RUSH: Back on January 24th, 2010, Arkansas Gazette: ‘Health Care Story, A Rerun — US Rep. Marion Berry and others involved in the last major effort to overhaul the health-care system are struck by a sense of political deja vu.’ They talk about 1993 and 1994, health care bombing out and the Democrats losing control of the House. They go and ask Berry about it in this story. Berry says, and this is just last January, (paraphrasing) ‘Well, you know, I’ve been doing this with the White House, doing that with the White House, and they just don’t seem to give any credibility at all. They just kept 
telling us how good it was going to be.’ The president himself, when it was brought up in one of the groups, said that the big difference here and in 1994 was, ‘You’ve got me.’ You’ve got me. We’re going to see how much difference that makes now. Obama said this in January, and it’s interesting to go back and look, ‘Yeah, we’ve got you.’ Who was the big loser in the elections yesterday? There’s no other way to slice this. The big loser was Obama.
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RUSH: I just find it so enjoyable to watch, in unison, the State-Controlled Media try to spin this. We’ve even got people on our side looking at Pennsylvania-12. This is the seat, the special election for Jack Murtha’s seat. We’ve got people on our side saying, ‘Uh-oh. Oh no. Burns was supposed to win this and Burns didn’t win this would be we’re going to have to revise our whole projection about the Republicans winning the House in November. If the Republicans can’t pull this off, why, we’re maybe overstating Republican strength.’ This is people on our side saying this. On the left’s side, the spin… They’re lying to themselves like I’ve never seen them lie to themselves before. They’re out there trying to say so many things.
‘Well, this is anti-incumbent election. Anybody who’s an incumbent, they’re all in trouble. It’s not focused on just one party.’ Anti-incumbent in Pennsylvania? Let’s look at Sestak versus Specter. Sestak is a two-term congressman. He is a huge lib. He is an incumbent, he is in office, and he won — and yet they’re trying to spin this as an anti-incumbent race in Pennsylvania. The reason Sestak beat Specter in the primaries because a lot of Democrats saw Specter as a Republican up until a year ago. We lost in the 12th district of Pennsylvania for a simple reason: There’s almost a hundred thousand union members in that district. The district has been gerrymandered for Murtha for years. It’s 2-1 Democrat versus Republican voter registration, and in addition to that, the Murtha hack — Christ, or Crist, whatever his name is — that won, was seriously running around as a conservative Rush Limbaugh.
This guy was running as a conservative. Now, the members of the media to want try to say (and our guy getting sucked into this, is embarrassing), ‘Well, look at this! I mean, this is a race that mattered. Pennsylvania-12, that’s the only race that mattered — and the Republicans, I mean they weren’t even on the game. They weren’t even on the floor, they weren’t even on the field. I mean, this was a rout.’ Well, it’s 2-1 voter registration. You have a statewide Democrat primary, which of course is going to launch for Democrats. You got a 2-1 voter registration advantage, and you’ve got the Democrat running as a conservative who would bring home the pork. He ran as a conservative and was promising to do what Murtha did, to keep Murtha’s airport open, even though there was never any traffic there. He’s going to bring all the bacon home. This should not be a surprise. There are far more informative and telling results from yesterday other than Pennsylvania-12. However, the vein where the rich gold is ready to be mined is the media’s coverage of all this.
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RUSH: This Critz guy — you’ll have to forgive me, folks, I do not listen to TV with the sound on because I often can’t hear it. I only read closed-captioning on TV or on the Internet, of course, so I don’t purposely mispronounce people’s names unless I heard it pronounced, I’m just going to look at it and pronounce it as I was taught to pronounce things in grade school, long I, short I, long A, short A, blah, blah, blah. So to me it looks like it would be Critz. Anyway, this guy in Pennsylvania-12 pretended to be me, pretended to be pro-gun, he was pro-life, and he said he was against Obamacare, and he said he was going to bring home all the bacon. And these guys in the media, which is another great illustration of the disconnect between liberalism and Americanism, they are focusing on this Pennsylvania-12 as though it changes the game everywhere.
