RUSH: These next three sound bites you are gonna dig. The first one is Chris Shays on MSNBC, former Republican congressman from Connecticut, May the 19th of last year on Mess NBC.
SHAYS: We have talk show hosts who have never won elections who define very narrowly who’s a Republican. The bottom line of any national party is it has to give you the capability to represent your district. And if it doesn’t allow to you represent your district you get defeated and that’s what has happened all throughout the Northeast and other parts of the country.
RUSH: What do you say about that today, Congressman Shays? A man ran for his state, a state bluer than yours, articulating conservative principles, substantively on the issues. And let’s not forget, December 14th of 2008, CNN’s Global Public Square with Fareed Zakaria, he interviewed former secretary of state Colin Powell. Zakaria says, ‘What do you think is going to happen to the Republican Party? Do you think it’s moving in the right direction?’
POWELL: I was impressed by an article that Mort Kondracke wrote recently that said, can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh? Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts. Palin to some extent pushed the party more to the right, and I think she had something of a polarizing effect when she talked about small town values are good. Well, most of us don’t live in small towns and I was raised in the South Bronx and there’s nothing wrong with my value system from the Bronx. It was that attempt on the part of the party to use polarization for political advantage that I think backfired. And I think the party has to take a hard look at itself.
RUSH: Where’s Colin Powell today? Scott Brown’s from a small town, Wrentham, Massachusetts. Sarah Palin’s from a small town, arguably the two most popular people in the Republican Party today. I’m from a small town. Obviously the most popular conservative media figure today. Colin Powell is not from a small town, and where’s he today? Not that small towns are anything special and unique, but they are put down by the elites as we just heard here. (imitating Powell) ‘Can we continue to listen to Rush Lim[bow], is this really the kind of party we want to be when these kind of spokespersons appeal to our lesser instincts.’ General Powell, I would suggest that the speech given last night in acceptance by Scott Brown sounded much more like me than like you. And here’s Chuck Hagel, November 18th, 2008, at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
HAGEL: Every country out there has their no-nothing party and of course we’re much educated by the great entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and others. The American people don’t like what’s going on. They want us to start doing what leaders are expected to do: address the problems, find some consensus to govern, get along. There will be differences, there should be. But in the end we can’t continue to hold ourselves captive to this raw partisan political paralysis.
RUSH: Three sound bites, three people who could not be more wrong. Hagel and Shays are out of the party, and you’d have to say General Powell is, too, because he only speaks positively of Obama and endorsed him and voted for him. Of course we’re much educated by the great entertainers like Rush Limbaugh. I love these sound bites. I just love these. Now, we can get our party back, folks. We must. And Scott Brown has shown us the way, given us that chance. We need to not get distracted by people saying that this was simply an anti-Washington result. Do not fall for that, I beg you. This was not an anti-Washington vote. This was voting for somebody to go to Washington to fix it and to stop Washington dead in its tracks. The Republicans are not responsible for what’s happening in Washington. They don’t have the votes to stop anything. Everything that’s advancing is advancing because of Democrat votes.