RUSH: My gut is starting to talk to me, ladies and gentlemen. As you know and as I discussed over the course of the previous week, my gut was not giving me any indication whatsoever, and my gut started talking to me last night. Barack is headed back to Iowa. That should be a lock. It’s a dead heat. Sarah Palin headed there on Monday, to Dubuque. Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Nevada — well throw Pennsylvania out of there — Florida, Ohio, Nevada, look like pretty good McCain certainties here, pretty good, depending on who you listen to. It’s Friday, and let’s go.
JOHNNY DONOVAN: Live from the Southern Command in sunny south Florida via New York City, it’s Open Line Friday!
RUSH: And we are getting a great indication today of just how Barack Obama will govern. He has purged three newspapers which endorsed McCain from his campaign plane. They are the Dallas Morning News, the New York Post, and the Washington Times. He’s going to replace them with Essence and Jet and some documentary makers, may put Maureen Dowd back on. This is how Obama will govern, ladies and gentlemen, purging three newspapers that endorsed McCain off of the campaign plane. Greetings, my friends, and welcome, Open Line Friday, Rush Limbaugh here at 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com. Open Line Friday means when we go to the phones, the content of the program is all yours.
It is, folks. My gut’s starting to talk to me out there. There’s a lot of movement, and even the Drive-Bys are starting to chronicle this. A lot of factors are taking place, and now Obama is trying to lower expectations. He’s afraid that some of his mind-numbed robot supporters have all these utopian expectations he’s trying to tamp ’em down. We are not going to let him get away with this. That’s been his campaign for a year-and-a-half or longer. We’re going to hold him to his expectations.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Dead heats in two key swing states now, even The Politico reporting this, North Carolina and Missouri, ‘Even though Obama is strongly outpacing McCain in two of those states’ crucial battleground counties, according to new Politico/InsiderAdvantage polls.’ I’m telling you, things are tightening up out there. My gut tells me this can be won. This is about turnout. This is about voting. This is about everybody showing up to vote. I am getting e-mails from people who are literally scared of what an Obama presidency will mean to this country. I have never seen this kind of fear among people. I mean what got in reaction to President Clinton’s candidacy in 1992 was nothing compared to the overall fear that I am seeing from people in the e-mail and when I talk to them personally about the election of Barack Obama.
This is just one of several that I received last night: ‘Dear Rush: Forgive me. I was once an avid listener but I had drifted away for a while due to not being able to hear you at work. I had a long business drive yesterday and I found you again. I need to thank you for reminding me why I need to vote Republican. I’ve always been a straight ticket voter, but this year I’ve been disappointed in McCain. I was a Huckabee guy from the start. However, when McCain was chosen as our guy I wondered if this was the year for me to vote Libertarian or not at all, until yesterday. Fortunately, you read the blog from the ex-Obama campaigner describing how the propaganda campaign was running. I felt so stupid to realize that I, too, have been caught up in the anxiety that, ‘He said what?’ and dismayed at the prospect of a race already over. But thanks to you, Rush, I will full heartedly go to the polls on November 4th, and I’ll touch the screen for McCain. I have realized that the only way to beat the socialist messiah will be to actually show up and vote. Your message has reinvigorated my passion for this election. Thank you, Dan,’ who is from Elyria, Ohio. It is a county where McCain visited. Obama did not go there, according to Dan, because Obama is too elite.
Now, if you were with us yesterday and you remember the blog post at HillBuzz by the Obama campaign worker named Sarah who basically threw the lid off what is actually going on in the Obama campaign. They’re not nearly as far ahead as they have convinced everybody in the media, and a lot of voters. Everything about their campaign, seminar callers, seminar bloggers, seminar responders on YouTube, seminar everything; it is all image; it is being done to craft this notion that there is no stopping Obama, that it is a fait accompli. The only problem is Obama is not behaving that way. Obama is now trying to lower expectations. He’s going to states that were in the bag. Let me share with you another post from another anonymous person, this also from the Obama campaign. It’s a woman, and what we’re picking up out there is that there really are a number of angry Democrat women. They are angry over the way this Democrat party is treating traditional Democrat voters, trying to destroy Joe the Plumber, an average blue-collar guy; trying to destroy Sarah Palin. These women do not like it. Let me read you part four of this latest anonymous post for an Obama campaign worker. This is a different one than Sarah P. from yesterday. This is a long post. I’m just going to read you this one point, number four.
‘The Bradley Effect. Do not believe these public polls for a second. I just went over our numbers, found that we have next to no chance –‘ this is regarding Obama, ‘– in the following states: Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada. Ohio leans heavily to McCain but it’s too close to call it for him. Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa are the true toss-up states. The only two of these the Obama campaign feels confident are Iowa and New Mexico, but now Obama’s headed back to Iowa on Monday. The reason for such polling discrepancy is the Bradley Effect, and this is a subject of much discussion in the campaign. In general, we in the Obama campaign tend to take a ten-point percentage in allowing for this, a minus ten-point percentage for allowing this and are not comfortable until the polls give us a spread well over this mark.’ Let me pause here. I granted an interview back in August with a guy from the UK Telegraph. That interview was published. It’s a long story. It’s not bad. The guy gets a lot of things wrong, but he’s a better writer than a lot of our guys. The things he gets wrong he pulled out of the Nexis database, he’s got Chuck Norris living next to me and this sort of stuff, but the quotes are good.
