RUSH: Kimberly in Sarasota, Florida, nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, you’ve got to be kidding me. I thought we had come so far as women voters, to know that there are women out there that are willing to vote for somebody because they talk a good talk and because they are good-looking? Did we not learn anything from ‘read my lips’? These people have to know you have to research the record, and I’m not saying I don’t like Romney–
RUSH: Wait, you’re talking about Romney and you’re talking about the Mittens that called here yesterday?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: Well, we had three women that called here yesterday, and they were just gaga over Mitt. I think they were happy, one, but they were gaga over him, it wasn’t good looks, it was substance.
CALLER: Well, absolutely, and it’s not that I don’t like him, but I’m just saying that we have to look at these people’s record to know where they have voted and how they’re going to vote.
RUSH: And you don’t think they did that?
CALLER: Well, I don’t know, they were so gaga over how good he looks and how good he talks that I don’t know if they’ve done any research on his record.
RUSH: You gotta tell me what they said that has caused this reaction in you, to be embarrassed of your sisters. You started out by saying you can’t believe there are women out there who are thinking and talking this way, haven’t we learned anything. What did you hear them say that embarrassed you?
CALLER: Well, I wouldn’t say that I was personally embarrassed because I don’t let anybody offend me, but I just think that when you are looking into voting for a president, you don’t look at somebody’s outside features or how they talk, we’ve heard the lips part before in the past —
RUSH: Wait a minute, ‘read my lips’ was George H. W. Bush.
CALLER: I know it was, sir.
RUSH: I thought you might have meant Clinton and the lips elsewhere.
CALLER: Well —
RUSH: Because George H. W. Bush was not classically good-looking and a model type or what have you. I thought you might have meant Clinton was. Remember how women were swooning over Clinton?
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: And that’s why I thought you meant Clinton and ‘read my lips,’ and I was, you know, getting some really strange images as I was making the association of those two.
CALLER: No, I just really think that we really need to pay attention to the records of these gentlemen on their immigration, on their foreign policy —
RUSH: All right, you’ve done that, I assume, you have a candidate you support?
CALLER: Absolutely. Fred Thompson is my man.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: He seems to be the only conservative out there. Romney is great fiscally, I understand, but there have been some bad decisions.
RUSH: Well, I know. This nomination process, for a lot of Republicans, Kimberly, and I’m not going to lump you in this, I don’t know if it’s true for you. For a lot of Republican voters, it’s going to be picking the one we dislike the least.
CALLER: Well, and I’d rather have Hillary in the White House than I would John McCain because I don’t want him to destroy the name of the conservative party.
RUSH: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! You would rather have Hillary in the White House than McCain. That came out of left field.
CALLER: I would. Because she can take what’s going to happen to the country instead of the conservatives having to take the responsibility for what’s going to happen if McCain gets elected.
RUSH: Okay, so your theory is if somebody’s going to destroy the country, let Democrats do it so we can put it back together after they make a shambles?
RUSH: Absolutely.
CALLER: Well, I kind of like that kind of thinking, if you’re going to destroy the country, let’s not be part of it. She’s worried about the brand, conservatism being destroyed. Have I not made that clear? I may need to say that more forcefully, but I think frankly that Kimberly here, you’re right, whether you swerved into it or not, you’ve had a head-on collision with accuracy here. I really think that there are some in our own party who are just as eager to rid the party of us conservatives as Democrats are to defeat us. I think the destruction of conservatism would happen with certain of these candidates being nominated in ways that perhaps you might not be foreseeing yourself. I’m not prepared to go there yet because I’m not convinced we’re going to be faced with that possibility. But if I am convinced at some point down the road we’re going to be faced with that possibility, I will be wide open about it. But she’s exactly right. In the process of the Republican Party losing big, conservatism is going to get the blame. Folks, you have no idea how many people in the Republican Party would love to just take as much of conservatism out of the fundamental structure of the Republican Party as they could.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Heather in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Nice to have you. I’m glad you waited. Welcome.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Nice to be you. Thanks so much for having me.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I actually want to touch on a very valid point about John McCain and his legislation that threatens conservative grassroots activism, but, Rush, I’ve gotta touch on your caller Kimberly, how she mentioned the women that called your show yesterday.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: I listened to the program, and Rush, I appreciate you for empowering these good tax-fighting, limited-government-loving, charter-school-choosing women who love Mitt Romney. I’ll be one of those smitten Mittens, I am, and I’ll admit it, but I can tell you about his record. First, let’s examine the record. Look at the Olympics. He went into a scandal-ridden Olympics facing bankruptcy —
RUSH: You know, Heather, let me interrupt you. I wasn’t going to get into this until the next hour, but you’ve given me a good transition here because I have two stories here on the Democrat side, first from an ABC News blog. Hillary Clinton pouncing on Barack Obama, saying that she’s ready to be a CEO and a COO, and Obama isn’t. Hillary is ready. David Broder today, in the Washington Post: ‘A Democrat Field Without an Executive.’ He says, ‘By contrast, the Republican field is loaded with people who are accustomed to being in charge of large organizations. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were governors of their states of Massachusetts and Arkansas, Rudy Giuliani served as the mayor of New York, and John McCain, as he likes to remind audiences, commanded the largest squadron in the Navy air wing.’
Romney also ran a huge business in the private sector and straightened out the Olympics. So Broder says, if experience is your issue, the Democrats are lacking. If you can’t control the smears that your bureaucracy are putting out, in the case of Mrs. Clinton — you know, the Clinton campaign is saying, Heather, that all these smears of Obama, ‘Why, my staff has nothing to do with this.’ And that’s not nearly as big a bureaucracy as the federal government is. If she can’t control that, if she can’t run that — Now, where’s this been for a year? I’m glad Broder finally got in the game here on this. But you talk about having experience of running big organizations, or turning failing financial organizations around, that experience is going to be found in droves on the Republican side, nowhere to be found on the Democrat side.
CALLER: And Mitt has experience in the private sector as well as government. So if you want proof —
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: — look at what he did in Massachusetts. He went to Massachusetts with a $3 million deficit. Without raising taxes, he brought them into a surplus by the time he left office. On top of this, yes, he’s turned businesses around. He made Staples and Domino’s what they are today. People talk about foreign policy and Mitt Romney, he dealt internationally with businesses and business leaders all over the world and was a huge success. He was hailed as such a success as a businessman.
RUSH: I understand. Look, please don’t take this personally, don’t be offended, but I don’t want to turn the program over to what are essentially campaign commercials for these guys. I appreciate the call and telling me why you like somebody, but we gotta draw the line here at some point otherwise I’m going to find myself in a position where they’re all going to demand this, and I don’t want to go there. So, Heather, I thank you for the call. I appreciate it.