RUSH: Thomas Sowell is out with a piece today, a column, in National Review Online. He takes note of the Romney criticism of Gingrich and is not happy with it at all. He describes it as “wild distortions” and lies about, for example, why Newt is incorrectly being said to have been run out of the House in disgrace and so forth when he was completely exonerated by the IRS. You know, all this ethics stuff. Romney charging that he was so bad, so embarrassing, so devoid of ethics that his colleagues got rid of him and that sort of stuff. Sowell makes the point… And I remember, ladies and gentlemen, going back as recently at 2008, maybe 2010, trying to warn everybody what’s really going on in the Republican Party.

I’ve tried to highlight it over and over again repeatedly as necessary, as needed. In addition to the effort we all are engaged in to defeat Obama, the Republican Party is hell-bent on making sure that the Tea Party (i.e., conservatives) do not conquer this party and end up controlling it or running it. Now, Sowell is of the belief that the real purpose of Romney’s assault on Gingrich is to just take out the conservative wing of this party and defeat it and send it packing. That it is the establishment, the RINOs, the Teddy Roosevelt wing, the Rockefeller wing, whatever — the moderate Republicans — who don’t have a taste, don’t have any ability to get down and dirty muddy and actually do what it takes to win.

It’s too easy to just play the game and get close to winning now and then; win sometimes but stay close to power however you have to do it. Conservatism upsets that applecart, wants to deemphasize the role of government in people’s lives. The RINO Republicans don’t want that. Sowell says that what’s happening here is the establishment is waging war against the Tea Party and conservatives, and Gingrich happens to be the Last Man Standing in that regard so he’s the target of it. That’s Thomas Sowell’s opinion. A lot of people hold that view. I know for a fact that the Republican establishment — and you know how to define ’em. What would you say, Snerdley, if somebody asked you…? Just in a sentence. Let’s get complex understandable here.

What is, who is (and don’t give me a name) the Republican establishment? What is it about them that makes them the establishment? (interruption) They run Republican thought in…? No. It’s far more specific than that. The Republican establishment wants spending. They want active government; they want to be in charge of it. They’ll tinker with it on the margins, but they want to be inside the entire power structure. They don’t want to be at odds with the power structure in New York, in Washington, in the whole Northeastern Corridor. They want to be part of it, and they’re happy being a minority part of it as long as they’re close to power. As long as they have the respect of the people who run the overall large government.

They want to be part of the Ruling Class. They don’t want to be fighting the Ruling Class. They want to be part of it. On the social side, they might not care that they don’t get invited to the big Fourth of July parties in the Hamptons, but they want to be in the Hamptons when they’re happening. They don’t want to be laughed out of the Hamptons. It’s high school. Nobody ever really graduates high school. It’s that kind of stuff. In this case, it’s money oriented. And they are not conservative. They don’t like conservatives. So that battle is being waged and has been going on. It’s been going on since the early 1900s, Teddy Roosevelt. Sowell goes through all of this. You’ve heard it all on this program. That’s what this is about, and that’s where the fault lines lie.

So people who understand and believe, if I came out today and said, “I’m voting Romney,” I wouldnÂ’t change minds. To these people, that is a vote for the Republican establishment and against conservatives. That is a vote for the Republican Party as a minority party forever. That’s how they see it. They just do. And while all this is going on, the big target is, as we speak, getting away scot-free. And that’s another thing that troubles me. On the other hand I like this battle going on ’cause I think the longer it goes the more conservatism ends up being discussed and explained, because that’s what’s gonna win in the end — and I mean at the end of the presidential race. If whoever the nominee is doesn’t go conservative, it’s over. It’s just that simple.

We’re not gonna go Moderate Lite and win. We’re not gonna go moderate and win. We’re not gonna go middle-of-the road and win. We’re not gonna win with going after the independents as our primary objective. It’s not gonna happen. And I don’t mean that doing so will cause people in the base to sit home. I’m talking about getting a majority of the votes of the United States citizenry. The vast majority of the people in this country. This is what’s so maddening about the Republican establishment is how blind they are — willfully blind — to how overwhelmingly conservative this country is. Just take a look at the people that identify themselves ideologically: 40% say they’re conservative, 20% liberal, 30-some-odd independent.

Party identification is not quite as big a margin, but when it comes down to ideology, there are twice as many people who will tell pollsters they are conservative. Think of that. It’s probably, therefore, greater than 40% because you know how people are intimidated. They don’t want to tell a pollster something ’cause they don’t want the pollster to think that they’re a bigot or a racist or whatever the heck else. That’s pretty powerful, and I think since the majority of people in this country are conservative, you give them a conservative agenda and you tell them you’re gonna implement it, “and this is how,” and you’re gonna have the equivalent of those standing ovations Gingrich got in South Carolina all over this country on Election Day in November.

What’s maddening about this is the Republican establishment knows it, and they are afraid of it. They don’t want any part of it until Election Day of any presidential year. They’ll take it that day to win and then after that, distance themselves, insult them, impugn the conservatives, do whatever they have to do to relegate them to the dustbin. Except on Election Day.