RUSH: To the audio sound bites. Gotta hear this, folks. A New Jersey Republican committeeman is upset with me and my comments on Governor Christie yesterday. He said I’m just selling books, selling advertising by picking on Governor Christie. It was on PBS. The NJTV news with Mike Schneider. This is New Jersey PBS. And he spoke with New Jersey Republican National Committeeman Bill Palatucci. And, by the way, I have to tell you, there were a couple of comments. Cookie, could you go get Stephanie Cutter from yesterday’s roster? Stephanie Cutter, of all people, I thought had an insightful comment on the Christie election.

Yes, and she’s being pilloried in some of the conservative media as being foolish and stupid and idiotic. I kind of had a different take on what she said. And even that clown Schultz over at MSNBC has said some things that, whether he knows it or not, make sense. I mean, I may be the only one agreeing. We’ll see here in just a second. So, meanwhile, Cookie’s getting that, we’ll go now here again to late night PBS, New Jersey TV news with Mike Schneider, and he’s talking with New Jersey Republican National Committeeman Bill Palatucci about me and my criticism of Governor Christie. And to set up the segment, this is how Schneider starts.

SCHNEIDER: I turn on my radio this morning because I scan all sorts of media. And I turn on Mr. Rush Limbaugh’s program and he is tearing into Governor Christie, blaming him, among other things, for the defeat of the Republican candidate in Virginia of all things.

PALATUCCI: Mm-hmm.

SCHNEIDER: Saying that the exit polls show that he would have lost this state, he would lose this state to Hillary Clinton if he runs for president. I mean, really doing a job on your man. ThatÂ’s just got to bother you.

RUSH: Do I need to explain that? The guy didn’t get it quite right. I did point out that there were exit polls in New Jersey. I didn’t do them. I didn’t vote in New Jersey, so I didn’t participate in it, but there were exit polls in New Jersey. Let me put it this way. As I mentioned at the close of yesterday’s program, one of the reasons that the Republican establishment is orgasmic over Christie’s win yesterday, a landslide win, one of the reasons is he won Hispanics by what was it, nine points or five points, something. But he won the Hispanic vote. That is just orgasmic to the Republican establishment. That’s where they think their future is, is in the Hispanic vote.

Snerdley, don’t bother looking it up. It’s five or nine points. It’s one of the two. Doesn’t matter. So they’re just ecstatic about that, and I made mention of it, and they’re extrapolating that to mean that Christie could win the Hispanic vote nationwide and that’s why they’re happy. And, you know, the thing about this is, there were also exit polls of people who voted in New Jersey that were asked in a presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Governor Christie, “Who would you vote for?” And Hillary won that exit poll by four to six points, I forget, but that was the range.

And while the GOP establishment is understandably happy that Governor Christie won the Hispanic vote in New Jersey, if it ever came down to a presidential race between Hillary and Governor Christie, who’s gonna win the Hispanic vote? Hillary is. And not just in New Jersey, but everywhere. That’s the problem with this. We all know this. Maybe the Republicans could do something to reach out to Hispanics, but amnesty’s not the answer. I mean, if you’re gonna do that, that’s just going Democrat light. We’ve talked about the that. I don’t need to rehash all of that, but that’s why they’re ecstatic. I didn’t blame Christie for Cuccinelli’s loss. All I did was say he didn’t go campaign for him. I just told you the truth. Cuccinelli asked Christie to come in and campaign for him, and Christie didn’t. That’s all. If that sounds like criticism, I’m just telling you what happened.

And then I told you about the exit polls, Christie wins in a landslide with Hispanics and everyone else. But in a presidential race in New Jersey, Hillary would win, which means if the exit polls are right (remember, these guys live and die by this stuff) that Christie would lose his home state to Hillary in a presidential race if it ever eventuated. I still don’t think she’ll be the nominee, but I’ve been wrong about Hillary every day, so I’ll have to put that aside here and really rethink that.

So, anyway, that was the setup to the question and now the answer comes to Mr. Palatucci, who is the Republican National Committee man for New Jersey.

PALATUCCI: Not at all. I take with a grain of salt people who are promoting their radio station (sic), they’re promoting their book, or promoting their movie on HBO because by picking on somebody, they’re out there shilling for themselves and looking for viewers or —

SCHNEIDER: This is a — this is a guy who a lot of followers in your party.

