RUSH: Just to repeat now, speaking of defining, you know, we got some lib on the Chris Matthews Show yesterday, David Ignatius, (paraphrasing) “Yeah, Obama, he’s got a year to define himself.” He’s defined. Our problem is that Republicans will not use it. You know, we got Republicans, media, conservatives, you name it, that are trying to kill Republicans, in a political sense. We’ve got people saying horrible things about Gingrich, horrible things about Romney, horrible things about Bachmann. Nobody will say one horrible thing about Obama. We’re like a circular firing squad. I know it’s politics, but what about the other guy? What about the real enemy here? Why does the real enemy get a pass?

There was an analysis released last week that showed that 45% of all political ads in Iowa were negative commercials aimed at Gingrich, and they worked. Gingrich was once leading. Do you remember, he had this big surge. Gingrich was up in Iowa. He was up everywhere. He was up nationally. And a never-ending barrage. And you could say that Romney’s PAC has taken Newt out. It worked. Negative ads work. You define your opponent. Newt had not defined himself, or at least not sufficiently so to ward off the attacks. So now he’s going after Romney big time. He’s calling Romney a liar. The media can’t believe this is happening, but he’s doing it.

You have to define your opponent, and you have to define yourself. And principle, of course, is the easiest way to define yourself. But the Republicans seem to be great at doing this to each other, but they’re always afraid to do it to the Democrat nominee. For some reason we’re not worried about ticking off the independents in our primary. Have you noticed this? We can go out there, we can say the most horrible things about our own people, we’re not worried the independents aren’t gonna like it. You get into the general election, “Oh, we can’t criticize Obama, oh, no, the independents are gonna be running right back to the Democrats.” What a bunch of hooey. Got ourselves in a straitjacket.

We had a call, I went back and I looked at this, transcript of this program, we had a Santorum supporter on the program on December 9th. That’s what I said to the Santorum supporter. I think that it’s still possible for Bachmann and Santorum because I think what’s happening out there, everybody in this mix thinks, you can read it, you can sense it, everybody in this mix senses Newt is going to implode. And remember early December, this is what the conventional wisdom of Newt was. And by imploding, what is meant by that, he’s gonna do a commercial with Pelosi on the couch for global warming, something like that. He always does stuff like that. Out of the blue when nobody’s expecting it. And everybody was thinking that one of the problems with Newt is he has this tendency to do things like this.

The other candidates, they all were of the opinion, and they were saying that Newt, just give him a little rope, just give him a little space, that he will implode, that he’s one of these guys that can’t stand prosperity. A lot of people think Newt is just gonna do or say something that causes an implosion to one degree or another, and they all figure Bachmann, Perry, Santorum, this is why they were hanging around. This is my point to the Santorum supporters. Somebody called, “Why isn’t Santorum taking off?” I had a bunch of those calls in December and leading up to Christmas, the break. “Why isn’t Santorum taking off?” I said they’re all lurking: Santorum, Perry, Bachmann. December 9th I said it to a Santorum supporter, they’re lurking, they’re waiting, ’cause they figure that Newt is gonna implode or that something’s gonna happen to the front-runner because it always does and that’s why they’re working and lurking out there. They all figure they’re gonna be the ones left standing for conservatives to flock to if that happens.
Newt was getting the conservative vote in the polls. There weren’t any votes cast of course. But now Newt’s down 45%. Well, not down 45%, but 45% of all political ads were negative spots directed at Newt, and he’s gone from leading the race to third place in the polling data. And that’s one of the reasons that they are staying in the race. And I essentially, on December 9th, told the Santorum supporter that he could win because he would be the last man standing. And I also predicted this coalescing that would take place among the last viable conservatives to go against Romney because I guarantee you that the Tea Party side and on the conservative side, nobody is yet willing to cede this to Romney. This is just the beginning today, folks. This isn’t over. Nothing’s over after the Hawkeye Cauci tonight. It’s just the beginning.

So I see all this stuff here about Obama has got a year to define himself, he’s been defined. He’s a Marxist socialist. I know, Republicans are saying, “Don’t call him that, Rush, no, no, no, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t call him that.” We can call Newt that, and we can call anybody else on our side, we call ’em all kinds of names, but we can’t call Obama, no, we can’t, because the independents aren’t gonna like it. So we hamstring ourselves. Anyway my whole point here is that you have to define yourself and you have to define your opponent. And the media of course knows this. The media’s trying to pick our nominee. They do it every four years and they pick somebody they think can be beat. They pick somebody that they think is going to lose. Some people get caught up, “Hey, the media likes this guy, maybe –” No. That’s the death knell. You don’t want somebody on our side that the media likes.

