RUSH: We go back to the phones to Los Osos, California. This is Don. Great to have you with us, sir, and I appreciate your patience. Glad you waited. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, no problem, Rush. It’s an honor to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I’ve been wondering about this possible scenario. It’s common knowledge the GOP establishment is concerned with a third-party run by Trump. What do you think the chances of Bernie Sanders becoming disenfranchised with the Democratic Party and running his own third-party?
RUSH: That is something that I don’t see being permitted even if Bernie got the wild hair to do it.
CALLER: Yeah. It seems like he’s a curmudgeon, and he might if he gets mad enough and he has enough of the —
RUSH: Well, that would be fantastic if that happened. I mean, I would absolutely love that.
CALLER: That would be a perfect scenario.
RUSH: Democrat Party makes a move to impugn Bernie and his effort and have him get so mad that he goes third party. You know, it depends. I can’t see it, but if his support continues to build and build and Hillary continues to weaken and the party doesn’t do anything to acknowledge it, I can see him getting mad, but I don’t think the guy’s gonna get within 20,000 feet of the Democrat Party nomination. I don’t think they’re gonna permit it. I think they’ll do something to undermine the guy. Something is gonna happen somewhere along the line. They’re not gonna risk the fact that this guy could get the nomination. That’s why they’re talking about Biden. That’s why they’re talking about — well, Gore has kind of been rejected already, but Biden is the lone potential savior should something actually really bomb out with Hillary. I don’t see Bernie Sanders going third party.
CALLER: Oh, well, it would be the perfect storm for the conservatives, that’s for sure.
RUSH: Well, it would be, you know, everybody knows that if Trump goes third-party, that’s it. I mean, that’s hello Hillary. Everybody knows that. It’d be kind of nice if that kind of scenario existed on the Democrat side.
CALLER: Well, thank you, sir. I just wanted to know your thoughts on that.
RUSH: You are more than welcome. I’d love to be wrong about this, but I just don’t see anything about Bernie Sanders that says third party. Folks, the fact is, you know, both parties, based on previous primaries and things that happened that they didn’t like, both parties have structured this primary season to prevent things that happened in the past. The irony is the poor old Republican establishment, they did everything they could to see to it that their establishment candidate would once again get the nomination, and they did it by reducing debates and a number of things. And the one thing they didn’t factor, because they couldn’t have, is Trump.
Trump has upset every plan they put in place. I mean everything. Everything has been blown up. On the Democrat side, without getting into the weeds here in explaining how, the Democrats did everything they could to make sure that Hillary Clinton cannot be dislodged. And you hear Martin O’Malley talking about it. He’s out there (paraphrasing), “What? I don’t even recognize this Democrat Party,” he said, “There are no debates. I mean, they’re not even allowing us” — meaning other candidates — “to be recognized.” He says, “They don’t even know that we exist out here.”
And that’s on purpose. The Democrats didn’t want anything undermining Hillary this time, it’s payback, it’s her turn. But now they’re living and perhaps dying with that, because the fact is that Hillary Clinton is going to be their nominee no matter how badly she does. They’ve made it practically impossible for anybody else to secure the nomination. Again, without getting into the weeds on how they’ve done it. I mean, it is kind of fascinating if you study the actual science of the business of politics, how they’ve done this, but it’s coming back to bite ’em.
She’s a horrible candidate. She is making embarrassing moves, saying embarrassing things, looking frumpy. Nothing about this is going the way anybody planned. She was supposed to be at 80% approval, the Republicans were not even supposed to exist right now. And I’ve got a story here, Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post, and this is a Limbaugh echo from months ago, here’s the headline: “Maybe Hillary Clinton Just Isn’t a Very Good Candidate.”
I could have told them this and did tell ’em this eight years ago. They’re just now starting to realize it, but they’ve got a problem. Their system is structured this time around where it’s gonna be impossible to unseat her in the whole primary process. So both parties are stuck with what’s happening.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: To the phones quickly before we have to get out. Jeff in Minneapolis, a little over one minute, but I wanted to get to you before we had to go. Hi.
CALLER: Spatula City dittos, Rush, from Minnesota.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: Hey, you sent a friend of mine a bed a number of years ago. It had something to do with power napping. I always thought that was pretty generous of you.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: Hey, it’s really statistically unlikely that Trump will be the nominee as much as he should be for the Republican Party. If his name’s on the ballot when the election’s held he will win, but unfortunately it won’t be with the Republican Party because historically there’s only three times that they’ve selected a candidate who wasn’t a Republican in elected office before, and it was General Ulysses Grant, General David Eisenhower, and Wendell Willkie in 1940.
RUSH: Right, but Trump doesn’t drink. He has never had a drop of alcohol, Grant couldn’t say that, and he doesn’t smoke. He’s never smoked.
CALLER: Statistically it’s very unlikely, Rush, that that’ll happen.
RUSH: Probably so. I mean, everybody involved knows that it’s a long shot. It’s unusual. It’s out of the mainstream.
CALLER: If he’s on the ballot when the election is held, as long as you don’t play Napoleon XIV, he can win.
RUSH: You think so?
CALLER: I think so.
RUSH: You think so.
CALLER: I know so.
RUSH: Can he win third party?
CALLER: Yes. Yep, he could win any third-party, Constitution Party or by himself.
RUSH: Jeff in Minneapolis, and on that we have to get out.