RUSH: This is one of my pet peeves. I talk about it frequently. Now, The Economist is a British magazine. The title of this story is called “The Right Republican.” And the point of this story is, “Although the presidency is theirs for the taking, AmericaÂ’s Republicans are in danger of throwing it away.” And you know what the point of the story is? The Republicans aren’t moderate enough. No matter who they are, no matter who the Republican is. They’re too extreme. It talks about every famous Republican to come down the pike and how even Eisenhower one way or another, too extreme.
You know, it’s finally struck me. I constantly lament on this program that it’s a trick that has been fostered on the Republicans that they believe (I’m talking about establishment Republicans), for example: Conservatism is extremism and that therefore conservatism is going to force independents — the precious independents! — to run away from the Republicans and back into the arms of Democrats. It’s widespread all over the place. It’s what’s dominating the Republican presidential nomination from the Republican establishment point of view. This outright fear of any conservative. But what puzzles me is: Where is this notion that the Democrats are moderates?
Our great independents are going to flinch at conservatives as extremists, and they’re gonna hightail it over to Democrats who are the most extreme, mean-spirited, just despicable people? It makes no sense. Have you ever noticed in the process of all of this never ever is it said that a Democrat candidate must “moderate his tone” to avoid ticking off the independents? It’s only the Republicans, only the Republicans who have to be moderate. The Democrats never have to be. Take your pick. Maxine Waters. Take your pick of any stupid, foul-mouthed, extremist Democrat. They never have to moderate. They never have to tone it down. They never have to stop the criticism of Republicans. This is such a trap!
This is such a one-way street, and it’s really frustrating how the Republican establishment has bought into this — and the reason they have because of his Goldwater. I’m gonna say this over and over again until it becomes accepted fact because what animates the Republican Party today is the Goldwater landslide defeat of ’64. That’s what they associate with conservatism. They don’t associate Reagan’s 1980 triumphs. They associate the Goldwater landslide. That is what they think will happen any time an unabashed, full-fledged conservative is nominated. Therefore that’s why the Democrats are able to get away (and the media able to get away) with this trick of telling Republicans and their media types, “We gotta be conscious of the independents! We can’t be critical of Obama. We can’t be outspoken. We — we — we can’t be in it ’cause all that’s mean-spirited and it’s extreme.
“The moderates, they don’t like that. They don’t like confrontation. They’ll run right back to the Democrats.” We own the moderates right now! We own the independents. They voted with the Republicans in the 2010 midterms and we own them now — and I don’t mean in an actual ownership way. They’re fed up with the Democrats, the independents are fed up with Obamaism, the independents are fed up with what the Democrats have done to the country. There’s no reason to be defensive about this, no reason to lack confidence here. There’s no reason to think that we are the continual problem!
So here comes this latest gunk in The Economist: “The Right Republican — Although the presidency is theirs for the taking, America’s Republicans are in danger of throwing it away” by nominating a conservative is what the point of this story is. I’m just waiting. I want somebody… I may get to the point where I will pay somebody to write a story in the mainstream media suggesting the Democrats better tone it down or else they’re gonna tick off the independents. I just want to see that story one time.
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