This is an end to all of the punditry that the Republicans are gonna sweep to victory in the House this November. No. The lesson here is there apparently, even in Pennsylvania-12, is a conservative ascendancy. It might also be the case that the Republicans picked the wrong candidate. I don’t know. I have no clue, but the winner sounded like the Rush Limbaugh of the Democrat Party, and in a 2-1 Democrat district, no surprise. Even in Kentucky, the secretary of state there, Grayson, was not a Washington politician. He had never served in Washington, he wasn’t an establishment insider, yet he lost. Why? He lost because he was considered a moderate because he was tied to Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell was said to have handpicked Grayson along with other establishment Republicans. But he’s not a Washington incumbent. They’re trying to spell this as an anti-incumbent election, and Sestak is an incumbent in the House. McConnell’s boy, Grayson, is not an incumbent. Rand Paul is more conservative. He was the winner, Libertarian.
In Arkansas the leftists tried to knock off Blanche Lincoln even though she routinely votes for Obama’s radical agenda, but now there’s going to be a runoff. I mean if this were a big comeback and a big sweep for the radical left of the Democrat Party, none of what happened yesterday would have happened. She’s probably now going to be a runoff there. But, look, it is unlikely, folks — I don’t want you to fall into this media trap here focusing on Pennsylvania-12 as changing the game. It’s unlikely we’re going to win most 2-1 districts. Why do you think they’re gerrymandered in the first place? They’re gerrymandered to make sure that the incumbent hangs on. In this case the incumbent passed away. But we’re not going to win all the 2-1 districts. But the thing is we don’t have to. They’re really setting a trap here. Disconnect, liberalism and Americanism. They’re trying to dispirit everybody on our side. We don’t have to win these 2-1 districts. We don’t have to take out Chuck Schumer in order to sweep to victory. We don’t have to take out Pelosi. We’re not gonna take out Pelosi. If Pelosi’s ever taken out it’s going to be the Democrats that will do it at some point down the road in a primary, or she’ll retire, but we don’t have to win those districts.
If we win seats where the Democrats have a 10% advantage, then we are gonna win a huge number of seats as well as seats that they hold in marginally Republican districts. Don’t forget because of 2006 and 2008 a lot of Democrats were elected in marginally Republican districts. We haven’t had a test of one of those. So we’re still on track here. Let me go through the list here of the humongous defeats Obama has suffered in election after election after election. He was the big loser yesterday, no matter which way you slice this. Now, Politico is out there making the same argument. Oh, yeah, big, Obama, he wasn’t on the ballot, it didn’t matter, anti-incumbent mood, no big deal, nothing to get worried about here. They’re going to eat those words in November but nobody’s going to remember. ‘In the only House race that really mattered to both parties — the special election to replace the late Democratic Rep. John Murtha in Pennsylvania’s 12th District — Republicans failed spectacularly, losing on a level playing field where, in this favorable environment, they should have run roughshod over the opposition.’
Level playing field? How do you get that Pennsylvania-2 — these are Politico’s words — how do you get to the fact that Pennsylvania -2’s a level playing ground? You’ve got tens of thousands of union people there, all Democrats. You’ve got 2-1 voter registration, Democrat. You’ve got a sympathy candidate because Murtha died, passed away. You got a candidate running as a conservative. Again, pretended to be pro-gun, pretended to be pro-life, said he was against Obamacare, was against the cap and trade. The only thing he really did that reminded people of Murtha was promise to bring home the bacon, to bring home the pork. Plus there was a statewide Democrat primary. So they can lie to themselves if they want, the disconnect between liberalism and Americanism. If the guys at The Politico want to tell themselves that Pennsylvania-12 was a level playing field and that the Republicans got routed in a race that they should have run runoff shod over the opposition, whoever said that was going to happen? Whoever said the Republicans were going to run roughshod over Critz? Whoever said that?
