RUSH: Let me tell you something, folks, on this New York-26 business and Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform and the Republican budget — and this cadre of spineless mainstream Republicans that we seem to have in Washington. Let me tell you what needs to happen: Before the end of this day, if any of them are serious about it. one or more of these Republican presidential candidates needs to call a press conference and stand up for the Ryan plan. We can’t do it alone on talk radio. We can’t do it. You are going to have to speak up. This is a moment — maybe not “the” moment, but it is “a” moment, a test.
Is there somebody in the Republican Party willing to lead? Arthur pulled the sword out of the rock and became King Arthur. The Republican Party rallied almost in unison behind the Paul Ryan Medicare proposal — and now one little election, and we find out where the spines in this party are. One little election in which the winner actually ripped Obama and criticized Obama and the Democrats for $500 billion in Medicare cuts. The winner did that, and they’re trying to tell us this is a referendum on the Ryan Medicare proposal. We had a fraudulent, phony Tea Party candidate siphoning nine points away from the Republican candidate.
When Ryan announced this, there was — it wasn’t total, but there was — a wide swath of the Republican Party, conservative, moderate, whatever that got behind it, because everybody knows we can’t afford to keep going the way we are. So somebody took the first leadership step, Paul Ryan, now won election and now all of a sudden they want to abandon him. (interruption) You disagree with me on this, Snerdley? I’m just telling you: If it’s worth defending when it came out — if it’s worth defending when Ryan announced it — it’s worth defending now. If opposing Obama was worth it when Ryan announced his Medicare reform, it’s worth opposing Obama now, regardless the outcome of this election.
I don’t care what the media is doing. This is a moment for a leader to stand up. Now, the leader might want to stand up and say, “I think the election shows that we’ve bitten too much off in one bite of Medicare.” I would hope not. You just heard Paul Ryan say, “I’m confident that in the next 15 months the truth will get out there.” How? We can’t do it alone on talk radio, nor can he do it alone — and he can’t pull it off at town hall meetings alone. He’s not gonna reach enough people. It is true that when he speaks to seasoned citizens groups, once they hear what the truth is they’re for it. Because it doesn’t affect ’em! There’s not one seasoned citizen that’s affected by the Ryan plan.
The Democrats are lying about this from sunup to sundown, and then some. Not one Medicare recipient will be affected by the Ryan plan. It’s all down the road. Nothing unfair about it at all. If the party doesn’t have the guts to stand up and stop this demagoguery now… (interruption) The little old lady going over the cliff? Yeah, I’ve seen the ad. Little old lady going…? I’ve seen the ad, yeah. It’s a great opportunity for leadership, a great opportunity to somebody to stand up and do something about it. What would Netanyahu do? That seems to be the question of the day: What would Bibi Netanyahu do?
If Bibi Netanyahu was running the Republican Party and believed in the Ryan plan, what would he do? Now, I’m told that the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, just tweeted: “Republican path to prosperity preserves and protects Medicare for retirees and future generations, leaves it completely unchanged for those 55 and over.” Boehner also tweeted: “Washington Democrats’ budget lets Medicare go bankrupt.” Newt Gingrich is defending Ryan’s plan now, I’m told. Somebody sees an opportunity here, as do I.
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RUSH: Chris Chocola, National Review Online, The Corner blog: “Political pundits will say that the Republican candidate for Congress in NY-26 lost because of Medicare. They’re wrong. This election was more of a referendum on a candidate’s ability to defend freedom than anything else. In NY-26, the Republican party nominated a fairly conservative establishment Republican in Jane Corwin, but an ex-Democrat named Jack Davis, running as a ‘Tea-Party’ candidate, siphoned votes from the Republican. The reason was not that Davis is obviously more conservative or because Corwin is not sufficiently conservative: It’s because Corwin did a terrible job articulating the free-market message, and Davis consistently demagogued the important issue of trade.”
Now, this is a fundamental point, and there’s one thing everybody better remember. Every elected Republican seeking reelection November 12 better remember one thing: The November elections of 2010 were not about you. Nobody voted for you. They voted against Democrats. You cannot expect to go into a campaign such as New York-26 and not have a message and expect to win simply because your opponent’s a Democrat. Especially when the Democrats are desperate and they’re gonna bring in a ringer, a fraudulent Tea Party guy to siphon Republican votes. Chocola’s point is you better have a conservative message. It better be conservative. That’s what wins. Just take a look Wisconsin. It wins every time it’s tried, folks. And that sends chills down the spines of Republicans as well in Washington.
