically want to destroy him. I just want to know, the wizards of smart on our side, powers that be, people that tell us only they know how to win elections, I want to know when their model was successful.