RUSH: Audio sound bite time. We have a roster full of things. We’re going to start here with David Wright on ABC’s Nightline, his report on exit polls and Operation Chaos.
WRIGHT: …in the exit polls is that 7% of the Indiana voters who voted for Clinton say that they’ll vote for John McCain in the fall. Now, what does that mean? Uh, possible that it’s, uh, the, uh, chaos, uh, project that, uh, Rush Limbaugh mounted, urging Republicans to cross over and vote in the Democratic primary for Clinton in order to wreak chaos on the process. Possible that it’s something else.
RUSH: Now, the haughty John Kerry, showing no nuance whatsoever, was on MSNBC’s Decision ’08 last night and said this.
KERRY: The fact that Rush Limbaugh is urging people in Indiana to go out and vote for Hillary Clinton tells you the whole story. Republicans believe Hillary Clinton is the best shot they’ve got, and Barack Obama is — they’re scared of him. They don’t know how to campaign against him, and I believe he’ll be the nominee.
RUSH: Again, Kerry (sigh) is just a doofus. Operation Chaos is not about choosing Hillary, and he said it again today in a conference call. The Obama campaign and the Clinton campaigns have conference calls with reporters. They had one today about 11:50. Kerry was on with David Axelrod talking to reporters and said this…
KERRY: If it hadn’t been for Republicans taking Democratic ballots, he likely would have won in Indiana, too. So you have — Uh, really there’s no masquerade now. Rush Limbaugh was tampering with the primary, and the GOP has clearly declared that they want Hillary Clinton as a candidate.
RUSH: Wrong, Senator. It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing. ‘Can I get me a huntin’ license, here?’ It’s embarrassing to listen to Senator Kerry be so factually incorrect. We didn’t tamper. People can vote for whoever they want for whatever reason. The tampering going on, once again is in the Democrat Party led by Howard George Wallace Dean; denying the franchise of the vote to delegates and voters from Florida and Michigan because to do so might jeopardize the fact that they’ve rigged the game for Obama. Chris Matthews said that you Operation Chaos operatives should be ashamed.
MATTHEWS: Anyone who voted to screw up the political system in this country with the purpose of mischief, should carry that with them the rest of their lives. What a ridiculous way to use the vote for which people fought and died, to use that vote to make mischief. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
RUSH: That was Chris Matthews addressing me, your commander-in-chief, Operation Chaos, and you operatives. (laughs) I’ll tell you! Hey, Chris, a little cheese with your whine here? I mean… (laughing) Oh, we should be ashamed! Never mind the fact — never mind the fact — that Democrats crossed over in our primaries in 2000, and this year basically chose our nominee. Last night again on MSNBC, this is Chris Matthews with further Operation Chaos analysis.
MATTHEWS: She did not acknowledge the help she got from Rush Limbaugh. We’ll get that further note tomorrow around noon on radio, I expect.
TODD: (snickering)
MATTHEWS: We’ll have a surge of information coming from Rush Limbaugh’s radio program tomorrow about his —
TODD: Wait! But — but —
MATTHEWS: — I will call it the Limbaugh lift.
RUSH: The Limbaugh lift. I hope they were listening at the beginning of the program today. Mrs. Clinton, I think, did make a tactical error. Had Mrs. Clinton thanked me, had Mrs. Clinton acknowledged Operation Chaos, she could have said something like this. After one of these victories, she could have thanked us. After Pennsylvania, she could have thanked everybody at Operation Chaos. Not even mention the name, just thanked the Republicans that crossed over to voted for her, that she knew some crossed over and voted for her who don’t intend to vote for her in November. But between now and then, she intends to give them every reason to stay in her camp and vote for her. She could have done something. (interruption) No, I have received no flowers from Mrs. Clinton. I don’t expect to but I’m telling you that she was sitting there, and she had a gold mine of an opportunity here to try to keep these voters, but she was just afraid of acknowledging Operation Chaos because she was afraid of acknowledging that some of her votes were tainted. More Chris Matthews. Last night, MSNBC.
MATTHEWS: If we have this, uh, chaos, uh, development here from Rush Limbaugh —
TODD: Right.
MATTHEWS: — and an unclear motive to the Republican crossover, could this really be a tainted victory for her, if it’s close?
TODD: Whether we can sit here and try to figure out the chaos theory and the Rush Limbaugh Effect, if there really is one — and what we know, the — the facts are going to be the facts. The delegate count is going to be his on the popular vote; night will end up being his. So on two of the metrics — total popular vote and delegates — they’ll have… Uhhhh, they’ll have lost on both counts. Forget whether we can sit here and — and splice the Indiana electorate and see, was there a Limbaugh Effect or not.
