Iraq Won’t Be ’08 Issue for Dems

RUSH: Scott in Nashville, Tennessee, welcome to the program, sir. It’s great to have you here.

CALLER: War Eagle, Rush, six in a row dittos.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: There may have been a big game in Missouri this weekend, but doesn’t matter who was wearing the (garbled), there’s only one game that counted, and the good guys won number six in a row, so… I wish I had heard — I hadn’t heard when I first called in — the clip you played, the first Carville clip you played about an hour and a half ago. Because it dovetailed nicely with what I was talking about, and I’m kind of fascinated he brought up 1991. My theory is, there is just no way that Iraq cannot be the issue for Democrats. They’ve really painted themselves in a corner. It can’t be the issue. They’ve bet the farm on it, and they’re really kind of stuck. The choice they’re going to have is to, you know, if things progress, go well, they’re just going to have to ignore it, and they’re going to have to do the same thing they did in ’92, with the economy. We had a rough patch in ’91. It wasn’t even a real recession. We had no growth for the fourth quarter, but it became their hook. ‘It’s the economy, Stupid.’ They hitched their wagon to it; they had to hammer it home, and despite the fact that we had a really good 1992, all we could hear about was, ‘worst economy in 50 years.’ I mean, they counted on the mainstream media to not call ’em on it.

RUSH: Right. Now, listen to what you’re saying. You are comparing two things that really can’t be compared. When the Clintons talk about the worst economy in the last 50 years in 1992, they’re actually talking about the future of the country, and that’s what presidential elections are about: the future. The Iraq war is the past. I guarantee you the Republicans are going to make the 2008 election about the future of the country, and what it will look like if Mrs. Clinton wins. It’s not going to be about things in the nineties with fundraising and the Charlie Tries, and the Gennifer Flowers, and the stained dress — and the reason that Iraq is not going to be on the table is Iraq, by then, will be the past.

CALLER: If they ignore Iraq, they will lose what has become their base. Their base is now the, um, Iraq-haters, for lack of better word, and you will see —

RUSH: Where else is their base going to go?

CALLER: You will see a 15 to 20% turnout for a Ralph Nader-type candidate, if they do that.

RUSH: Well, that may be. That may be. So what? I hope it is. I hope Mike Bloomberg gets in there and decides to siphon some votes away from Mrs. Clinton. All right! But presidential elections are going to be about the future, and if the Democrats — in fact, I’ll make you this prediction; I made it last week. You’re not even going to have to wait ’til next summer. You’re going to see Mrs. Clinton if she gets the nomination, start shifting on Iraq and national security and showing she cares and she’s strong about it, as early as March of next year. She’ll change the subject.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me get more specific about this business about Iraq and what kind of an issue it’s going to be in the presidential campaign next year, because I don’t know how long ago it was, has to be a couple months now, but I told you, it’s not going to be a front-and-center issue, the Iraq war in the presidential race of 2008. The Democrats simply are not going to be advocating defeat when running for the presidency. They’re not going to be advocating that, regardless what their kook-fringe left is going to do. They’re not that off-the-wall yet. Now, they’ve been trying to secure defeat for Bush and hang it around his neck, but they’re not going to do it as they seek the White House. They’re just going to ignore it and I guarantee the future of the country, what it’s going to look like, given the two candidates, Republican and Democrat, will be the primary issue of the race.

It’s not that the Democrats are going to just totally forget it. One possible spin that they might try is this: Look at the trillions we wasted in Iraq: could have gone to our kids, could have gone to health care, could have gone who knows wherever else. Now, the way to deal with that is, if you follow the illogic, they will say the money that we couldn’t afford to spend on Iraq can now be spent. That has been their point, the money, we didn’t have it, we wasted all this money, we couldn’t afford it. They’ve already started laying the groundwork for this by the way, the weekly cost in Iraq could buy X-number of meals for kids in school or what have you, so they’re not going to forget it, they’ll just put it up on the incompetence side of things. But in terms of talking about how Iraq is lost, and we’re losing, and we gotta get out of there, they’re not going to say that during the presidential campaign, mark my words.