So all of these phony objectives are set up which can’t be met and then when they’re not met, when they’re spectacularly not met, then of course we get a big change in the conventional wisdom. It’s designed to buoy the spirits of the Democrat base, which is really dispirited — they’re about as low as that oil spill in the Gulf is right now, even after yesterday — and to dispirit you. Don’t let that happen. I’ll tell you when it’s time to be dispirited. And it’s not time.
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RUSH: One more thing about this guy Critz, rhymes with Ritz in Pennsylvania-12. Not only was he in favor of cap and trade, after the oil spill, even after that he came out in favor of offshore drilling. Now, I challenge anybody — you people at The Politico and all of you in the Drive-By Media, I challenge you to challenge all of these incumbent Democrats to run on Obama’s agenda. I challenge you to run on Pelosi’s agenda. You tell them that’s where their future is. Their future is running on supporting Obama’s agemda, bringing him in the campaign. You do that, you win an election, and then we’ll talk.
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RUSH: And you know what else this Critz guy said during his campaign? The Democrat from Pennsylvania-12 — in addition to being pro-gun, in addition to being pro-life, in addition to being anti-Obamacare, in addition to being for offshore oil drilling after the spill — in the campaign, the Democrat, Critz, claimed that western Pennsylvania could become the energy capital of the world with their natural gas reserves and their oil reserves and nuclear power. This was the Democrat that swept to victory in Pennsylvania-12 yesterday, and all of these people on the media side are acting like this is a giant sweep and a great win for Obama. Look, folks, Obama held a little news conference today with Felipe Calderon. He took just one question from a Univision reporter and one question from a Mexican reporter — and one of those questions had eight questions in it. It went on for two minutes, and Obama said (doing impression), ‘Well, you know, in my opening statement I answered those in a comprehensive way. Let me deal with the second question you asked.’
I kid you not. This guy had about eight questions in one question. Obama said, ‘I’ve answered all that in my opening statement, my comprehensive statement, but let me tackle number two for you.’ So it was very convenient. There were no questions, no other questions — and, folks, The Politico and the State-Controlled Media want you to believe Obama was the big winner last night? He wasn’t asked about last night’s results. He didn’t bring up last night’s results. If Obama was the big winner last night he would have opened this press conference with what a great day it was for America moving forward. So again I, El Rushbo, at 1-800-282-2882 (there’s the show open for you) urge all of you in the media who are seeking such happiness and delight today over what you think is the important race, Pennsylvania-12, where the Republicans should have steamrolled to victory in a 2-1 Democrat district: You get your boys.
You get your Democrats, I don’t care where they are, and you get ’em to run on Obama’s agenda. You get ’em to run for reelection in November on Pelosi and Reid’s and Obama’s agenda, and you ask them to bring Obama in to campaign for them and then win, and then we’ll talk. But if you guys can only win by emulating me, this guy Critz in Pennsylvania-12 was the Rush Limbaugh of the Democrat Party throughout this campaign. Make no mistake about it, folks: There is a conservative ascendancy that’s going on out there, and the Democrats know it. In order to win, even in a 2-1 district, they have to sound like me. What a news conference. Not one question about last night’s results. So again: There’s a disconnect between liberalism and Americanism. What is real is ignored; What is not real is highlighted, amplified, and made up. If Arlen Specter woulda won last night, Obama would have opened up with a shout-out to his big ‘hombre amigo.’
Because when Specter switched parties, Obama said, ‘Specter is one tough hombre.’ You know what I loved about that campaign? Specter was out there running commercials — I mean, they were saturating state with commercials — of Obama praising Specter for switching parties. ‘One tough hombre.’ So what did Sestak do? Sestak went out and put together an ad that included video of George W. Bush coming in to praise Arlen Specter when he was running against Pat Toomey. So if you’re a Democrat in Pennsylvania and you’re going to the polls and it’s raining cats and dogs and it’s cold as hell, unseasonably cold, and you see these two ads…? (laughing) What the hell? You’re gonna go Sestak, even if you don’t know who he is. So I would venture Sestak’s ads using Bush supporting Specter had much more impact than Specter’s ads with Obama supporting him.