Here’s Mark in Buffalo. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Rush, a great, great thrill to talk to you. I know that Snerdley can verify much of what I’m telling you. He’s got some roots in this area, so I won’t take up much of your time. I just wanted to tell you that the seat became available because as you may remember, Chris Lee gave up this seat when he was found to have posted semiclothed pictures of himself on —
RUSH: Right. I’ve got 30 seconds. I didn’t read the clock right. Can you do it in 30 seconds?
CALLER: Right, right. The candidate that was presented was not a strong Republican. The Tea Party candidate was obviously not a Tea Party candidate, and the Democrat was a serious Dem. What ended up happening was the Republican ran a very poor kind of campaign —
RUSH: Exactly.
CALLER: — and assumed that she was going to win —
RUSH: Exactly.
CALLER: — because it’s a fairly Republican district.
RUSH: Exactly, no reason to stick my neck out. No reason to really say, “I got this in the bag, country hates the Democrats.” No reason for me to make myself a target. Right. I’m really reining it in here, folks, isn’t gonna cut it.
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RUSH: If you are a Republican running for office in 2012 and you are a conservative, be proud of it. Don’t be bashful. Be able to defend conservatism. Be able to articulate it. Do it with energy, affection, excitement. It will carry you. Really no mystery here. But you can’t get elected sitting around taking no chances, figuring everybody’s gonna vote against the Democrats again.
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RUSH: Back to New York-26 here for just a second and to try to put things in perspective. The Republicans won that seat in 2008 by six points. When you combine the GOP and the phony Tea Party vote, they woulda won this time by five points after the Democrats poured millions of dollars into this election. Now, here’s what they’re saying at The Politico: “And for the first time since November, the idea that Democrats might have a shot at winning back the House is no longer a laughing matter.” So you see, they are trying to reassure themselves that they are not in deep doo-doo, and they are in deep doo-doo. Now that the New York election is safely stolen, the Obama people are claiming they were behind it.
From The Politico: “Team Obama helped Hochul … Organizing for America, played a significant supporting role in efforts to amp turnout for Kathy Hochul.” Okay, now that they’ve stole the election, the regime is saying, “Hey, we did it, we did it, we did it.” And I just reiterate this one more time before moving on. If you are Republican and if you are going to seek reelection you better be able to explain conservatism happy and with confidence, and you better not be afraid to do so. You can’t sit around and think that the Democrat candidate is gonna be voted against and that you’re gonna be the beneficiary of that and you can basically not ruffle any feathers. You’re going to have to ruffle the media feathers. The media is gonna get ruffled, you can’t escape it.
And as another aside for the Republican Party at large, it is clear that they are scared to death of Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal, they are scared to death of it. Is there any leadership, is there anybody in the Republican Party willing to come out today publicly, loudly and proudly and defend your own budget? We can’t do it all on talk radio. It’s a great opportunity for some leadership to surface here. It’s a great opportunity for somebody. You can see what the Democrats are thinking of this in the media today and what they have at stake here. The temptation, “Let it go, you know, special election, odd, weird, New York-26. Rush, we don’t even want to mention it, people are gonna forget about this by tomorrow, it’s no big –” no, they’re not. The media is not gonna forget about it. The narrative, the template is being written even as we speak.
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RUSH: Bremerton, Washington, next and Jason. Great to have you with us, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Let me just add you a little bit to what you were saying earlier about the New York race. Related to that race, the reason that it was lost — and we will lose other races in the future — is the fact that Republicans have very few candidates or members of the House that can speak coherently about issues, or in this case either the Ryan Medicare plan or the Ryan budget. The Democrat scare machine is effective. The Republican counter to that, which would be facts, isn’t. They just back away with their tail stuck between their legs. My proof is the fact that a majority of the members of Congress can’t even speak to what the Ryan Medicare plan is, what it does, or what the Ryan budget does, and I can go on.
RUSH: Well, now, wait just a second. I need to ask you how you know that —
CALLER: I watch ’em on TV. They sit there and look dumbfounded, go back to their talking points.
RUSH: But you’ve seen over half the Republicans…?
CALLER: All they do is stand behind Paul Ryan and look like little bobbleheads.
