RUSH: To the Bronx next. This Robert. Great to have you, sir, on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. First off, I love the Two If By Tea, by the way.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much. I just got a note from Kathryn who tuned in via the Dittocam. She said it looks like a tea ghetto in here, because I have so many bottles around. So I’ve shuffled some and moved some out of the way. Have you tasted the latest flavors, the peach or the blueberry?
CALLER: I have the blueberry.
RUSH: Oh-ho-ho-ho.
CALLER: I love it. It’s great.
RUSH: It’s like drinking blueberry muffin batter.
CALLER: Yep. And you were right. You said when you open the cap you can actually smell the blueberries, and it’s very true.
RUSH: Oh, it is just stunning. I’m gonna do it right now, in fact.
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: It’s one of the bottles I had to move. (breathing in) Oh, I tell you, that is just great. (sniffing) What an aroma! I’m glad you mentioned that.
CALLER: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, good stuff. Rush, I guess bottom line, I’m confused. Well, confusion and fear, I guess. I know that John McCain is a Republican moderate supporting Romney this time, and Chris Christie is a conservative. I know Romney has flip-flopped on issues and claims — underlining “claims” — to be a conservative. So there’s my confusion. I fear once elected, if that is to happen, Romney will become John McCain — of course, you know, reaching across the aisle all the time.
RUSH: A lot of people —
CALLER: Blah, blah, blah.
RUSH: May I ask you — and look, not be provocative. There’s no wrong answer here. I would like to know why you think that. And a lot of people tell me they’re worried about Romney. “He’s not conservative, Rush. He’s gonna end up being just like McCain or Nixon.” Why do you think that? What has he said or done?
CALLER: Well, I guess I’ve heard a lot of the commercials against him, I guess, because I’ve always been a Newt supporter. It’s documented, I believe, thathe has changed his mind in many, many ways, and —
RUSH: But you can’t give me one.
CALLER: I’m sorry.
RUSH: I know, it’s tough, I put you on the spot. I don’t mean to be doing that, please. People tell me a lot they think Newt — or Romney — is a flip-flopper like John Kerry was; he’s gonna be saying one thing here when he gets to the White House is gonna turn into a moderate. I can think of things, like 2006 or 2007, Romney in Massachusetts says, “I’m not a conservative Republican, I’m a moderate.” People hear that and say, “Okay, he’s telling us the truth.”
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Romney says, “Ah, I’m in Massachusetts! I did say that, but I don’t mean it anymore.”
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: So we’re left with what? Which Romney are we gonna believe? Therefore that’s why you say flip-flopper.
CALLER: Yes. Yes.
RUSH: But Newt has changed, too. You’re a Newt guy. Newt’s been all over the board. Newt believes in manmade global warming and is just trying to cover it up.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Newt sat down on the couch with Pelosi.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Christie? Christie, you think he’s a big conservative ’cause he’s really, really tough on the unions. But is he really the full-fledged conservative that you think? You basically want to know: Why are these guys on board are Romney? Christie thinks a big conservative and McCain, why are they on board with Romney? This proves that Romney is like a McCain and therefore, “What’s Christie doing?”
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: The answer to your question has nothing to do with what you’ve asked me. They’re all Republicans; they are all part of the Republican establishment, and the word’s gone out from on high: Our choice from the powers that be in the Republican Party is Romney, and so if you’re governor… Let’s say you’re you Nikki Haley. This stuff matters. This is reality.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: You’re Nikki Haley. You’re a Tea Party governor. The Tea Party gets you elected governor of South Carolina.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: But you’ve got this onerous Obamacare bill staring you in the face, and you know it’s gonna kill your state if you are forced to live under it. So here’s Romney saying the first thing he’s gonna do is repeal it. If Nikki Haley decides, “I’m gonna buck the party; I’m gonna nominate somebody the party doesn’t want,” she has just ostracized herself from the party, and there goes her chance to maybe get veep. There goes her chance to maybe get a cabinet post if she wants one. I’m not saying she does. I’m just saying all businesses have a ladder of success in them, and there are certain rungs that you have to climb to get to the top — and in politics, once the party has chosen its candidate, if you are in the party and if you are a party person, you must support the nominee. Why do you think, after every bruising primary…? For example, why in the world would Romney want to be seen with McCain after what McCain did to Romney in 2008?
