McCain Heads GOP Road Show?

RUSH: Last night, Campbell Brown, No Bias, No Bull, she’s on maternity leave, has some guest host in there. But this is a portion of a report by Jessica Yellin about the new effort by the National Council for a New America to jump-start the Republican Party.

YELLIN: Only one in five Americans actually calls themselves a Republican. That’s down even since last November’s election. One of the problems they’re facing is that the press keeps focusing on polarizing leaders like Governor Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. Now a group of congressional Republicans is trying to turn things around with a road show. And guess who they picked as the salesman for the new Republican Party? Some not so new faces. Senator John McCain, former governors Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, and the one newcomer, Governor Bobby Jindal. Now, they plan to hold town halls and get conversation going with folks who are independents and interested Democrats.

RUSH: Now, I don’t care about this. They can do what they want but Newt’s not going to be happy being left out of the group. Newt will not be happy being left out. I don’t know about Sarah Palin, but the headliner of this road show, the new Republican Party, is McCain? Why didn’t they go get Arlen Specter? I mean, the Democrats are out there saying we need to become more like them. Pelosi is saying we need to become more like Democrats if we want to survive as a party. So get Arlen Specter to lead this road show. Carville, Situation Room, CNN. Wolf Blitzer asked him about this National Council for a New America, which is the McCain-led road show. Question, ‘What do you think of this new effort by the former governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, trying to rebrand the Republicans right now, come up with a new image to counter this notion that the Republicans are the Party of No?’

CARVILLE: Well, you know, look, they’ve tried a lot of things. They’ve tried the Sarah Palin thing. That blew up in their face. Rush and Michael Steele, the tea bagging. That hasn’t worked out very well. Yeah, I kind of got a little bit of sympathy for them. They’ve got to try something. They just can’t sit there and take the pounding that they’re taking.

RUSH: I gave the recipe yesterday. This is such a golden opportunity. They tried the Rush thing, they tried the Sarah Palin thing, they tried the tea bag. (laughing) Hey, James, we don’t have any tea baggers. They’re all on CNN. They are. Tea baggers are at CNN. At any rate, what is this Party of No business? Damn right we’re the Party of No. We do say no to all of this far, extreme radical leftism. What were the Democrats the past seven years? They were no to even victory in Iraq. These guys, they’re going to make a mistake if they allow Democrat criticism to shape the way they do this road show.