RUSH: Up next at Cleveland, this is Tanner. Tanner, welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. How are you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Good.
CALLER: Thank you so much for taking my phone call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I’m nervous. I’m just going to let you know that I am a young Republican. I’m actually a politician for the State of Ohio, and I’m nervous. I’m very, very nervous of what’s going to happen. If the GOP wins or loses this shutdown, no matter what, I believe myself and probably other Republicans, we will not win 2014. I am very nervous. The media has been blowing this up — it’s the GOP’s fault — on Facebook, on Yahoo, on every social media. So they are brainwashing the voters and telling them this.
RUSH: Tanner, how old are you?
CALLER: I’m 19 years old.
RUSH: Okay. I’ve got to take a break in 30 seconds here, which is not enough time. So can you hang on through the break?
CALLER: Oh, yes, yes.
RUSH: Because I want to very politely encourage you to change your perception and the way you’re thinking.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: And I want to do it with actual real-life history —
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: — that occurred right around the time you were born, so you might not have been told the truth about it yet. So hang on and don’t go away.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. We’re back now with Tanner in Cleveland. Tanner is 19 years old and is worried that the Republicans can’t possibly win in 2014 because they’re taking it on the chin so badly right now.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Now, in 1995 there was a government shutdown, Tanner, that was worse than this one. You were either just born or one year old in 1995. So you wouldn’t remember it. Do you know anything about the 1995 budget battle? There’s no wrong answer here. I’m not trying to put you on the spot.
CALLER: No, not really.
RUSH: Let me tell you about it because there’s a key element to it, in fact, the way it ends that I really want you to know. Did I hear you correctly, you’re thinking about becoming a Republican politician at some point?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Okay. Good. In 1995 the Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, hated, reviled, old white guy. Time Magazine had put him on the cover as the Gingrich who stole Christmas. Bill Clinton was the president. He was the beloved, most popular, young, virile president ever with the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who wanted to take over the health care system in the country and have the government run it. The government shut down in 1995 over a budget impasse, much as it has right now.
But the government shutdown in 1995, I think in the media for Republicans, was at least as bad as this, if not worse. Because during that shutdown, Tanner, there were stories that the Republicans wanted to starve kids. There were lies in the media that the government, the Republicans, wanted to cut the school lunch program. The Democrats and the media leapt to this one and they had little school kids, second and third graders in New Orleans, writing letters to the Republicans begging them not to let them starve because they couldn’t study and learn if they were hungry.
There were no cuts in the school lunch program. The budget was actually going to grow. And throughout that shutdown the media was destroying Republicans then as they are today and every bit as bad, and the president was as loved by the media back then as Obama is today. The difference is that back in 1995 the American people were far more supportive of Bill Clinton than they are Barack Obama. Back in 1995 the people didn’t want Hillarycare and were able to stop it, but Clinton personally, his approval numbers were in the 60s. They were not 37 like Obama’s is.
When that thing ended and I’m giving the short version of it the next election after the budget shutdown, the Republicans gained two seats in the Senate and they only lost seven seats in the House, which in a presidential year was unreal. They should have lost a lot more. The media reporting was such that the Republicans were going to lose the House. Gingrich was going to see that the speakership would be moved to the Democrats. It was so bad, Gingrich was so stupid, he was so dumb, he was so mean, he was so ugly, he was so white, he was so fat, he was so hated. They were starving kids. The Republicans were going to lose.
It was every bit what you’re seeing today. And in the media the Republicans did lose. They got shellacked. But when it came time to vote, they actually gained two seats in the Senate. So you say the Republicans can’t win in 2014? Do you remember what happened in 2010? That’s just three years ago. You were 16. Do you remember what happened?
CALLER: Oh, yeah. We dominated, basically.
RUSH: Yeah, but now I want to ask you about that. How did that happen?
CALLER: Personally I think people were just well, I think people still now are sick of Obama.
RUSH: Exactly right. There wasn’t a Republican on the ballot then, was there?
CALLER: Nope.
RUSH: There wasn’t a central Republican idea that was inspiring people. What that was in 2010 was the people rising up and saying “We don’t want this health care business. We don’t like what Obama’s doing.” The Republican Party failed to capitalize that when it came time for the 2012 presidential race. They didn’t nominate anybody that could turn that same vote out. I’m telling you, Tanner, if you want to get into Republican politics, you go right ahead and you can win, and the party can win in 2014. I’m not calling you silly.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: The proposition that this is killing Republican electoral chances is more of the same media crap that is featured throughout this story and was part of the 1995 budget shutdown story. It’s all crap. Who knows how the 2014 elections are going to come out. There’s so much to happen between now and then. This Obamacare thing is going to be an utter disaster. We have no clue the things that are going to happen between now and 2014. By the time the 2014 elections come around they are going to be about things that have nothing to do with the shutdown, because it’s going to have long been in the past.
The book of Genesis says pretty much everything. There’s nothing new, Tanner. Now in your perspective this is the first time something like this is happening in your life. So it is new, and it’s bad, and the media’s making it out to be rotten as it can be. But it’s all happened before, and it’s all been said before. The Republicans were dead and buried back in 1995. Some of the most successful politicians in the world have ended up losing elections when they stood on principle. They were later rewarded by the same voters down the line on another election. It’s a fluid process, and it’s just not true that the Republicans can’t win another election. It’s not true that they can’t even improve where they are in 2014 based on this.
This can backfire and go against the Democrats. And the one to keep in mind, what you’re reading in the media about this, Tanner, is not what the American people at large think about it. When you read the media, when you watch television, you’re seeing what Washington thinks of all this. You are not seeing what St. Louis thinks of it, or Dallas, or Denver, or take your pick of any city. You’re not seeing it. So don’t be despondent about this. We’ve been through this before, and it was worse. There, aren’t you glad you called?
CALLER: Yes, I am. Well, yeah, I listen to you every day. So I had to call today.
RUSH: Well, I’m glad you did, and look, you know what? I really appreciate your listening. I really appreciate it. A lot of people wouldn’t have. It’s such that most people’s minds would have been made up and didn’t want to listen to anything that was counter to what they believed, but believe me, 1995, budget shutdown, every bit as bad. I mean, you can’t get any worse than Republicans starving kids. Remember, this time it’s Obama who let sick kids not get treated. This time it’s Obama who closed the National Mall to World War II veterans and opened it for illegal aliens, and the people out there know that. There is no Republicans starving kids. The media has its templates and its narratives and they just repeat them. And if they aren’t working, then they commission a fake poll like the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll today is. Hang in there, Tanner. We need you.