RUSH: No. No, no.
CALLER: If you were to ask them what is in the plan they would give you a deer-in-the-headlights look.
RUSH: No, I’m talking numbers. You’re saying that 150 Republicans in the House do not know or 120 do not know?
CALLER: They do not know the issue front-to-back, left to right, up or down. They can go to various talking points, but they don’t know what the whole issue or what they support is. They do not speak in a coherent manner.
RUSH: Now, where you getting this?
RUSH: Your observation. Well, I know that the Tea Party candidates all can.
CALLER: Well, there aren’t very many of those.
RUSH: Well, there’s 59 of ’em.
CALLER: I would like 59 Chris Christies.
RUSH: Well, I’m not here to throw cold water on anybody. I understand there’s a great deal of excitement for Governor Christie.
CALLER: I’m just speaking from a being able to articulate what they are speaking about.
RUSH: Well, if they can’t it’s a problem. It’s the clear route to victory: Conservatism, artfully spoken, passionately promoted, confidently expressed. I’ll tell you something. It’s always easier to just make up lies, like the Democrats do, rather than try to explain a complex piece of legislation. You know, 99% of the Democrat playbook is made up of scare tactics. “If you don’t do X, then Y will happen,” and usually that means your death. You’re gonna die. That’s the Democrat playbook. Just fill in the blanks, and you’ve got their strategy. They never take the substance of anything on. They just claim it’s gonna kill you. That’s what the Democrats do, and explaining facts is a little bit more complicated than that — and sometimes if you’re not very good at it, it can sound boring at the same time. That’s why being able to articulate conservatism philosophically is fundamental here. That’s fun. That’s — and it’s enlightening to a lot of people. Now, here’s Dingy Harry just to show you how the Democrats are making hay out of this today. This afternoon he had a little press conference to talk about New York-26.
REID: (shutter clicks throughout) Last night the people of America resoundingly spoke in rejecting the Republican plan to end Medicare as we know it. This is New York’s 26th district. Now, the question to my Republican colleagues is basically this — it’s very simple — Will you listen to the American people? Because their message could not be clearer. There’s been a Republican victory for decades, at least four decades. This belonged to Jack Kemp. Just six months ago the congressional district went Republican by a three-to-one margin, but it changed last night. Why? Because the number one, two, and three issue in that congressional district as it is all over the country is destroying Medicare as we know it, putting insurance companies between patients and their physicians.
RUSH: Oh-ho, man. From the party that is destroying Medicare, from the party that is destroying private sector health care comes Harry Reid lying through his teeth. Nothing could be further from the truth than what he said here. New York’s 26th district is being portrayed here as the American people and that Medicare reform — Paul Ryan’s budget — was on the ballot. The winning candidate — I’m gonna get blue in the face saying this. The winning candidate criticized Obama and the Democrats for $500 billion in Medicare cuts. The winning candidate. You might say that a conservative message did win. It just wasn’t articulated by the Republican. The Democrat won by four points with a fraudulent Tea Party candidate in the race. The Democrats did not even win the majority. “Resounding vote,” my rear end! They didn’t win a majority in this. It’s why it’s not time to panic. Scott in Rockford, Illinois. Great that you called, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Pleasure speaking with you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I was curious of what your thoughts were on why our vice president isn’t taking over going down to Missouri when Obama’s off doing whatever he’s doing.
RUSH: I have no idea.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: I don’t think Biden knows, either. My guess is they probably don’t trust sending him.
CALLER: Yeah, that’s true.
RUSH: You know, what’s he gonna say when he gets there? I really do think that they try to rein the guy in. He’s a walking gaffe.
CALLER: Yeah. (chuckles)
RUSH: And he tries to make jokes, he tries to be funny. This is not the place or the time for this kind of thing. I really think there’s an effort to keep him sort of sequestered.
CALLER: Yeah, I kind of believe that because I think he should be down there.
RUSH: Well, he is not. I don’t think the people of Joplin are saying, “Where’s the Vice President?” I don’t think the people of Joplin are running around, “Hey, where’s Joe Biden? Gosh, I wish Joe Biden was here!” In addition to that, Obama’s not gonna allow himself to be upstaged on this. He’s gonna swoop in there on Sunday like Superman and save the day. Ann in Buffalo, New York — this is near New York-26, by the way — it’s great to have you on the program.
