RUSH: A guy named Kevin Collins at CollinsReport.net has taken the AP survey that had the one-point lead and has dug deep into the internals, and he says that this AP poll that has it one point for Obama just screams trouble, because this poll reported that Obama’s base support is just 80% — and that’s a big if, if that’s true. But if it is true, it’s monumental. I hate to keep going back to yesterday, but I offered you a theory in the third hour yesterday, that what’s happening with a lot of these polls, the pollsters go out and they ask all of their respondents, ‘Are you Republican or Democrat?’ It’s the first question, and right now you’ve got about 10% more people who say they’re Democrats just in general than are Republicans and this is because the war in Iraq’s been forgotten and Bush is not popular.
That figure turns around when there’s a popular Republican in the White House. So you get a ten-point advantage here in Democrats. So the pollsters therefore weight it. They put that many at least more Democrats in the poll than they do Republicans, and one of the things that they’re not factoring in… I’m confident of this, and this AP poll data sort of confirms this for me. One thing that they’re not factoring is how many Democrats are not going to vote for Obama despite what they tell the pollsters. There are a lot of Reagan Democrats out there. There are a lot of Democrats who don’t like Obama. There are a lot of Democrats who didn’t vote for him in Ohio or Pennsylvania or Texas when the primaries were going on. There are a lot of Democrats who don’t like French-type socialism, which is what Obama is talking about here.
And you know what the situation was in France before they elected a conservative, Sarkozy, to start fixing it. It was a mess. They couldn’t fire anybody. Unemployment was at 14%. Over half the country was receiving their total subsistence from the other portion of the country that was working. Now, last June when former Hillary supporters were asked, 58% said they supported Obama. But the same survey also showed that 21% of Hillary supporters were voting for McCain. And they did a follow-up survey of the very same people sometime later. It showed McCain had grown to 28% of Hillary’s voters, while remaining stagnant at 58% for Obama. So in the internals of the latest AP poll, it looks like the undecideds seem to be moving to McCain. Now, the media is not talking about these numbers, obviously, but they could be very important.
If Obama is just getting 80% of Democrat support, then he’s got to be in trouble. A base support that low can’t be overcome and it’s not enough to get Obama elected. In 2000, Algore got 92% of the Democrat vote, and he lost. In 2004, John Kerry — the haughty John Kerry (who served in Vietnam) — got 89% of the Democrat vote, and he lost by a clear margin. Now, there would have to be a huge difference in party ID to pull Obama through with just 80% of his base, and the reported split among independents doesn’t help matters. The base support numbers in this AP poll, if it’s accurate, tell a very important story. And if they are real, it’s going to be tough for Obama to overcome this. Also, this is from the CNBC.com website yesterday. ‘Election Day is only two weeks away, and as John McCain and Barack Obama make their final pitches to ‘close the deal’ with voters, a stunning new ATI-News/Zogby poll shows a clear majority of undecided voters disagree with Obama’s plan for wealth redistribution in America.
”The major issue on voters’ minds right now is the economy, and the major voting bloc on candidates’ minds right now is the undecided voter,’ said ATI-News president Brad O’Leary. ‘Our poll results show that undecided voters overwhelmingly reject Obama’s economic plan to redistribute wealth,” and we’ve got Obama. Let’s see. I’m looking through the sound bite roster here, Mike. I know we’ve got Obama saying he’s going to stand by this. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Pardon me, folks, while I look for this. Well, it’s here. I can’t find it right now. But I think he told Robin Roberts at ABC’s Good Morning America that he has no regrets about saying anything that he said to Joe the Plumber. Here it is: audio sound bite number seven. It’s Robin Roberts interviewing Barack Obama, and she said, ‘Do you have any regrets that you said to Joe the Plumber, your spread the wealth comments?’
RUSH: Uhhhhhhh, wrong on so many counts. But the one thing that I have to say here about Obama: He is consistent. He never wavers from what he says. Well, that’s not true. He has moderated his position on a couple things. But the point is, as far as his base is concerned, he’s consistent. He didn’t back off this. When he talks about the free market he always criticizes the free market. When he talks about the rich, he always rips the rich. You know, one day you’ve got McCain out there sounding like Milton Friedman; the next day you’ve got him sounding like FDR. The lack of consistency in the McCain message is striking compared to the consistency in the Obama message. And he’s also, Obama, very consistent about America is to blame.
Now, he’s consistent. He’s wrong in practically everything he’s voted on and said, but he’s consistent with it. He doesn’t shock his supporters. He doesn’t make ’em scratch their heads. Of course they’re not even really listening to the substance of what Obama is saying. Now, this tax cut thing is one thing where he has changed his mind because he got caught on this. He was going to give ‘a tax break to 95% of Americans.’ Now, the problem is that a little under 70% is the largest number of Americans that pay taxes. Around 30, 32% of Americans do not pay income taxes. This was pointed out to Obama. He said, ‘Well, they pay payroll taxes, and I’m going to give them a tax credit, and they’re going to get a tax credit on their payroll taxes. They’re paying taxes; they ought to get a tax cut, too.’
So he’s going to rob the Social Security trust fund, theoretically, in order to give this tax cut, and then he said… This is one of these things that leads me to believe that Obama does not understand certain crucial things about this government. When he was challenged about his tax plan for ‘a tax cut for 95% of all Americans’ — because 95% of all Americans don’t pay taxes — he was quick to point out that working Americans do pay payroll taxes. He said they needed a tax cut, too. When it was pointed out to him that his tax cut was in reality a socialist welfare program because it was confiscating more tax revenues from income-tax-paying Americans to hand over to non-income-tax-paying Americans, Obama said, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’
He did this this week. He said there’s going to be a ‘work requirement’ to his tax plan. Now, I have a news flash to Senator Government here. The fact that a person pays payroll taxes means they already have a job. And if they already have a job, Senator Government, it means they’re already working. So what in the name of tarnation are you talking about that these people are going to face a work requirement, and that’s going to eliminate the fact that it’s welfare? They’re already working if they’re paying payroll taxes. Now, because I have come to understand Obama, I don’t think he understands what payroll taxes are. I don’t think that he understood what capital gains taxes are when he started talking about making them ‘progressive.’
I’m not sure he knows that payroll taxes are taken out of workers’ paychecks. Furthermore, I don’t think he cares. He talks about Biden’s rhetorical flourishes, but Obama is given to his own. What he understands and believes, my good friends, is income redistribution. He understands socialism. He understands radicalism, just like his friends. I think that he’s treading here on dangerous water because this is a wide-open for McCain in a normal campaign. Of course, I want to reiterate something else, ladies and gentlemen. This economy… I was on Fox & Friends this morning for about ten minutes. They got, I think, two questions in, in those minutes. And I made the point that where we are right now, this economy is the election. I said, ‘Even though this economy can be directly traced to Democrat policies, McCain has to make that case,’ and people sent me e-mail.
‘This is not about just the economy! It’s about national security.’ I know it’s about all those things! What I’m trying to say is that right now, with a little over a week to go, with what’s happening in the stock market and all this never-ending news about we’re coming up on a recession, we got layoffs coming, people are getting fired… Chrysler is going to make deep cuts, white-collar workers; 25% of their white-collar workforce is going to be laid off next month. ‘Cuts are necessary because of the deep downturn in the economy and the tightening credit situation choking off auto sales.’ Well, shazam! Thank you, Democrat Party, and thank you, Obama. So he’s got to link the Democrat Party to this economic crisis, but he has to criticize Democrats to do that, and he’s afraid he’s going to lose moderates, which he’s losing moderates left and right anyway!