RUSH: Here is Amy in Potomac, Maryland. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. I just wanted to call and just make a comment about what I think is the headwind that Mitt Romney’s running into that nobody’s talking about. We talked about it the first time around but not so much this time, and that is the evangelical vote. And when you talk about the earlier caller who hates him and you talk about people who hate him, I don’t think what’s being said is that there is an undercurrent of evangelical disapproval with Mormons. I think they would vote for a secularist over a Mormon. And my daughter, you know, was looking it up, were kind of hurt by comments from evangelicals towards Mormons being offended because we claim that we’re Christian. And Christ is the center point of our religion, and we honor the Bible, we love the Bible, and we teach from the Bible. But our other belief, the way we get to Christ, they disagree with so vehemently and she started looking up articles, saw something out of the Washington Monthly that was written by a woman for 2008 and it talked about how she, as a young child in her Baptist church, was shown films where Mormons were placed right between Jim Jones and devil worshipers. And there’s a lot of —
RUSH: McCain said that Romney may have lost South Carolina because of the vote against Mormons. Amy, that’s not what I’m hearing from people. If they’re thinking it as their primary reason for being mad at Romney, they’re not telling me that.
CALLER: Well, when he went in there to Iowa the first time and had a very good ground game, a lot of organization, Huckabee came in late and papered that area with anti-Mormon literature and turned that caucus around. And it had a profound effect. And I think he suffers from the same thing you suffer from. How many times over the years have I heard people call in how they needed to defend you and stand up to people, and a lot of times they’re women or they’re mothers or they’re wives or people that they work with, and they get down to the point where they admit, “No, I’ve never really heard him, I just hear what other people say about him.”
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And oftentimes they’ve done some external and internal polling, and people’s view of Mormons is so low, incredibly low, because they believe what other people say about them, and then when they know a Mormon, their opinions of Mormons is tremendously raised. They see them and they’re not this devil that they’ve been painted out to be.
RUSH: Wait a minute, I’m still trying to figure out, are you a Romney supporter?
CALLER: I wasn’t honestly. I’ve come to that point. I am now at this point.
RUSH: Because it says up here what you wanted to talk about was that he’s getting hit from the right and the left.
CALLER: Right, he’s getting hit from the right and the left. And inside the party I think it’s very much an anti-evangelical vote. A year ago, I happened to —
RUSH: Wait, wait, hold it. I don’t understand that. You mean the evangelicals are voting “no”?
CALLER: Oh, I think so. When you talk about why Mitt Romney was plateauing at 25% and everybody’s looking for the anti-Romney, I think the unspoken thing is the evangelicals want to vote for anybody but a Mormon. I really think that’s a lot of it, and so when they hear negative things about Romney, they believe it. And it has gotten emotional, but —
RUSH: I think, frankly, the Mormon thing’s been out there for so long, I don’t think that’s what this is.
CALLER: I do.
RUSH: I think the people that oppose Romney oppose him because they know he’s not a conservative.
CALLER: Oh, but he has come to a conservative position that he strongly —
RUSH: Well, they don’t trust that, because he’s got too much on the record of proudly saying, (paraphrasing) “I am a moderate. I voted for a Republican every time there’s been a Republican on the ballot.” That’s a little bit of a stretch of things, too. But don’t fool yourself here. The Romney thing’s been vetted, it’s out, it’s been done since 2008. There’s a fear here, because of Obama, that he’s not conservative enough.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ron in Rochester, New York, great to have you. I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Thank you very much, Rush, for putting me on. I’m not a — a — a seminar caller. I do listen to your show, love it. And your comedic pieces in between when you put me on hold, I’m either laughing or crying. It’s just — it’s got me off my game and I forgot why I called. So I had to write it down. Notably, the woman caller you had on earlier. I take it she was a Mormon. I’m not sure about that, but that she was saying that evangelical Christians would not vote for Mitt Romney because he was a Mormon.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: That just made my blood curdle. Are we not as Republicans and conservatives…? Do we not have, as you say, “half our brain tied behind our back”? We can think on our feet. We’re looking at Mitt Romney’s hair.
RUSH: Now, look, for all that you’re saying, I find it uncomfortable and all that. But I could point you to websites that are urging people not to vote for Romney ’cause he’s a Mormon. They’re out there. I don’t know how widespread it is. I don’t think… See, my problem with it is Romney’s been a Mormon for the last five years, six years, all of his life. But it’s been an issue since 2008.
CALLER: Absolutely. When I look at it, it’s just black and white. When he governs, he governs to the left. There’s no denying that. He governs to the left. He’s been campaigning now for six years in every state that he’s been in thus far, and still his level of voters that want him hasn’t changed all that much. So I highly doubt it’s from him being a Mormon.
RUSH: I think that the opposition of Romney, such that it is, is on substance, is on what you said: They think he governs to the left. He’s proudly said that he’s a moderate, at times. The Mormon thing — and by the way, the caller that you heard did not say that. She said she was not a Mormon, that she was just upset about it. But I’ll tell you one thing: Obama’s super PACs, the labor unions and the media are gonna bring it up. You better know that they are. You better know that they are! Obama super PACs? Remember, he’s got two built-in super PACs: He’s got labor unions and he’s got the media. They really don’t have to raise any money. The unions have dues, and the media is in the private sector. But there will be legitimate super PACs above and beyond that. You don’t even think they’re gonna bring up the fact that Romney’s a Mormon? You don’t think Obama will do that? (New Castrati impression)
“No, Mr. Limbaugh, he won’t, because Mr. Obama will be afraid that will open up charges of Jeremiah Wright!”
No, no, no, no. The media super PAC will be castigating anybody brings up Jeremiah Wright. (interruption) Why do you have such a puzzled look on your face? You don’t think Obama’s super PACs will trying to go after Romney on being a Mormon? You don’t think that will happen? You don’t think…? It may not be between-the-eyes-type hits. It will be ever so subtle. You wait. I could probably dream up a typical super Pac, anti-Mormon TV commercial right now. I could probably do it. I don’t have any doubt about that. I mean, half of these fringe blog sites that are attacking Mormons now are probably fronts for the Democrats. Of course they’re gonna come up with it. But I don’t think, on the conservative side, that Mormonism explains the vast opposition that exists to Romney. Every caller that we’ve had here today has expressed dissatisfaction with what they consider to be Romney’s moderate political stance.
They don’t think he’s that conservative.