CALLER: Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to say this about our election yesterday. That election boiled down to this. It was a vote to support the Obama agenda in Washington or it was a vote basically against it and for our constitutional republic. It was not stated that way. I worked on the Jane Corwin campaign. They gave us sheets of paper to read on the phone when we called somebody. I finally just stopped saying that, and I finally started telling people, “This election boils down to either you’re gonna put another vote in Washington to support the Obama agenda or you’re gonna send somebody there who may actually bring forward a conservative vote.”
RUSH: Now, wait a second. What did they have you saying?
CALLER: They had us saying, “Can we count on your support for Jane?” Or, if people would ask us questions, then we would read bullet points off the the sheet.
RUSH: Okay, so let me get this straight. You’re on the phone bank —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — and you’re calling out and you’re trying to get people to vote.
RUSH: You’re trying to get ’em to the polls —
CALLER: That’s it.
RUSH: — and number one on the list, “Can we count on your support for Jane?”
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: That’s number one?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And then after that, it was up to them to ask questions before you would provide any substance?
CALLER: Not me! (bursts out laughing)
RUSH: No, but I mean the instructions.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: The instructions that you got.
CALLER: Yeah. If the person had questions, I would say, “Do you have any questions about this?” Because they would either say, “Yes, you can count on support” or, “No.” And I would say, “Have you got any questions?” And if they asked a question, I could go directly to the conservative point.
RUSH: Okay. So you —
CALLER: But she didn’t think.
RUSH: — went improv on anybody.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: You said, “Let me tell you what this election’s about.”
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: You went off the page.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: See I told you, Snerdley.
CALLER: That’s it exactly, Rush. This is gonna be another McCain in 2012, if they put a candidate up there that sounds like a politician, acts like a politician, and does not come down as a conservative person who believes in what he’s saying.
RUSH: See, this is the mainstream Republican mind-set: Anti-conservative, afraid to articulate the conservative point of view. (interruption) Well, ’cause I know who the… “How do I always know these things?” I just know what people stand for and what they’re afraid of. In this case the Republicans are afraid of conservatism, so they’re not gonna have their phone bank people say anything about it.
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RUSH: I’ve spent some time here delving into and digging deep into this New York-26, and I must issue you people an apology. If I were Japanese, I would resign, as a matter of honor ’cause I have committed a grave disservice by being entirely ignorant. I mean, I really did not know that this election was taking place. I really didn’t know. I gotta do a Herman Cain here. He said he didn’t know what the “right of return” was. I did not know this election was taking place, and I apologize profusely and profoundly. (interruption) Well, “It’s my job, man,” to know these things. It’s my business, Snerdley, to know these things, and on this occasion I just didn’t know.
But nevertheless, nonetheless, I have now taken time to dig deep and delve into this — and it’s clear what the mistakes were. And I want to thank you, Snerdley, for storming in here. I was having lunch, and he didn’t care. I mean, he was fuming. Spittle very nearly ended up on my desk. He came storming over. I thought you were a caller! The media was being unfair. Media this, media that. Snerdley was ready to cash it in, just quit. “All right, fine! Forget Medicare reform. Let it go broke and let people find out,” and a lot of his anger was focused at the media, which I really… I don’t have any patience for people mad at the media because it’s like being mad at the sun for coming up.”
I mean it’s who they are, and they’re not going to change, and I know: I hate arrogance, and I hate liars, and I hate people lying about me and all it is, but it is what it is. At some point, it can’t be an excuse. There are ways to work around it. We win elections despite them so it’s possible to do, obviously. In this case, whoever strategized this blew it, and that leads me to another thing that is not gonna ingratiate me here with party apparatchiks. You know, we’ve got the political consultants on our side who think they know how to win races. They don’t want any part of the Christine O’Donnell race — and, by the way, Christine O’Donnell did just as well as Meg Whitman did in California, percentage-wise. The people running Meg Whitman’s race did just as bad as Christine O’Donnell.
I kid you not. She got shellacked just as badly as O’Donnell did on a percentage basis. It wasn’t even close. But of course you never hear it said that way. But the couple times fight for the 20%. The consultants fight for moderates. There wasn’t any conservatism in this message. In fact, if this race had been nationalized rather than localized? The consultants probably said, “Okay, here we got Jack Kemp’s district. We got a district goes Republicans, so okay, we got that. That’s a check mark. That’s one of our strengths. We don’t need to do anything ’cause we’ve got that.” So they focused on again going out and getting the 20%, whatever it is, 25% moderates, which means you deemphasize conservatism.
