RUSH: Here is Jed in Boise, Idaho. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: How are you doing today, Rush?
RUSH: Just fine, sir. Thank you el mucho.
CALLER: What I called about is I hear you and a lot of the other conservative talk radio hosts supporting Mitt Romney, yet we all know that he’s a socialist and nobody ever pushes that forward.
RUSH: (groans) I’m getting worn out.
CALLER: I’ll… We’ll talk “record, not rhetoric,” okay?
RUSH: I’m getting worn out! I got Romney calling me wanting to come see me trying to get me to stop being so hard on him.
CALLER: Well…
RUSH: You think I’m sitting here supporting Romney. I spent most of a full show last week analyzing what Newt did in a positive way as to why he was getting the applause. You’re reading from some script here. You’re talking to the wrong host.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: I’m not choosing anybody.
CALLER: No, sir. No, sir, Rush. I have heard you yourself say that if Romney wins the nomination, that you’re going to vote for him. Okay?
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: That is supporting him. That lends a credibility to a Republican-socialist agenda.
RUSH: I’m gonna vote for any Republican over Obama! So’s everybody else.
CALLER: So what…? What makes a Republican socialist any better than Democrat socialist who is in office now?
RUSH: I don’t think Romney is a socialist.
CALLER: Well, we’ll talk his record and — and I’ll prove it to you.
RUSH: (sigh)
CALLER: Okay, Romney — Mitt Romney — as governor of Massachusetts is the only governor in the history of this country, 230 years, okay? To have ever passed socialized medicine on to the citizens of this country in any capacity, up until Barack Obama —
RUSH: Okay, “Romney’s a socialist.”
CALLER: — and Barack Obama followed his lead and did the same thing.
RUSH: All right. Who are you for? Okay, Romney’s a socialist. Who are you for?
CALLER: I’m for any one of the other three. But if I’m voting in the primary, I’m gonna vote for Gingrich.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: But if any of the other three win, I’ll vote for them because they’re at least conservatives.
RUSH: Now, a question. Does any of this stuff about…? Now, no wrong answer here; I’m just collecting information. Does any of this stuff about Newt that’s out there now, does it bother you?
CALLER: No. Because I’m intellectually honest with myself and I listen to what Newt says and I don’t try to put words into his mouth that he didn’t say.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: In 1988, he did not say that Reagan was wrong and that what Reagan did was wrong. What he said was is that George Bush needed to look forward in the future —
RUSH: No.
CALLER: — and that going back and rehashing things that Reagan had already taken care of was not going to win him the White House.
RUSH: He accused —
CALLER: That’s the way I interpreted it.
RUSH: He said —
CALLER: That’s not that he’s coming out and saying, oh, Reagan was bad, and that we need to turn against what Reagan did in the last eight years.
RUSH: He did say that! He said Reagan was failing in his efforts against the Soviet Union. He said Reagan was failing in his efforts to stop Soviet expansion. He said Reagan was failing in his efforts dealing with Iran-Contra. We’ve got it! We’ve played it! (sigh) Newt supports a health care mandate. He has for 20 years. He supports the federal government making you buy insurance. Now, he’s backed off of that. If you’re gonna start throwing the socialism term around, there. I’ll tell you, these are times of tumult. There’s no question about it, really.
All right, Jed, thanks for the call. Seriously, I mean it.