RUSH: The Mitt Romney situation. The media, the media is just beside itself, they cannot understand how in the world some ditz, some Mormon like Mitt Romney raised so much in campaign contributions when he’s so down in the polls. Chris Matthews last night had saliva dribbling down the chin. He can’t figure this out. He had to conclude, ‘Well, he’s gotta be getting money from rich fat cats out there because he’s so low in the polls, where’s he getting all this money?’ Then the Drive-By Media in the print version here says, ‘He’s getting it from the Mormon Church.’ (Gasp!) No, he’s not getting money from the Mormon Church. He may be getting money from Mormons, but not from the Mormon Church or (Cosell voice) the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints out there.
Anyway, they’re beside themselves, because they tell themselves stories. You’ve heard this. It’s become a cliché. I’m sick and tired of it. The first fundraising totals the end of the first quarter, March 31st, are the first polls. According to that theory, then whoever is down in the polls not supposed to have much money. You know who surprised everybody is McCain. McCain came in at $12.5 million and the Drive-Bys are all over him. Now they’re trying to sandbag his report out of Baghdad that he was able to walk around in the security zone all unharmed and so forth, and the same Drive-By Media that he considered his base is trying to destroy him. The New York Times is out there, found a couple ringers that supposedly run market shops in Baghdad saying, ‘Who’s he kidding? They haven’t increased security detail! We’re not safe here. McCain’s crazy.’ All over the place now McCain’s nuts now and his fundraising is way down. He’s blown it. The American people don’t want to go to war in Iraq anymore,’ blah, blah, blah, $12.5 million is paltry compared to others.’
McCain says, ‘Well, you know, I really don’t like asking people for money.’ Other people are saying, ‘This is what McCain-Feingold gets you.’ Anyway, the real story, though, with the Drive-Bys is Mitt Romney.
Oh, and then Rudy. Rudy said, ‘Leave my wife alone.’ Now, this worked for a couple other candidates. Let’s see if it works for Rudy. I know it’s not going to work for Rudy. In fact, when you get up and say, ‘Leave my wife alone,’ you may as well be painting a target on front and back of her shirt. ‘Go ahead and attack me,’ Rudy said, ‘I welcome it. There’s plenty about me to attack, but leave my wife alone.’ Leave her out of it. If she’s going to be with you everywhere on these things, you’re inviting it.
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RUSH: Romney raised $23 million he announced yesterday. That’s almost twice as much as McCain has raised. His is all for the primaries, by the way, so that’s even more than Mrs. Clinton raised, because she has $36 million out there, but a lot of that came from her own campaign coffers, and then the other was made up with people contributing both $2300 to the primary and $2300 to her general election, should she win the primary. All of Mitt’s $23 million I think is for the primaries, and Chris Matthews, among others, couldn’t understand this. ‘I mean, the guy has no poll numbers. How can he raise this kind of money?’ and he concluded it had to be rich fat cats. It has to be rich fat cats — and, of course, the Mormon Church, one Drive-By Media outlet reports today. On Matthews’ show last night, there was some info babe from the Chicago Sun-Times. She spoke up and she cautioned Chris Matthews.
She said, ‘Look, nobody knows where his money came from. The breakdown of donors hasn’t occurred yet,’ but Matthews continues to insist that Romney donors were all ‘rich fat cats,’ as though nobody else in politics contributions are coming from rich fat cats. How many rich fat cats have donated to Hillary or Obama? Rich fat cats? The Hollywood crowd is divvying up its money between the two of them. You see, this is another illustration, folks. Mitt Romney is a Republican and of course it has to be ‘rich fat cats.’ My gosh, the rich fat cats in this country are Democrats, and they give to Democrats! Then Matthews is out there. He went nuts on Fred Thompson. He loves Fred Thompson, called him ‘a daddy figure,’ had gravitas, says he’s not a Dan Quayle — and then he said, ‘I just don’t have any idea who Mitt Romney really is and he’s even a total mystery to the people of Massachusetts. ‘ Now, what is it that’s striking about that comment? Here is Chris Matthews of PMSNBC, saying, ‘I don’t know anything about Mitt Romney.’ Chris, what is your job? You are a journalist!
