RUSH: All of you Obama supporters and voters in the audience, do you know that he doesn’t want you to have a car? Obama does not want you to have a car. How do I know? Well, have you heard him propose it? Have you heard him propose that everybody should have a car? He hasn’t. Doesn’t he want you to have a car? I don’t even think Obama even wants you to have a house. I haven’t heard him propose that everybody should have a house. I haven’t heard it. I don’t think Obama wants you to have a job. No, no! I haven’t heard Obama actually propose a plan that would put people back to work. I’m not sure that he wants you working.
I don’t think Obama really wants you to have gasoline. Well, I haven’t heard him say he thinks everybody should be able to afford gasoline. It must be true. You know, one of the ways to attack this might be a variation on Reagan’s question during the 1980 campaign: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” When you run up against these people, folks, that think that you want to kill them or that you want them to have dirtier air or water than you have, ask them a simple question: “If Obama cares so much, why are you so much worse off?” If the Democrats care so much about you, why are you so mad? If the Democrats care so much about you, why are you doing so much worse than you were when he took office?
Now, be prepared for the answer to be: The Republicans this and Republicans that.
But that’s the question.
Who’s next? Dan in Petal, Mississippi. Hi. You’re next.
CALLER: Rush! Mega dittos. What an honor, sir.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Hey, I have a theory about what the Democrats may do with this mandate. I think they’re planning on the court striking down the mandate but keeping the rest of the law intact. I actually heard, I think it was Krauthammer talking about how the court might do that so that they wouldn’t be accused of overreaching and that the rest of the law would fold in on itself. And I think they’re planning for that, and then use the Massachusetts Romneycare model to try to strong-arm the states into implementing a state mandate, and they would use Medicaid as a weapon to do that. Obamacare expands Medicaid so much that if the federal government didn’t give states the federal money for Medicaid, the state would go bankrupt.
RUSH: Well, no. That’s already gonna happen with Obamacare.
CALLER: I agree, but I think they’re going to use that as a mechanism to force states, or try to force states into putting in a state mandate as a funding mechanism.
RUSH: Wait a second. Look, do you realize how long it would take to force every state to do a mandate?
CALLER: I don’t think it would take that long because the Republicans would be in a bad position. They wouldn’t be able to argue against it, because their presidential nominee would have been the one to establish the blueprint.
RUSH: No, no, no. (sigh) I donÂ’t see it. I think the error that you’re making is to be found in the fact that Obama doesn’t want the states to have any power. He wants it all for himself. If there’s gonna be a mandate, he’s gonna do it. That would take in a long time, and there would be so much opposition to that. Look, I suppose you could be right. I haven’t even considered this. But all the states would have to do… It’s like Kagan’s already said: Just dump a boatload of money on the states for Medicaid and be done with this. I think what they’re gonna do is try to make a head-up plunge right into single payer and not wait the 10 to 15 years for people to figure it out.
But the Feds can’t order the states to do universal coverage.
That’s unconstitutional, too.
And even though Obama doesn’t care about it, the states would. They’d stop this. This thing would be in court for decades. Anyway, I appreciate the call. I’m fascinated at how people are thinking about this. I mean, 26 states are in this lawsuit already to stop the mandate. That’s why we’re doing this. The states are already opposing the federal mandate. To say, “Oh, oh, yeah! We could do it ourselves. Why didn’t we think of that. Okay, good. We’ll do that we’ll be done with it.” That’s a stretch, I think. But Obama, by the way, you should know — and I don’t know if this is purposefully or accidentally, but — said this week that the court can’t strike down the mandate and keep the rest of the law. He said (and I made a big to-do about this), “I think the justices should understand…”
That right there is chilling to me: “I think the justices should understand.”
Meaning: “You better listen to me.”
And he said, “I think the justices should understand that in the absence of an individual mandate, you can’t have a mechanism to ensure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care.”
Without a mandate, there’s no mechanism to pay for any of this.
“[T]he justices should understand…”
Who’s next? I appreciate the call. Mark in Seattle. Hello, sir. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you. You talked in the first hour about if they do overturn Obamacare, that Obama would then go to all the idiots and say, “Look, they took away your health care —
RUSH: Republicans took away your health care.
CALLER: What’s that?
RUSH: Republicans took away your health care. They didn’t get rid of their own.
CALLER: And he would try to use that to his advantage, but I don’t think he could, because as you’ve pointed out, 60% to 70% of the people want the health care overturned.
RUSH: That’s true. That’s in every poll. In every poll, a majority of people want Obamacare overturned.
CALLER: And don’t you think he knows about those polls?
RUSH: Yeah, but still. I’ll review this again. Back in November or December, I forget which, a guy named Thomas B. Edsall, who used to write for the Washington Post, now is at the Huffing and Puffington Post. He went out there in the New York Times, had a column: Obama not going to seek the votes of white working-class Americans. He’s lost ’em. The old blue-collar Reagan Democrats, not gonna worry about ’em. It is obvious that this Obama campaign is aimed at the welfare state and what we are affectionately calling “the stupid.” Maybe “ignorant” is better. He’s hoping that he can get a lot more of them to vote than have been. He’s gotta overcome that 60% somehow, and he’s going to do it. I can hear it now.
I don’t want to go through the whole thing again. (imitating Obama) “We’ve been trying for 60 years working on behalf of the American people to get affordable health care for all Americans. And here we had it. And it was being implemented,” and he cites all the people on preexisting conditions and the kids on their parents’ coverage and all the letters he’s gotten from people who are alive because of Obamacare, and he says, “The Republican judges, five Republican judges took your health care away today. They didn’t lose theirs. They don’t want you to have yours. For 70 years we’ve been struggling for this, since the days of Jim Crow.” You can throw that in there and really rally the troops. And he’s going to try to make hay.
This is another aspect of this campaign that’s mind-boggling. He’s shooting lower than the lowest common denominator. That’s the best way to describe it. All of this is geared to getting out the stupid vote. Look at Occupy Wall Street. Republicans want to take away your birth control pills, for crying out loud. That matters to the minks out there. The minks, the sexually active. That matters to ’em. And people like DSK. Take away birth control pills and that guy can’t hit up maids as often.
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RUSH: New slogan. Obama in 2008, it was “Hope and Change.” In 2012: “Dopes and Change.” That’s the campaign slogan. Or “Rope Dopes,” “Dopes and Hopes”, whatever, but you gotta have “Dopes” in there, because that’s who is being targeted.
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RUSH: Okay, we played enough with this today. Here’s how you deal with Obama and his abject lies. You ignore them. Republicans, Romney, whoever, the whole party just hammer Obama on his record. That’s all we have to do. There’s not one element of it he can run on for reelection. Hammer him on his record. Ignore his arguments. Don’t get caught up in ’em. It’s a losing proposition. But his record is target-rich. Focus on that.