PALATUCCI: Listen, again, I think most people understand this is one man’s opinion, Rush Limbaugh, who’s got advertising to sell and Chris Christie’s a popular, successful governor.

SCHNEIDER: And it won’t hurt him as he runs for president?

CALLER: That’s a way for Mr. Limbaugh to get some more viewers.

RUSH: Well, to all of you “viewing” the program today… You know, it is sort of a non sequitur. “Well, Rush Limbaugh’s got a lot of advertising to sell, and Chris Christie’s a popular governor.” What does that mean? Look, everybody knows, folks, if Christie is the Republican nominee, I’m not suggesting people vote for Hillary. This is absurd here, what’s being done. All we’re doing is analyzing Republican chances as we go forward, and we know that this guy’s leaving out a crucial aspect of everything mentioned yesterday.

That is how the Republican establishment is at war with its own base. That was the fundamental point being discussed yesterday that the New Jersey committeeman wasn’t asked about. He may not even know that that’s what happened here. I just wanted to play those two sound bites for you because they’re amusing. Now, let me find this. (interruption) No, no. I tell you, here’s the thing. Snerdley said, “What’s wrong with something advertising? That sounds like a Democrat comment.”

There’s nothing wrong.

What he’s trying to say is I don’t believe what I’m saying; I’m just saying outrageous things try to attract an audience. When he says, “He’s got advertising to sell! Limbaugh is trying to sell advertising and Christie successful governor,” what he’s saying is I’m just some little cad here on the radio mouthing off saying whatever I have to say to sell advertising, while over here is the serious governor of New Jersey who’s working really hard to build the Republican Party.

It’s just a way of discrediting what I do, because selling advertising is the number one business requirement here. If that doesn’t happen, all rest of it’s academic. But so does Fox. So does everybody in the media except PBS — and they get taxpayer money to do what they do. They don’t have to sell advertising. So they don’t have to really get an audience. But we do. But that comment is simply made to discredit. What he’s really saying is, “Limbaugh doesn’t believe what he’s saying.

“He’s just toying with you! He’s just using you. He’s just saying whatever he has to to get you all riled up,” and I don’t know how that sells advertising, by the way. I don’t know how making you mad sells advertising, but that’s what that comment means. He wasn’t listening yesterday, so he really doesn’t know. He was kind of put on the spot by the question. You have to give him that.

Now, let’s go this Stephanie Cutter sound bite, and I don’t have the transcript in front of me, so I don’t remember exactly what it was, but what I do have in front of me is a piece at Mediaite. It’s “Huh? CNN’s Stephanie Cutter: Christie’s Victory Represents ‘Rejection of Republican Party,'” and the media analyzed this and said, “Whoa, what an idiot this Stephanie Cutter is.” Here’s the way the story goes:

“I couldn’t believe it as I saw it on Election Night: CNN analyst-Democratic flack Stephanie Cutter claimed Chris Christie’s big victory should be read as a ‘rejection of the Republican Party.’ Bill Kristol had just proclaimed Christie was ‘impressive’ and ‘Obamacare is toxic.’ Some at NewsBusters HQ said, ‘Come on, it’s Stephanie Cutter.’ But this kind of mockable junk it exactly what defines Stephanie Cutter.” Again, I think that’s what’s she’s saying in this bite. Let’s listen and see.

CUTTER: I read it as a rejection of the Republican Party. Chris Christie ran not as a partisan Republican but really as a moderate, and the thing that bolstered his numbers from the beginning was the hurricane, Hurricane Sandy where he put politics aside and got heavily criticized by the Republican Party. But look at the exits in New Jersey. Even though Chris Christie there is an overwhelming win there for him, they’re rejecting the Republican Party. Fifty-eight percent disapprove.

RUSH: Now, I don’t know what’s wrong with that on the surface. Everything she says pretty much… I mean, it may be a bit of a stretch to say that Christie’s win is a rejection of the Republican Party, but what she’s saying is that Christie didn’t run as a Republican. He ran as a friend-of-Obama moderate, a Northeastern moderate. He didn’t go campaign for Cuccinelli. He didn’t utter a bunch of conservatism. He went out and ran as a moderate, as a Northeast moderate Republican and got the Hispanic vote.