If you want to find out about Mitt Romney, you can do so. He’s not a mystery figure cloaked in all black that you can’t see through. He’s a mystery even to the people of Massachusetts? Chris, this is not a credible statement here from you about how good you are at your job. There’s no excuse. There is no excuse for any journalist saying, ‘I don’t know who Mitt Romney is. I don’t know anything about him. He’s a mystery.’ He’s only been running for president for how many months. He’s been governor of Massachusetts. He ran the Olympics in Salt Lake City. How in the world can anybody in journalism say, ‘I don’t know anything about Mitt Romney’? And then to assume all of his money comes from the fat cats. The whole theme continued earlier today on the Today Show. Matt Lauer was interviewing Romney, and said, ‘Some say you’ve tapped into a lot of financial support from the Mormon community, and that’s a natural. The New York Times puts it this morning just that way, that Mike Dukakis got a lot of support from Greek-Americans. Lieberman got a lot of support from Jewish-Americans. But because Mormons make up a relatively small percentage of population, explains why you haven’t reached higher poll numbers. Is that fair?’
ROMNEY: It’s not terribly accurate, but it’s an interesting point. I’m sure people of my faith have contributed, but overwhelmingly our money has come from all 50 states. The number one state in our contribution list is California. There are people coming from all over the country to support my effort. I ran for governor, of course, got good support here in Massachusetts, and so I’m pleased that my message is connecting. This isn’t about a particular ethnic group or religious group or subset.
RUSH: Mitt, it is. It’s not, but as far as these people are concerned, it is. All right, Romney’s number one state in list of donors is
ROMNEY: Gosh, I hope as little as possible. (Laughing.)
LAUER: (Laughing.)
ROMNEY: I’d like to get as much as possible from people across the country and that’s why we’re working hard to do that, but of course I’ll always keep open the very unfavorable idea of having to write a check myself at some point, because this is a very important campaign. I think McCain-Feingold, the campaign finance reform, has been a real bust. I think there’s more money in politics, not less. The money is going around the old regulations. It has not worked. It’s time for us to completely revisit McCain-Feingold. I’d repeal it, and let the people make the contributions they’d like and disclose them.
RUSH: Absolutely. You know, this whole thing about ‘money in politics’ is a straw dog anyway. The total amount of money spent in politics, you might have heard these type analogies. The total amount of money spent in politics is less than the American people spend on potato chips in a year. You didn’t know that? Hell, people spend more on candy than they spend on politics! It’s just not reported that way. Can you imagine if every month Hershey and Mars and all these other companies had to report what their sales were, in a public way? They do in publicly traded companies, but just imagine if it was reported the way political donations were reported, and imagine if everybody who bought candy was treated as a suspect. Or if everybody who bought potato chips was treated as a suspect.
‘But, Rush! But, Rush! Those are food items.’ That’s my point! Everybody says it’s so outrageous. Spending money on politics is how we manage and govern our affairs. It costs a lot of money to get into the business. It doesn’t help when you got people like McCain out there saying all this money corrupts people, good people in politics. Who was it, Jesse Unruh out in California, who said, ‘Money is the mother’s milk of politics.’ Yeah, I guess you could say McCain’s not ‘corrupt.’ He’s not getting any money. He got $12.5 million. Hell, the Drive-Bys ought to be happy. ‘Look at McCain! He got less money than anybody. He’s our guy.’ They’re dumping all over McCain for not getting enough money! They’re getting on Romney for getting too much, and it was the New York Times that said that the money came from the Mormon Church, which of course, is flat-out untrue.
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RUSH: Folks, we need to get the money out of movies. The top grossing movie this past weekend, made $33 million in three days. It took Mitt Romney, what? 12 weeks or longer, to raise 23 and a half million. Hillary Clinton 36 million. We gotta get the money out of movies, $33 million in three days. That’s patently absurd. We gotta find out who’s giving it to them, too, because whoever is giving the money to the movies is supporting trash, ladies and gentlemen, and debauchery and the destruction of our culture! Let’s find out who’s giving money to the movies.