RUSH: I want to tell you about something that happened to me over the weekend. I had dinner Saturday night with some friends. And once again, it was brought home to me how frustrating it can be for many people, many conservatives, because Saturday night was no different than today. Here we are in the midst all of huge electoral turnaround, at least in the polls, McCain and Palin are drawing crowds of ten to 40,000 people, more people want to get in than can. In fact, the New York Times on Sunday, did you see the front-page pictures? Obama basically in a barnyard at a state fair that looked like it had three or four people in the audience, standing in a bunch of straw, and there are McCain and Palin in an airplane hangar with a sea of people as far as you can see. The picture of Obama looked like he’s there by himself with a small little crowd and the McCain-Palin picture — and this is the front page of the New York Times. Now, I guess the theme of my mini-monologue here on the Saturday night dinner is that there are still a lot of people on our side of the aisle who believe that the Democrats, as a party, and that the media, the Drive-By Media, are invincible, that they cannot be beaten, that they have succeeded in distorting the truth in a majority of people’s minds.
So we’re sitting there having dinner, and a couple people start complaining about this, and they start asking, ‘What are we going to do. What are we going to do? I can walk through town and I can find half the people there thinking that Obama is Jesus Christ, that he’s The Messiah. What are we going to do?’ You know, and I gave an answer, you’ve heard it constantly here on this program, I said, ‘Well, I don’t think they’re anywhere near a majority. You’re falling prey to the age-old belief that the media and the Democrat Party are invincible.’ The Drive-By Media monopoly has been destroyed, it’s been blown up, they’re laying off people, they’re losing ratings, they’re losing revenue. It was like I was talking to a blank wall. Question came again, ‘What are we going to do about it? I understand what you’re saying, but what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it?’ We are doing about it! What have I been doing for 20 years? I said, ‘If you want to do something about it go fix the school in our town here or go walking door-to-door and tell these people they’re stupid. What are you doing sitting here, ‘What are we going to do about it?’ What are you doing about it?’ ‘I understand what you’re saying, but what are we going to do about it,’ he asked me a third time, and I lost it.
I actually I think particles of food were flying out of my mouth. I’m not kidding, folks. And I said, ‘You know what? I’ve had it. I can’t be around this anymore. This pessimism and defeatism sitting around saying, ‘What are we going to do?’ when you’re not doing anything, except whining. I’ve got no patience for it. What are we going to do about it? When the fact of the matter is,’ I said, ‘look at my life. Why in the world would I feel pessimistic or defeated? My parents wouldn’t understand my life. They wouldn’t believe it. It is blessed. I’ve got nothing to complain about. Nothing to whine about. And, by the way, from my standpoint, I’ve had a hell of a difference in fixing what you think is wrong.’ Now, I bring this up because I do think that attitudes are important, and it’s being reflected in the reaction that everybody is having to Sarah Palin, and that reaction, by the way, is not just contained to conservatives or Republicans. She’s lighting it up everywhere she’s going. And, by the way, I saw McCain with her this morning, and he’s got 15,000 times more energy. He’s a different guy. The whole thing has been a giant turnaround, and everybody is excited.
Now, I want to examine, why are we so excited about it? Well, to me it’s very simple. You and I and those of you who listen to this program regularly, we know what the blueprint for success is, and we have been frustrated beyond belief that our own party has tried to throw it away and has tried to come up with a different blueprint. We’ve come up with theories to try to explain why, and I think I know the answer why. I think they’re just like some of these people I had dinner with Saturday night. The Republicans who live in Washington believe that the majority of this country believes Democrats, thinks Democrats are compassionate, thinks Democrats are not racists, they live in Washington, they believe all these myths and cliches about conservatism that the Drive-Bys and the Democrat Party have been spewing. And so they genuinely think the way to win elections is go out and persuade Democrats that they are nice people, not bad people. So they gotta get Democrats, get independents — and we’re sitting here, ‘This is silly, this is stupid.’ Then we start saying, ‘Maybe they’re just trying to run us out of the party, they don’t like us because we’re pro-life, they don’t like us for this or that, we’re too rigid,’ or what have you.
