RUSH: And here we are the day that everybody has been waiting for for months. Today it’s the Iowa Caucasians, ladies and gentlemen. Everybody has been waiting for this. Wait ’til the Black Lives Matter crowd hears about what really is going on here. Yeah, yes, yes, I know. Here is the telephone number if you want to be on the program and weigh in today. Telephone number is 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

This really has the potential to be a momentous day, or at least the beginning of a momentous year, because so much is at stake here. I want to remind you of something that I’ve repeatedly said over the course of many months. The media has 24 hours a day, seven days a week to fill, and, as such, what has always been thought of as news has become hype and agenda and any number of things. There’s really not enough interesting news to fill it up 24/7. And particularly when you get to politics.

So we’ve had a buildup here to primarily this event today, and we’ve had polling data, and the polling data has told us any number of things, and I can review it for you if you want. I mean, depending on the Republican side, depending on which poll and which day, it’s nip and tuck Trump and Cruz. One poll today has Cruz maintaining the lead. Some other polls have Trump overtaking the lead. Rubio in third place.

But all of this is just polling. The dean of the polls, the supposed most respected poll, the poll that everybody eagle-eyes is the Des Moines Register poll which happens the final weekend prior to the caucus. That poll came out, and what did it say? Trump wins this thing by three or four over Cruz and then Rubio. If I have that right. The problem with the Des Moines Register poll is that it’s projecting a record turnout on the Republican side, but there hasn’t been enough new Republican registration to indicate this massive record-setting Republican turnout.

When I say it establishes a record turnout, in the polling sample, the way that they decided to put together the sample, the pollster is anticipating a massive turnout, projected turnout, and some experts say it’s way too high, which means that the poll that everybody looks at could be a little bit out of kilter. The point is they all could be out of kilter. I’ll run a couple theories by you. But one thing before I get to that.

Up to now, all we’ve had is polls and theories. If Rubio wins and comes out of nowhere, what does that mean for New Hampshire, and here come the theories. If Trump wins Iowa, which a few weeks ago was not supposed to happen, then what does that mean for New Hampshire and on down the road? If Cruz wins Iowa, what does that mean? If there is a shocker and somebody like Jeb finishes in second or third place or Kasich or what have you, what does that do to shake everything up? And everybody’s had an answer for every one of these scenarios.

But the point is it’s meaningless. All it is is projection and poll with some people doing the best they can. I mean, I’m not suggesting there’s been chicanery here, although there may have been. My point is that once this night is over and there are actual votes that have been cast or selections made in caucuses, to be precise, then it changes everything. There isn’t any theory anymore. So you go through the list. If Trump wins this tonight, then that’s gonna shape the coverage and the projections for the rest of the primaries in ways that may not have been touted upon.

Likewise if Cruz wins. Likewise if somebody comes out of nowhere and wins. If Bernie Sanders wins, even though the polling data and any numbers of people analyzing it have theorized all these things, it’s going to change dramatically when there’s actually a hard result. And look, this is nothing you don’t know. I’m not trying to suggest this is earth-shattering. I’m saying the whole dynamic is going to change from polling data to reality. ‘Cause right now all we’ve got — you know, polling, depending on how you want to look at it, is an expert analysis or a wild guess, depending on how you look at it. And with as many people now who may not be as up front and honest with pollsters. For example, I saw over the weekend that Trump does much better when being polled by a computer than by a human being. I think that’s right, it might have been Cruz.

But the point is, when a computer calls you and asks you what you’re gonna do, you’re more honest than if you’re talking to a human being, the theory being psychologically you don’t want to say anything that might cause the pollster to think that you’re an idiot, so you give the answer that you think the pollster is expecting, whatever it would happen to be. And we’ve had instances of this in the past with the Wilder Effect and other examples of that. But it’s just gonna change everything, and look at the number of months that we have had that the result analysis has been largely based on pure speculation based on polling data. And even though people have extrapolated in their theories what each result would mean, it’s gonna change everything once you have a winner and who shows up in second and third place in both parties.

Each party has its own unique storyline or set of storylines. On the Democrat side the secret storyline is the near panic, from everything I could gather, the near panic in the Democrat Party over Hillary and this e-mail story. And the reason for the near panic is that there’s nobody to go to, A, if something happens to Hillary, they’ve got — Bernie? Crazy Bernie?

Even though Crazy Bernie’s drawing all the crowds and even though Crazy Bernie has energizing the anti-Washington crowd on the Democrat side, they still can’t see him being the nominee, although I don’t know what else they would do. But there’s real worry about this e-mail thing with Hillary, much more than any Democrat would admit to the media. In fact, some of them have admitted to the media; the media’s just riding herd on it, not telling the whole story about that.