Now, the Obama campaign, this Jim Messina guy, he’s saying there’s a lot of myths out there. He said we’re not gonna have a billion dollars in this campaign. We’re not going to raise that much. That’s also been conventional wisdom, that the Obama campaign is gonna have a billion dollars. Now the campaign is saying they’re not even gonna get close. (interruption) I know, they’re the ones that said they’re gonna raise a billion. Now they’re saying that they’re not gonna raise a billion. I don’t know which to believe, but they’re out there saying it. I’ve got it here in the Stack of Stuff.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Elizabeth in St. Louis. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hi there. Happy New Year, Rush.

RUSH: Same to you.

CALLER: I was calling because when you were talking about Newt and how you predicted on December 9th that he would implode, I remember that show, I remember you saying that, and for me, it happened. I’m not sure when Newt actually said this, but I swear it was — you know, the second day he was up in the polls, he said, (paraphrasing) “Well, clearly I am going to be the nominee.”

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: “I think it’s clear to everybody.” And the minute I heard him say that, I thought, “Oh, my gosh, you have just jinxed it.”

RUSH: Yeah, I remember that.

CALLER: That was the beginning, to me, of the implosion.

RUSH: Yeah. That’s a good point. Let me say, I know Newt. Let me tell you what Newt was doing there.

CALLER: Uh-huh.

RUSH: Newt was simply trying to instill confidence in his supporters. He was trying to be positive. It comes across in a way he doesn’t intend. This is the blind spot or however you want to characterize it.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: But going out and saying — I’ll tell you a little story. This goes back over a year. I had breakfast with Newt and some other people before he announced, but he told us he was gonna announce. And he said, (paraphrasing) “Oh, yeah, here’s how I’m gonna win. This thing is gonna be over about a week after I announce ’cause everybody’s gonna realize that once I get going they don’t have a prayer. I’m gonna take Romney out this way, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do that. One real obstacle –” I forget what he said it’s gonna be, “– and I’ll take care of that.” In about 20 minutes he told us all how he was gonna be the nominee.

CALLER: Yeah. Well, you know, I take your word for it because I just cringed when he said it.

RUSH: Well, I’ve got no reason to make that up.

CALLER: Of course not.

RUSH: Or anything else, but —

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: — what he was doing, a lot of people mistook this for arrogant ego out of control. That’s really not what it is with him, at least in this instance, saying, “Okay, I’m the nominee.” He’s trying to be positive. He’s trying to be certain. He’s trying to give people something to latch onto. He doesn’t want to be squishy, squiggly, uncertain, unsure. This is how he chooses to do it.

CALLER: Right. I have one other comment about Iowa.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: I think my biggest takeaway from the caucus process —

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: — is that Obama’s not gonna win Iowa. He’s not gonna win that state. Iowa is not gonna go for him again.

RUSH: You mean in the caucuses?

CALLER: No. In the election.

RUSH: I was gonna say, he’s unopposed in the caucus.

CALLER: Obama is not going to take the state of Iowa.

RUSH: There are a lot of states that Obama won in ’08 that he’s not gonna win, and they know it. There are a lot of ’em.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: I think you’re right about Iowa. Look, I don’t want to pull a Newt here and predict a 49-state landslide for whoever the Republican is, but in a sane world this guy wouldn’t even be running for reelection, the Democrats would have found somebody else and a polite way to get rid of him. He’s destroying the country and the party, in a sane world. The problem is the Democrat Party is not sane. The Democrat Party has gone off the cliff extremist liberal, and Obama is their dream candidate. This is not Lyndon Johnson’s Democrat Party. It is not John Kennedy’s Democrat Party. I mean it’s not even Woodrow Wilson’s party. And that’s saying something. This is more like Anastas Mikoyan’s party.

But in a sane world somebody who’s done this, somebody whose policies have done this, look at the value of people’s homes, their jobs, the debt, people’s queasiness over the future. For the first time parents really think their kids are not going to do as well as their parents have done. Parents are looking to the future and seeing their kids not leaving home until they’re 35 or 40. In a sane political world where you had a media that just two days of the week was fair, just two days a week, with the proper reporting, analysis, and perspective of this country vis-a-vis the policies of this administration wouldn’t have a prayer, wouldn’t have a chance. In the real world, in a sane world — we don’t live in one right now. There’s nothing sane about the American political system. There’s nothing sane about the media and its reporting of these things, as we all know.

I’m 60. There hasn’t been this kind of destruction of our nation and its fabric in my lifetime. The closest is Jimmy Carter, and Jimmy Carter was swept out in a 49-state landslide. In a sane world. But nobody knew that that was gonna happen ’til Election Day. The polls never indicated a 49-state landslide. They never did. It’s why I’m constantly imploring people to work hard and not get caught up in the daily conventional wisdom of the media. The daily reporting, the way the table is set every day, the stories that are focused on, talked about, reported on, discussed, none of it’s real. The real world doesn’t get reported on. The thinking of real Americans does not get reflected until they vote. And you wait. You just wait. I don’t mean the Hawkeye Cauci. Then it’s a tantrum, a bunch of immature kids, children had a tantrum, so forth and so on. Peter Jennings, that’s how he described the House victory in 1994, exactly right. A tantrum.