He ran as a compromiser and a guy who can work with Democrats, not as somebody who wants to beat them. I think that’s what she meant. She says, “He’s playing off his big uptick after he embraced Obama and walked the beach with Obama after Hurricane Sandy,” and I think her point is that that ticked off a bunch of Republicans one week before the election, and in her world, that means his election was a rejection of the Republican Party, and she cites the exit polls.

So I think I know what she’s trying to say. It’s one of the first times that this woman has ever come close, in my mind, to being somewhat — I don’t know — objective or what have you. Other commentators were talking about how Christie’s win is a good sign for Hillary and all they’re doing is citing the exit polls. You know, these people live and die with that stuff, and that analysis was being laughed at and made fun of in conservative media, and I think people ought to be very careful about this on the Republican side, misunderstanding what happened and what it means.

‘Cause there is no singular Republican Party today. The Republican Party does have an internecine war going on.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: TIME Magazine’s cover, have you seen this? It is a cameo profile, silhouette profile of Christie, Chris Christie. He’s the whole cover, and the headline is: “The Elephant in the Room,” and they’re wondering here. This is a little blurb here from New Jersey News, wondering if TIME Magazine’s taking a shot at Christie over his weight by having this giant profile of his head with the headline, “The Elephant in the Room.” Now, I don’t know, but I’m telling you TIME Magazine is totally capable of this. They might mean by “elephant in the room” that the Republican that has a chance here at winning, that nobody wants to talk about, but he’s right there, but it could also be elephant — a Christie/size insult kind of thing.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’m gonna hold up this TIME Magazine cover here on the Dittocam for those of you who want to look at it there. It’s an Alfred Hitchcock-type silhouette from the side. It fills up the cover. He’s obviously a huge man. (interruption) What? What? (interruption) Not nice that they did that? (laughing) Don’t you just…? “It’s not nice that TIME Magazine did that!” Right. As you see there the headline, “The Elephant in the Room.”

Now, the elephant happens to be the GOP mascot, right?

Have you ever seen TIME Magazine call Obama a “jackass,” which is their mascot?

So obviously they have an out here, “Oh, elephant? No. Elephant, it’s Republican!” Come on, TIME. Big guy, elephant in the room? By the way, this ought to let you guys in the Drive-Bys know what’s what. You know, you made this same mistake with McCain. You thought McCain became good buddies with the media, the media was his “base,” and all it took was a Democrat opponent, and it was bye-bye love for McCain. It’s gonna be the same thing here, same thing with the Hispanic vote and all.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, folks, I should point out, CNN, right on schedule, doing a segment on, “Is Christie an elephant?” Playing off the TIME Magazine cover. You know what’s happened here, don’t you? The Democrats agreed to sit out this race. I got a note from a guy that lives in New Jersey. “Rush, there wasn’t an election in New Jersey. The Democrats nominated somebody, but they spent a dollar on her campaign. Most people don’t know who she is. I mean, the Democrats sat aside. The deal was, Republicans get Christie, the Democrats get McAuliffe. That was the deal. It’s done.”

There wasn’t an election, and right on schedule, Christie wins, and here comes TIME Magazine calling him an elephant with a giant silhouette on the cover. And now there’s a book about Christie and what a rotten person he is basically. So after they get him elected and after they get him touted as the Republican nominee, here come the long knives from the people supposedly in love with Christie in the media. It’s all so damn predictable. I mean, the same thing happened with McCain. They never see it. If they keep nominating a Northeastern moderate, liberal, whatever, the same thing is gonna happen.

I’m gonna admit something to you. I didn’t have a chance to reply ’cause, frankly, I forgot about it. Jonathan Martin, who used to be at The Politico, sent me a note yesterday morning. He’s now at the New York Times. He sent me a note wanting to know what I thought, my take of the Republican Party and Christie’s victory. I set it aside ’cause I got it right in the middle of show prep. Whenever I get a question like that, I always have an instinctive first thing that comes to my mind, and I always do not write that and send it back, when it’s the Drive-Bys asking. And I never got around to answering. I mean, I didn’t even get around to writing: “I’m sorry, Jonathan, no comment.” I didn’t even do that. Now I’m feeling bad that I didn’t reply, ’cause that’s rude. So I guess I’m doing it now.

