Don’t Be Afraid of the Drive-Bys

RUSH: We’ll start in Ave Maria, Florida. This is Andy. Thank you, sir, for waiting. I appreciate your patience. You’re up first.

CALLER: Mega Ave Maria and Army veteran dittos, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I’m a bit nervous. I can’t believe I actually got through. I’ve been trying to for 13 years.

RUSH: Well, congratulations, sir.

CALLER: I just went over to grab lunch earlier and unfortunately I caught a CNN broadcast. They were reporting that 85% of the French polled would vote Obama over McCain if they could.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Well, I’m glad it’s not up to them. My question is who actually came up with this poll? And I’d also like to comment that it’s a good reason not to vote for Obama, in my opinion.

RUSH: You know, these are the kind of things, the Obama people better be very careful about this. I know that the Obama people probably aren’t doing this, but the Drive-Bys are. The Drive-Bys, don’t forget the Drive-Bys are part of history. They want to make history. This is more about the Drive-Bys, this campaign is, than it is about Obama. It’s about him a lot, but it’s about them, too. Hell, 70% of the Germans that they polled said they would vote for Obama. But it doesn’t mean anything because they can’t vote in America for our presidential candidates. They can’t participate in our race. It’s so obvious how transparent this effort that the Drive-Bys are making, and I’ll tell you the umbrella under which all these polls fall is that America sucks, that the Europeans know better about what to do than we do. That’s exactly all this means, and I’m telling you, the American people, the ones that matter here are not stupid, this does not escape them. The Drive-Bys think that their buddies in New York and DC and Los Angeles will be impressed and moved by this, but Obama’s already got those voters.

You go out into the heartland, into blue state America and you go out and tell them, ‘Hey, the French want Obama by 80%,’ you know what they’ll say? ‘The French?’ (blowing a raspberry) Not they don’t like the French, but you stay out of our affairs, and you don’t try to tell us how stupid we are by telling us how smart the Europeans are. If the Europeans are so great, how come we keep surpassing them all the time? How come we have to defend them? How come they don’t produce anything anymore? How come they have record unemployment rates? How come their wages are stagnant? If the Europeans are so damn great, then that’s the way they see it. So I think there’s a backlash going on. I mentioned this to Snerdley in the break at the top of the hour. He’s all depressed today. I said, ‘You’re getting sucked in by the pictures.’ Snerdley’s getting sucked into the pictures and I don’t think people are going to be sucked in by the pictures, and I know the people in this audience are not going to get sucked into the pictures. He’s slumping in his chair back there. I said, ‘I think he’s going to lose this, Snerdley.’ I think this boomerang is happening much faster. People are tired of Obama, they are tired of seeing him on television all the time, they are tired of sycophantic slavish, disciple-like coverage. (doing Snerdley impression) ‘I dunno, hope you’re right.’ Just total defeatism in there where Snerdley was. I said, ‘What is your problem?’ ‘McCain, I mean…’ I said, ‘Snerdley, don’t worry about that. You’ve got to remember this is, I told you a month ago this election is not about Obama versus McCain.’

This is going to be a referendum on Barack Obama and that ain’t good because the Democrats wanted this to be a referendum on George W. Bush and they wanted to tie McCain to George W. Bush. The problem is Bush isn’t hated. They think he’s hated, but he’s not hated. He’s unpopular, but he’s not hated. And he’s not a factor anyway because he’s leaving. To try to say that McCain is a continuation of Bush, that’s a stretch. It’s going to come down to whether or not the people of this country want Barack Hussein Obama to be President of the United States and whether they want Michelle (My Belle) Obama to be the first lady of the United States. It’s going to come down to that. Do they want Jeremiah Wright walking in and out of the Oval Office now and then? Do they want Bill Ayers being close, Bill Ayers going to state dinners? Do they want Louis Farrakhan finally getting into the White House? These are the kind of things that the real people, real voters are going to be thinking about, and it isn’t going to be all this hype and pap and PR that the Drive-Bys are putting out. Snerdley, the way you ought to look at it, if these pictures, all week long if these pictures were so powerful, how come Obama’s losing ground in the polls? What has McCain done to gain any ground? What has he done? He’s shut up is what he’s done. He’s out of the news. It always helps. Same thing with Mrs. Clinton. The more she spoke, the bigger problems she had.

McCain’s been out of the news; Obama’s in the news. Who’s going up and who’s going down? It’s a referendum on Obama. The Drive-Bys have got to be beside themselves. They have never invested in a candidate like this, never, not in our life times. I wasn’t alive to see what they did with FDR. Maybe JFK, but even that they had to count some obscure phantom votes in West Virginia to bring that off and there wasn’t a Rush Limbaugh Show back then because I was only nine years old. I was nothing but a star of the future back then. With all of this, the slavish disciple sycophantic behavior not reporting one negative about Obama, portraying him as something unique and never before seen in all of humanity. He’s losing ground. If the Drive-Bys have that much impact this race would be over, he would be over 60% which, by the way, you go back to 1984, Mondale was up big over Reagan at this point. Kerry was up big over Bush at this point in 2004. Obama is not big over McCain anywhere. Another reason why I counsel, ‘Don’t be afraid of the Drive-Bys.’ I know they have impact. I know they do. The AP especially. You got to really look out for that Bush. The AP is the last remaining vestige of the Drive-By monopoly. The other guys have been busted up. But I’m telling you they don’t have the impact. They’re not king-makers. They can’t do it. It’s being demonstrated. You’ve just got to be confident, folks, to understand this. It’s right out in front of your face. Do you see how hard my job is? Even my staff, I go in there at the 1:00 break and Snerdley’s slouching in defeat. Not defeat, that’s a bit too strong. You just got taken into the pictures, taken into the pictures. And there aren’t any pictures of McCain. Well, I know there are pictures, like, getting off the plane with one reporter and one cameraman, I know.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I just got a note from a friend that said, ‘Hey, Snerdley’s not the only one that’s depressed.’ The friend said, ‘I have this image. I can’t get this image out of my mind. It’s based on the fact that McCain has openly said he doesn’t know how to use computers and doesn’t spend time on the Internet. Rush, I just have this image of a couple of reporters taking their little tape recorders into McCain’s office and saying, ‘John, Senator McCain, this is the record button. When you have something to say to us, just hit that; we’ve got to go catch the Obama bus,’ and they just leave him alone with a tape recorder and come back later and make a news story out of it.’ I’m telling you, this is going to be a referendum on Obama.