RUSH: David in Forest Park, Georgia, welcome. You’re back with us, Open Line Friday continues. Hello.
CALLER: Hello. Georgia conservative, life itself on loan from God, mega dittos.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: I heard something in the Republican debate the other night that actually brought a tear to my eye.
CALLER: In response to Ron Paul’s rant about how the Republicans would lose votes if we didn’t get out of Iraq immediately, Mike Huckabee said something along the lines of, ‘Even if we lose elections, we should not lose our honor, and that is more important than the Republican Party.’
RUSH: And that brought a tear to your eye?
CALLER: Absolutely. I think it’s about time that we have a politician who put more emphasis on wanting to do the right thing and telling people honestly what they intend to do, that they believe is the right thing from the conservative perspective, than saying anything to get elected.
RUSH: Well, no question about it. That’s the age-old lament about politics, and that’s why the people you’re talking about who have done that, been able to pull it off in an authentic way because they are authentic, have genuinely won elections in large landslides. Ronald Reagan comes to mind. FDR had that ability. Nixon came off as authentic when he ran in 1968. I’ll never forget, because that was his comeback tour, and I’ll never forget some of the town meetings that he was doing. He came off as really, really authentic. And that’s interesting. You know, Huckabee is — well, when these things all started, everybody said, ‘Rush, who you for?’ I said, ‘It’s too soon, you never know, anybody could spring out of this thing a surprise.’ Now, Huckabee hasn’t moved in the top tier yet, but I think he’s attracting a lot of attention that nobody expected to go his way, and we’ll see where he goes from here. But I’ve had a lot of people respond positively about Huckabee in the last two debates. So it’s interesting that you called and made that observation. I appreciate it.