But my instinctive answer was, “Jonathan, I guess you guys have pulled it off again, picking our nominee.”

Rush, don’t send that. It may be right on the money, but don’t send that. You don’t need to be making yourself a target right now. This is too far out, way too in advance. So I didn’t send that to him, so obviously it didn’t end up in his story that ran either last night or today in the New York Times. But that was my first reaction. There we go, the media picking our candidate again, and who are they picking? Somebody from the Northeast who is making everybody understand he’s not a conservative. Christie, at one time, was. At one time he was very proud of it, and he still says that he is.

But anyway, it’s just so predictable. Now we got this book on Christie about what a really mean, rough, not a nice guy he is, and the TIME Magazine cover. Right on schedule. What’s the title of the book, Snerdley? Yeah. (interruption) Who, Christie? Oh, yeah, there’s no question, he’s an expert political animal. He is of politics. There’s no question about that. I don’t mean to be critical of that. Look, I didn’t send that answer to the New York Times. I’m just telling you. I didn’t send it. They better not print it. I’m not saying it now. That was just my first reaction. I always step back from my instinctive reaction to a question from the Drive-Bys.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We go to Rachel in southern New Jersey. Hi, Rachel. Great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. First-time caller, long-time listener.

RUSH: Great to have you here. Thank you for calling.

CALLER: I wanted to call just to express that my husband and I sat out on the election on Tuesday.

RUSH: You sat out? You didn’t vote?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: Did not vote. No. I am big on… I talked to Mr. Snerdley. I’m big on taking my three small girls with me to those. We lived in Georgia, we voted in Georgia, we’ve also voted in New Jersey before, and usually I tell ’em all about it, how important it is to participate and also life lessons. I’m a homeschooling mom. I worked for many years, and then I just quit. I have three kids now, and it’s really important for us to teach them, you know, everything that they need to know about the country and about what was taught back when and what should be taught now. So definitely voting is part of that process.

RUSH: Yet you didn’t?

CALLER: I did not, no. We actually voted for Steve Lonegan. We took them to the polls to vote for Mr. Lonegan, and in my best, simplest way, I expressed what the differences were between Mr. Booker and Mr. Lonegan.

RUSH: Wait a minute. So you didn’t vote for Christie?

CALLER: No. I’m sorry, I did not, no.

RUSH: Why?

CALLER: We sat out for that election.

RUSH: Why was that?

CALLER: I was wishy-washy about a wishy-washy candidate. That’s the best I can describe of it.

RUSH: I’ve not heard that before.

CALLER: You know, I was trying to think about it. I thought about it, and then talked to my husband about it. You know, he’s a moderate, obviously not not a fan, and I practically knew he’d win. I didn’t have a doubt that he would win. So he really didn’t need my vote per se. But I was trying to think of a reason to go. And my girls, they asked me on that day, on Tuesday, “Are we gonna go vote today, Mama?” I said, “I can’t do it. I can’t go.”

I even looked at, you know, the rest of the ballot, and I couldn’t even get a read on that. I tried researching who they were and couldn’t really get a read on the whole ticket. So I just sat home, and it was hard, and I told my husband at one point, “I’m gonna go vote today,” and he said, “Okay. Well, do what you want to do,” and I just was delaying it, delaying it, delaying it, and before I knew it, you know, I had my three girls with me and the polls closed. Basically I think part of it also —

RUSH: What are we…?

CALLER: Sorry?

RUSH: I’m trying desperately to keep up here.

CALLER: Yes. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m talking too fast.

RUSH: Well, no. You’ve got limited time. I understand that. But were you able to vote for Romney?

CALLER: Oh, yeah. I did. I held my nose on it. I found a reason.

RUSH: Would you have voted for Cuccinelli if you lived in Virginia?

CALLER: Interesting. I have a sister-in-law who’s gonna sit out the election there ’cause she said, “What’s the point? They’re both the same,” and I talked to her on the phone —

RUSH: And you told her to vote for Cuccinelli?

CALLER: Oh, yeah, quoted an article.

RUSH: Okay. There you go. She’s telling her sister vote for Cuccinelli; she didn’t vote for Christie. Hmm. Gotta take a break. You were right. Time’s up.