And that story, by the way — Hillary’s e-mail story — continues to get worse and worse and worse as the days go by. And now the latest is that the FBI and the Justice Department (if we’re to believe this) are livid that Obama has inserted himself in this story by claiming Hillary didn’t do anything and that he only found out about this on the news, when it’s now clearly been established that he knew about it long ago because he was exchanging e-mails with her — and so were the intelligence agencies.

Every one of them knew that Hillary was doing things off the books. Why didn’t they say anything? We’re talking 16 different intelligence agencies — CIA, DIA, NSA — they were all e-mailing things back and forth to Hillary, and they all had to know what she was doing. Why didn’t one of them say anything at some point in all this? So there’s a lot effervescing beneath the surface here. On the Republican side, I have encountered a couple of hopeful theories from anti-Trump people writing on the Internet.

It’s not necessary to mention any names. That’s not the point. But one of the prevalent theories that I have read from people who are hopeful that Trump does not win the Hawkeye Cauci and hopeful that Trump did not win the Republican nomination, goes like this: “You have a bunch of angry people on the Republican side, and they’re fed up — and it’s legitimate. They’re fed up with Washington. They’re fed up with the establishment. The establishment has been given two landslide victories in 2010, 2014.” You know the drill.

All the promises to stop Obamacare, all the promises to Obama, period. None of it’s happened. And the anger is profound, the rage is profound. And so people, in order to demonstrate their anger in the best way they know how, have flocked to Donald Trump. Because that, as far as they’re concerned, is the single best way to show the establishment what you think of ’em, is to go out and support somebody that has nothing to do with them, that would throw them all out if he wins. The theory goes that those people, when it comes time to actually caucus, are not going to select Trump.

The theory says that they’re going to be gripped by a moment of seriousness and that they won’t realize that they have demonstrated their rage sufficiently so that everybody knows — and when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, many in the Trump camp will vote for Cruz or Rubio or somebody else because this time it matters. It’s not a poll. It’s not a pollster calling. It’s not a computer for a polling company calling. It’s not a focus group. It’s the real thing. And they will get in there and they will caucus and they will figure out, “Okay, we’ve sent our message.”

Now, for this theory to have any weight or validity, this theory requires that Trump’s support is soft. You have to be the judge of whether or not you think Trump’s support is soft. Trump’s unfavorables are through the roof. Trump’s unfavorables are up north of 50% nationwide. And the people that have these theories say, “People are gonna realize that if they nominate Trump, there’s no way he can win. Over half the country doesn’t like the guy. There’s no way. They’re not sure that stupid.” Others say, “Oh, yes! It’s not that they’re stupid.

“It’s that they’re that mad and they will gladly take the Republican Party down for the count if that’s what it takes to express their anger, and if voting for Trump is what it takes to send that message, they’ll do it, that they will not just stop at this point.” So it’s all over the place. People have a lot of hope invested in the outcome here. People have a lot of… In some cases, their careers are invested in the outcome here. For the rest of us, it’s all about the country and the future of the country and many people believing that this is it, that if the Democrats win the White House in this upcoming election, that we’ve lost the nation for a generation at least.

If the next president’s a Democrat, it’s a bare minimum of four Supreme Court nominations, because the aging leftists on the court — many of whom want to retire now, are not doing so until they are sure there is going to be a Democrat president next time around. And even if they’re not eager to retire their age is such that in the next four years, they will. The point is, whoever the next president is is going to have a large number of Supreme Court vacancies to fill. And if the Democrats own those four, coupled with everything else they’ve been able to jury-rig in the judicial system nationwide at all the various different levels — federal and district courts and so forth — that it’s a nightmare scenario.

If a Democrat’s elected to continue the transformation of this country begun by Barack Obama, we’re in deep doo-doo. And it is. I agree with people who think that it’s that serious. That is what we are up against. By the same token, I hear all these Republicans — and you know who they are; you’ve heard them yourself — run around talking about the era of Reagan is over. And we need to get past this “Reagan fetish” that we all have. You take a look at the Republican candidates here, and even some who haven’t made it this far, but they’re all…

I could give you Cruz. I could give you Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and Scott Walker before he got out. Those are all people in their forties to early fifties who are Reaganites. They all came of age and were influenced by Reagan. The future of the Republican Party is represented by candidates in the primary who are all Reaganites, to one degree or another. Meaning: There’s no way the era of Reagan is over. This election is an opportunity to continue it. It’s an opportunity to build on it. It’s an opportunity to actually elect a Republican president who is a Reaganite.

Now, there are Republicans running who aren’t Reaganites, either. They are more establishment types. But the point is, the era of Reagan being over is a wish that is held onto tightly by many in the Republican establishment. There’s a tremendous opportunity that awaits everybody, and it all starts today and tonight in the Iowa caucus. Donald Trump is not predicting a win in Iowa. A lot of people are looking at it and say, “Oh, wait a minute! I mean, if he’s not, there must be some doubt in the Trump camp.”