CALLER: True. Yeah.
RUSH: Romney was taken out by Huckabee and by McCain. In the real world, he doesn’t like him, he doesn’t want anything to do with him, and he’d like to screw ’em. That’s you and me in the real world.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: But in politics he’s their best buddy, he will take their support; he’ll go on stage with ’em. That’s party politics — and you put all that stuff that happened in 2008 aside. You throw it away, you put it aside, you forget it, until you have an opportunity to get even somehow. It may take ten or 15 years. You don’t do it publicly or what have you. It’s… (sigh) I’m sorry, but that’s the explanation for it.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Don’t you think? In the real world, if I’m Mitt Romney and I’m making real tracks in 2008, and I’m getting close — and then all of a sudden, McCain and Huckabee team up against me and they get the governor of Florida to team up with them, against me —
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: — how do you, four years later, become best buds with people that destroyed your career four years ago, or destroyed your chance then?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: But it happens all the time in politics.
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah.
RUSH: It happens.
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: If Chris Christie doesn’t support Romney, then he’s got one choice. He better become so untouchably popular on his own that the party can’t stop him, like Reagan did.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: Look at Reagan. This is a great example. George H. W. Bush, ’76 and ’80 literally tried to destroy Ronald Reagan’s political career. “Voodoo economics.” Guess who ends up being on the vice presidential ticket? George H. W. Bush.
CALLER: That’s right. Yep.
RUSH: It’s party politics —
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: — where ideology doesn’t triumph. (interruption) Well, I don’t know. Romney, the old man? George Romney, I don’t know if he ran against Reagan or not. I don’t know. What’s that got to do with anything? You’re just trying to show off your memory about George Romney! Nobody’s talking about George Romney, Snerdley. Nobody cares about George Romney. I’m in the middle here of explaining to a caller who had a terrible important question; you bring up George Romney to me! This is why they don’t have microphones, folks. Anyway, does that help?
CALLER: It does Rush, but very, very last question —
RUSH: Yes?
CALLER: — and it’s about these debates. How much importance, you know, to the American people do you put into these debates? Because, you know, going back to Newt, I believe that he’s a superb debater — and, again, against President Obama, I believe he would beat him up senseless.
RUSH: Right. A lot of people do. A loooot of people do.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: I am of the school of thought that presidential debates — barring some really huge gaffe — don’t change that many votes, significantly change that many votes.
CALLER: Really?
RUSH: Yep.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: See, you’ve hit on something else, too. I know for a fact that a lot of Republicans are simply trying to find the person they think is the most articulate and well spoken and smartest, because they’re sick and tired of having people with accents who can’t put three syllables together as their nominee or as their candidate. They’re sick of it, and they’re sick of the media laughing at their nominee or their candidates for being stupid. They’re tired of it. They’re tired of liberals laughing at them, and especially when they have to sit there and listen how smart Obama is, the guy destroying the country. So a lot of people really would have their lives made if somebody would just destroy Obama in a debate!