This is my problem with consultancy: They deemphasize the strength. They also deemphasize the strength ’cause they don’t like it. Conservatism in the Republican Party, it’s got its enemies, as we have long discussed and well documented here. But if this race had been nationalized, if the dirty tricks had been addressed, if the candidate had been able to articulate what Paul Ryan’s budget is, this would have been entirely different story — and those are ifs that are relevant because those are things that coulda changed. Now, the Democrats had the phony Tea Party guy in there, and it is important to say, the Democrats did not win this with their ideas.
The Democrats did not win this with liberal ideas. Liberal ideas were not on the ballot; liberal ideas did not triumph here. The Democrats had to go in and lie and defraud and cheat, they had to have a phony Tea Party guy to confuse voters, you know, classic dirty tricks. Liberalism didn’t win — and this is why cautioning everybody not to be so down in the dumps about this. The reason to be alarmed is this continuing, ongoing reluctance on the part of inside-the-Beltway, establishment Republicans to go conservative. That is a problem. But let me contrast this for you. Here’s Harry Reid (we just played the sound bite) and, of course, he’s going to say it, but let’s examine it rationally.
He said that New York race proves the nation wants more Obama and Reid policies, wants more Obamacare, wants more liberalism. Fine, Senator Reid. Where is your Medicare plan? Where is your budget? If the country wants more of what you have to offer, why don’t you offer it? The Democrats have yet to present a formal budget for this year, and this year will expire at the end of September. They haven’t presented a thing. All they’re doing is saying “no” and lying about what the Republican plans are. You know, I could go all Civics 101 on you and say that the Republicans are the ones who are actually trying to tackle the problems, and they are — just like Bush tried to tackle Social Security, and we know what happened.
He gave up on it ’cause it was being demagogued to death, but there’s a reason. I was all for it, by the way. I thought it was a bold step, and what he was going to do was not that dramatic. It was typical. It was what the Democrats are saying should be now, and what the Republicans are saying we should do now to Medicare. It was phase-in. It wasn’t one big bite. But it still got demagogued all to hell, just like this is being demagogued all to hell. So the question comes down to what do you do? We have a problem that’s breaking our bank, it’s going bankrupt, and we can’t afford it for much longer.
Do we solve it? Come up with a plan, take the plan out and say, “Here’s the plan, we gotta fix this,” or do we not do that because that’s making us too big a target and it’s guaranteed to lose, so let’s just forget it? The theory being we have to win elections and we can’t win elections by reforming entitlements. Third rail. We’ll get electrocuted; we’re gonna die; we just have to — can’t do it. If the party goes that way, you can kiss the Tea Party good-bye and say, “Hello, third party.” If the Republican Party bails on tackling these things, the Tea Party will just vanish as an element of the Republican Party. It’s “Hello, third party,” and that’s, you know, “Welcome back, Obama.”
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RUSH: Columbus, Ohio. This is Bob, you’re you up next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, conservative Cincinnati [dittos] to you, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: I was calling with a point to make about Harry Reid you were discussing earlier how he didn’t interpret the New York votes — or he did interpret the New York vote — as a national mandated against Medicare reform.
RUSH: That’s right.
CALLER: But he did not interpret Scott Brown’s senatorial victory in the Democratic Mecca of Massachusetts as a national referendum.
RUSH: Of course not, nor did he interpret what happened in Wisconsin as a national referendum against public and state unions.
CALLER: Exactly. What about the interpretation of the 2010 election against deficit spending? I mean, I guess his interpreting skills are selective.
RUSH: No, it’s just classic. It’s propaganda; it’s the spin. It’s what the Democrats do. Harry goes out and says it; it becomes a story in the media. The Democrats turn it into a story, and the headline to the story, “Reid: New York 26 proves America doesn’t want Ryan health care reform,” then they go out and interview economists and experts about it, and they’ll get people that agree, and that’s how the Democrats create a news story. He’s the Senate majority leader — and then they create a news story and then it goes to the AP and then you got a headline that ends up in every American newspaper and on every American radio news network. Whether it’s true or not, this is how they do it. This is how they make news: With lies and misrepresentations. It’s just one of the realities we’re always gonna have.
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