RUSH: That was their political director, Chuck Todd entirely missing the point about Operation Chaos. But nevertheless, once again I would say to Matthews and Chuck Todd, ‘Yeah, go ahead and count the vote. Count the popular vote; count the delegate vote. Don’t count Florida; don’t count Michigan. Don’t count votes so that Obama wins.’ Doesn’t it bother you people in the media? The media, they’re running around telling Hillary, ‘Get out of the race for the good of the Democrat Party.’ What’s the Democrat Party mean to you people in the media? What’s that so…? I ask rhetorically, of course. The bottom line is this. You know it and I know it. Barack Obama cannot win this unless the Democrats make sure that certain votes don’t count. That’s a real strong way of heading into the general, is it not? More MSNBC. Keith Olbermann speaking with Howard Fineman last night. Olbermann said, ‘David Axelrod, in a gathering with reporters, described Limbaugh as Senator Clinton’s new ally. Is it an indicator of some sort of general move towards the kill that we haven’t seen before from the Obama campaign to draw that picture as bluntly as he just said?’
FINEMAN: As far as the Rush Limbaugh Effect is concerned, there may be some, but as I go around the country talking to Republican voters and independents, they may want to do what Rush tells them to, but when they get in the voting booth, their antipathy to Clinton is such that they can’t help but vote for Obama.
RUSH: Okay, so here is a reporter rejecting the statistical results of actual votes as presented by the Obama campaign, two reporters; and he’s substituting anecdotal evidence of his traveling around various states. We know full well that Operation Chaos voters voted, and we know that it pained many of them. But we knew going in this was not an easy mission. We knew it was going to require fortitude, commitment, desire, passion, and operatives came through in Indiana. There can be no question about it! She wins by two points, 20,000 votes. The Obama campaign is out there saying that the Operation Chaos voters gave her a seven-point bump. My friends, without you, this race would be over, and the chaos would have ended. You have succeeded. The chaos continues and goes on. Donna Brazile last night was on CNN. Wolf Blitzer says to her, ‘What do you think is going on among the Republicans?’
BRAZILE: Well, we call them the Limbaugh, uh, Democrat. Rush Limbaugh is encouraging, uh, Republicans to help create chaos in the Democratic Party. I don’t know how much it will work.
RUSH: This was before evidence came in that it had worked from the Obama campaign.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You gotta hear these next two sound bites. Paul Begala, The Forehead, gets into it with Donna Brazile on CNN’s Election Center last night. The hostette Campbell Brown spoke with both of them. She said to Begala, ‘I gotta bring Paul into this and get his take on what everybody’s been saying about beating up your candidate.’
THE FOREHEAD: I love Donna. I’m going to give her a chance — We go back 22 years and we have never been on different sides of an argument in our entire lives. But — but if her point is that, you know, there’s a new Democratic Party that somehow doesn’t need or want white working-class people and — and Latinos, well, count me out.
BRAZILE: Paul, baby, I didn’t say that!
THE FOREHEAD: We cannot win with eggheads and African-Americans, okay? That’s the Dukakis coalition, which carried ten states and — and gave us four years of the first George Bush.
RUSH: Did you hear that? We can’t win with eggheads and African-Americans, that’s the Dukakis coalition, which carried ten states. Now, this infuriates Brazile. She did not like this at all.
BRAZILE: I’ve drank more beers with Joe Six-Packs, Jane Six-Pack —
THE FOREHEAD: (chuckling) Ha. Ha.
BRAZILE: — and everybody else than most white Democrats that you’re talking about. I’m saying that we need to not divide —
THE FOREHEAD: Okay.
BRAZILE: — and polarize the Democratic Party as if the Democratic Party —
THE FOREHEAD: That’s right.
BRAZILE: — will rely simply on white, blue-collar male. You insult every black blue-collar Democrat by saying that. So stop the division. Stop trying to split us into these groups, Paul, because you and I both know we have been in more campaigns.
THE FOREHEAD: Right.
BRAZILLE: Just don’t divide me and tell me I cannot stand in Hillary’s camp because I’m black, and I can’t stand in Obama’s camp because I’m female —
THE FOREHEAD: That’s — Donna, you make a —
BRAZILE: — because I’m both —
THE FOREHEAD: Okay.
BRAZILE: — and I’m grumpy, so I might want McCain and go sit with Bill Bennett, Paul.
BENNETT: That’s fine.
BRAZILE: Don’t start with me, baby.
RUSH: Don’t start with me. I mean the chaos in the Democrat Party, when you got The Forehead telling Donna Brazile we can’t win with just blacks and eggheads, that’s the Dukakis coalition. This is what the superdelegates know, and yet they are prepared to throw the nomination to a guy whose constituent is eggheads, meaning the rich, phony, effete elites and African-Americans. That’s who they’re going to throw this election to. They’re going to do whatever they can to get the superdelegates. Nancy Pelosi is going to be behind this. She doesn’t want Hillary Clinton anywhere near the White House, none whatsoever. They’re going to do this as best they can, and to do it, they have to deny votes. They have to not count certain votes in order to give Obama the Democrat Party nomination.