“To hell with the election!” If somebody just destroys him, in a score, just makes Obama look like an absolute blithering idiot, that’s all they want. They’d be happy as they could be. They wouldn’t care who won the election. And if I described you, you know who you are. A lot of people out there think this way. Look, I know how this is. I go to California and I run into all these arrogant liberals. Back during the Bush years, all I heard was how stupid the guy was, just how stupid he was, as though that’s all that mattered to them. They loooved talking about making fun of how stupid George W. Bush was and how stupid he sounded when he talked — and therefore that disqualified what he was doing in the Iraq war, and that disqualify any policy: “Bush is stupid!” and our voters don’t want a nominee about whom that could be said. Pure and simple. I understand all this. That’s why I am who I am.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Hey, Snerdley, George Romney did not run against Reagan. I checked. He was running against Nixon when his campaign began to collapse after his “I was brainwashed in Vietnam” statement. Reagan came along later. It was Nixon he was running against. Now, I got an e-mail during the break. “Why is this intelligence business…” somebody was worried about the debates mattering so much. Somebody was just terribly concerned. I appreciate, by the way, this notion that we have to nominate somebody who can win a debate. I don’t think that’s how this election is gonna be won. This is an election about ideas, not debate skills, but I know people disagree with me. The reason people, conservatives, the reason people on our side care about this so much is very simple.
Conservatism is an idea with multiple subsets of ideas. Conservatism requires basic speaking and communication skills to explain it and to contrast it with liberalism. In addition to that, people have to be able to complete thoughts and get those ideas across. When you are in the ideas business, you had better be able to communicate them. I would submit to most of you who think that recent Republican presidential nominees have been stupid or inarticulate, is really not what they’ve been. They haven’t been full-fledged conservative. When it’s in your heart, it pours out of you. When it’s not and you’re having to fake it, that’s gonna create pauses and insecurity, unsuredness and so forth.
I don’t ever have a problem explaining conservatism. I don’t care who I’m talking to. But I would probably be a little halting if I were trying to make somebody think I was a moderate. I’d have to stop and think about it. When you stop and think about it, you look stupid, unless you’ve mastered the facial expressions of looking thoughtful. (interruption) Snerdley just said, “That’s not fair for me to say because I could make anything interesting.” No. I can only make the things I care about interesting. You don’t want to hear me talk about something I don’t care about. I will bore you to tears. That’s why I’ve always believed that passion is the giant magnet. It is passion. You could talk about bowling, and if you do it passionately, you will attract people like a magnet to it.
They may be laughing themselves silly that you care so much about bowling or whatever it is, but you’ll still have ’em. You know, passion is the ingredient. But my only point is, conservatism, we’re a party of ideas, gotta be able to communicate them. You have to feel it, they have to be in your heart. And when they’re not, you have to stop and think, “Okay, what should I say here? I gotta make those conservatives really believe I’m a conservative.” And then you’re gonna make mistakes, and then the conservatives are going to say, “See, he’s not really a conservative, he’s a moderate, he’s a flip-flopper,” and they’d be right. Or when the person halts, pauses to think about what the next sentence ought to be, “Stupid! See, can’t even remember what he was saying, just lost his place, what an idiot.” The lack of commitment to it manifests itself as something other than it really is, in this case it’s stupid.
Well, Open Line Friday could be an opportunity for you to listen to me talk about what I don’t care about. But so far that hasn’t happened today. We haven’t yet had a call about something I don’t care about. It happens. It happens. In fact, I should tell Snerdley, we should do an experiment here. I’ll show you what I’m talking about. Folks, there are things you could bring up today that would tick me off so much that I could convince you I’m a mean guy by virtue of my reaction to it. I don’t know what it is, I have my pet peeves, too. I get frustrated at stuff. I’m just saying here that sounding smart is something that can be accomplished with just passion and belief in ideas, particularly ours. If you don’t have that, and you’re trying to fake it, you’re gonna raise questions about your intelligence, your commitment, or what have you. I think that’s largely what’s going on.
Do we have time here? Well, no. This next call wants to talk about the Marines and the urination on the Taliban and there’s not enough time to be fair or unfair to anybody. I do want to make a quick point before we hit the break. Obama had his big press conference, well, White House appearance yesterday on insourcing and jobs and so forth on. And the US Chamber of Commerce had a great rejoinder to it. “Hey, Mr. President, you missed the biggest insourcing opportunity that’s come down your pike in three years, the Keystone pipeline. You want to insource jobs? How about authorizing the Keystone pipeline?” It’s a great point. And the reason it’s a great point, because Obama is not about insourcing jobs.