RUSH: Here’s Don in Prescott, Arizona, great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh program.
CALLER: Pleasure to speak with you, Rush.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: My question is in regards to Sarah Palin’s support of John McCain in the Arizona senatorial race. She’s allied herself with the tea party movement, but I can assure you, the Arizona tea party folks are not supporting John McCain. The chair of the Maricopa Republican Party — you may have of heard this last week — went on the news last week and stated that he doesn’t even regard John McCain as a Republican. So I went to a J.D. Hayworth campaign rally on Tuesday of this week sponsored by the tea party, and John McCain got mostly boos when his name was mentioned. So I understand that Palin sees some allegiance to John McCain, but it’s really terribly misplaced allegiance. So my question is, can anything be done to get her to support J.D. Hayworth, or is it too late at this point?
RUSH: Oh, it’s too late. She’s not going to bounce off of this.
CALLER: What are the implications for her — you know, certainly she’s supporting a candidate that’s held in very low regard to the tea party movement.
RUSH: Yeah, but —
CALLER: What are the implications for her in all this?
RUSH: We talked about this the other day. I know a lot of people think that this is the part of cronyism in politics that’s gotta change.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: However, if you’re Sarah Palin, the one thing you know is that if it weren’t for John McCain, nobody would know who you are right now.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: And there’s, you know, she has some loyalty there. I’m more puzzled by Scott Brown endorsing McCain and then having McCain come into his district so Brown can campaign for him.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Palin’s not doing that.
CALLER: We’re hoping that J.D. Hayworth’s going to make it, but certainly Sarah Palin — probably independents in Arizona would like the fact that she was here and supporting John McCain, but certainly the tea party movement is not in line with that.
RUSH: Well, I know. It’s tough thing. I know why she’s doing it. Look it: I haven’t spoken to her about it, and I don’t even want to put words in her mouth. I can only address this were I to be in her shoes. And she’s a Republican, and she’s made the case that she’s a Republican, and this guy put her on the ticket, and had that not happened, she’d be ‘Sarah Who?’ She owes him something.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, now, look, those of you out there in the tea party that are miffed at Sarah Palin and at Scott Brown, I just want to remind you of one thing, like I said the other day. If Sarah Palin had not endorsed McCain, can you imagine what the press would do to her? Can you imagine the refrain: ‘Oh, he’s perfectly fine to be president, you’d run on the ticket with him as president, but he’s not good enough to be Senator from Arizona?’ They would kill her. And in the case of Scott Brown, McCain was the first senator to openly support Scott Brown. He was being totally ignored by every other Republican in the Beltway. It’s the same deal, folks, it’s just loyalty. It just is.