One of the things I said to him, ‘The Bradley Effect.’ I said, ‘If Obama’s not up ten points or more going into this, then they’re in trouble,’ and here’s this woman from the Obama campaign now posting saying the same thing. ‘In general, we tend to take a minus ten point percentage in allowing for the Bradley Effect. We’re not comfortable until the polls give us a spread well over this mark. That is why we are still campaigning in Virginia and Pennsylvania. This is why Ohio is such a desperate hope for us. What truly bothers the Obama campaign is the fact that some pollsters get up to an 80% refuse-to-respond result. You can’t possibly include these in the polls, but they are. The truth is, people are afraid to let people know who they’re voting for. The vast majority of these responders are McCain supporters. Obama is the hip choice and we all know it,’ and they’re worried that hip does not translate on Election Day.
She continued here, ‘As part of my research duties I scour right-wing blogs and websites to get somewhat of a feel as to what’s being talked about on the other side. Much of it’s nonsense, but there are some exceptions which give the campaign jitters. A spirited campaign has been made to infiltrate many pro-Hillary sites and discredit them. A more disorganized but genuine effort has also been made to sow doubts among the unapologetically right-wing sites such as RedState.com. Don’t you guys get it? This has been the Obama campaign’s sole strategy from the beginning. The only way he wins is over a dispirited, disorganized, and demobilized opposition. This is how it’s been for all of his campaigns. What surprises me is that everybody’s fallen for it. You may point to the polls as proof to the inevitability of all this. If so, you have fallen for the oldest trick in the book. How do we skew the polls you might ask? It all starts with the media buzz, which has been generated over the campaign. The media is now factoring the public mood in their weighting of poll results. Many stories are generated on the powerful Obama ground game and how many new voters were registered. None of this happens by coincidence, all part of the poll skewing process. This makes pollsters change their mixes to reflect these new voters and tilt the mix more towards Democrat voters.
‘What is not mentioned or reported is not the underreported cell phone users or young voters we hear so much about. What’s underreported is you, the American people. That’s underreported. I changed my somewhat positive opinion of this campaign during the unfair and sexist campaign against Sarah Palin. I’ll never agree with her on anything. I’ll probably never vote for her, but I’m embarrassed at what’s happened. I can’t ignore our own hand in all this. What I do know is I’m not voting Obama this time around. Treat that as you will.’ Yet another anonymous poster from the Obama campaign to go with Sarah P. from yesterday that was on HillBuzz. And, by the way, Sarah P. is back. She’s got another one today, and there are additional posts like this. Now, you might be saying, ‘Rush, are you sure this is not a setup?’ Well, tell me something. I share this stuff with you. I tell you it comes from the Obama campaign, disaffected female members of the Obama campaign. Does it depress you? Does it inspire you not to vote, or does it do the opposite? What could be in it for Obama to have people going on websites putting this stuff out? I can’t think of anything. If you can, let me know.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to this Politico story for just a minute, because this is Obama’s greatest fear. Obama and McCain ‘are evenly matched in the swing states of North Carolina and Missouri, though Obama is strongly outpacing McCain in two of those states’ crucial battleground counties, according to new Politico/InsiderAdvantage polls. In North Carolina, Obama and McCain were tied with 48 percent of the vote. Only 3 percent of voters in the state remain undecided. In Missouri, McCain led Obama 50 percent to 47 percent, an edge that was within the margin of error.’ But, ‘Voters in North Carolina’s Wake County, however, part of the politically competitive Research Triangle area’ Obama is up by 53 to 39.
Now, what all this means is that Obama’s greatest fear is big turnout in mostly ignored rural areas for McCain and not enough of a turnout, not a big enough turnout in these urban areas and in the inner suburbs. Now, this article talks about North Carolina and Missouri, but I have to assume the McCain people think the same scenario could play out in Pennsylvania, ’cause they’re there. They have been there for the last week. It also has a large population in rural and small towns, and it was in this state’s primary that Obama made his bitter clinger remarks at the billionaire fundraiser out in San Francisco. Look, folks, the thing to keep in mind here is that these reports that we’re getting from inside the Obama campaign…
Yeah, and Murtha’s, Murtha’s asked for a million-dollar campaign donation. He’s in trouble. Jack Murtha’s in trouble in his ‘racist’ ‘redneck’ district, quote Jack Murtha, unquote, near Johnstown. He’s in trouble. There’s a lot going on here that the Drive-Bys are not reporting because they’ve been swept up in all that we have learned here from the inside Obama campaign that the entire campaign has been to create an illusion. The entire campaign has been to create an illusion — starting with skewing pollsters and co-opting the Drive-By Media — to make it look like this is a fait accompli from the get-go. And this is why in the past week to ten days, I’ve made the point repeatedly here, not to fall prey to what you see on television and read in the dwindling editions of newspapers that are out there.