Now look what happens. Through fate, divine intervention, I don’t know what it is, McCain chooses Sarah Palin. And all of a sudden this party has members sending in record amounts of campaign contributions whereas three weeks ago people weren’t interested. This party is now revitalized; it is unified around the concept victory. It’s on offense. Willie Brown is right. Nobody’s hiding their head underneath the sheets, under the covers and so forth, afraid to look out, all because of one woman who has a natural talent. She’s like — and I say this all the time — a lot of greatness, people that are great make it look easy. She looks like she’s a natural. She is genuine; she is authentic; she can speak off the cuff or from the prompter, but has her convictions, and that’s why she’s confident. She has a track record of experience that they’ve tried to blow up and lie about, but they can’t. She doesn’t have to fake anything. She doesn’t have to make it up; she doesn’t have to be defensive; she can just be who she is and there’s some populism in her approach, but largely she’s conservative. And so this has rallied people.
You sit here and wonder and you hope the party will notice what’s happened here. This could have been going on the last eight years. If we’d done this in 1996 we might have been able to take out Bill Clinton and all that was going on, but this party has just been fearful of finding anybody that’s rock-ribbed conservative, and in fact, I mean you can go through all the nominees or the candidates that ran for nomination, and you can throw Romney and Fred Thompson in, but not one of them really had an identity as a strong conservative. Every one of them had some yeah-buts about them. So even in the Republican primary, people were settling. There wasn’t wild enthusiasm for any of those candidates, and the reason is Republicans do not want to hear Republican candidates talk about how they’re going to go out and join Democrats, get Democrats here and independents over there. We want to beat them. Sarah Palin makes it sound like that’s what she wants to do, beat them, and she frees McCain to go out and run his campaign as he wants with his focus on precious independents and Democrats in his cabinet and so forth, it’s fine and dandy, no big deal.
My only point here, folks, is it’s never as bad as the pessimists and the defeatists think. Battleground poll, last 13 of them, question D3, 60% of the American people, between 58 and 61% the last 13 Battleground polls, people identify themselves as conservative or somewhat conservative. Sixty percent. It’s crucial that you just put on the armor, put on the body armor when you are exposing yourself to Drive-By Media year round, I don’t care whether it’s music, entertainment, movies, news, or what have you because they are creating the impression that they are an 80% majority, that they represent all of the right, proper, correct thinking. They’re the freaks. They are the minority. And if you’re going to sit there, ‘What are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it?’ Don’t just ask. Do something. Look at Sarah Palin. Can you believe this? She’s where she is today ’cause she decided she had to go to a PTA meeting to straighten out her kids’ school. You know how many potential Sarah Palin’s there are out there doing just that? Versus, ‘What are we going to do about it, what are we going to do about it? I hear you, but what are we going to do about it?’
One thing you don’t do, whether you’re looking for a job, career advice, you do not listen to whiners, you do not listen to people not doing anything but complaining. If you want to succeed in some business, find somebody who succeeded at it and learn from them. Don’t find somebody who’s failed and let them tell you how rotten and unfair the business you want to go into is. Find people that have succeeded and loved it and learn from them. By the same token, if you’re looking to be motivated or inspired what’s happening in a political situation, such as a presidential election, do not — because it’s easy to get suckered in to pessimism, we can do that naturally. It takes work to be positive. It takes effort. So don’t hang around with people that are just going to whine and moan and complain all the time because it will eventually get to you, and then you’ll stop doing anything ’cause you’ll be all depressed and you’ll be worthless to us. I don’t want you to become worthless.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: One more thing, ladies and gentlemen, I will tell you when it’s time to panic. I will tell you when it’s time to be depressed. Until then, don’t go there.