RUSH: John in Centreville, Maryland, you’re next on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Dittos from Centreville, Maryland, the great Mr. Limbaugh. How are you today?
RUSH: Fine, sir. Thanks very much for calling.
CALLER: Well, thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: I’m a faithful listener. I listen as much as I can. And Mr. Snerdley told me to get right to my point. I think the conservatives have to define the issue and how we define the issue with regard to this Porkulus package is that we go back to basics and we look at what Ronald Reagan said in his first inaugural address, and if you juxtapose what he said in that inaugural with similar economic times — actually they were worse economic times. We juxtapose that with Obama’s scare tactics it becomes clear what we have to do, and that is we have to inform and put this situation into context.
RUSH: Well, who is ‘we’?
CALLER: We as conservatives.
RUSH: No, but name names. Tell me who.
CALLER: Name names?
RUSH: Yeah. Tell me who is not doing that.
CALLER: Well, I don’t think the people — our senators are doing it well enough. I don’t think our congressmen are doing it well enough.
RUSH: Amen! Amen! You just said it. The reason that conservatism is perceived to be down and out is that there hasn’t been an elected Republican articulating it in 15 years.
CALLER: It’s amazing, isn’t it?
RUSH: If an elected Republican would articulate conservatism… McCain didn’t do it; George W. Bush was not ‘a’ conservative. He was conservative on certain things, but he was not a conservative. We don’t have any elected officials who are on a daily basis providing the alternative to voters, be they either a member of the House or the Senate or a presidential candidate. It hasn’t happened. I maintain… This is why I still remain optimistic. If somebody would just come along and do it, they could do it all day in the media, but you see what happens. You know, I’m now perceived as the leader of what? The Obama people are telling me not to listen to me. Gallup is polling me. Why? Because I’m the perceived chief articulator of conservatism! What liberals want is McCain-type Republicans. They want David Brooks-type Republicans. They want the new conservative media-type Republicans who think that the best way to start serving America and winning election is to start looking at people as members of groups.
‘Oh, yeah! We gotta get the Hispanic vote. We gotta get the female vote. We gotta get the black vote — and we gotta use government to do it. We just have to do it smarter. We just have to do it wiser.’ Well, I will guarantee you, the Democrat Party will run against those Republicans any day of the week, and they’ll promote ’em and they’ll make ’em big shots ’cause they will cream ’em every day of the week. Those kind of Republicans are going to lose elections — national elections, presidential elections — every single one. Those kind of Republicans who do what Democrats do, but try to do it ‘smarter,’ try to get this group and that group or what have you, talk about using government to help people get benefits, blah, blah, blah. No wonder Democrats who love those kinds of Republicans, ’cause they can cream ’em! So why do they come after me? They come after me because I’m perceived to be the leading spokesman of what they fear. They know conservatism shellacs ’em when it’s in the mouths of a Gingrich or a Reagan. So they’re doing everything they can to discredit conservatism by discrediting me. So when you say ‘we need to do this,’ plenty of us are. It’s the GOP that needs to get back on board.