RUSH: This is Lewis, Yreka, California. Nice to have you on the program, sir. Welcome to Open Line Friday.
CALLER: How you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Good. Thank you.
CALLER: I need the Maha Rushie to heal me about what has happened with the whole thing with Romney and the whirlwind of destruction, is my way of putting it. I’ve been watching this. I’ve been on Twitter. I’ve been seeing what things are said from the Romney side, things about salting the earth and destruction of Santorum and burying him in Pennsylvania. And I don’t know how we’re gonna come together after this. I am a Santorum guy, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to be a Santorum guy considering the yelling for him to back out and —
RUSH: He’s not gonna back out.
CALLER: Yeah, I know. And, as a matter of fact, Texas — I’m sure you’ve heard this — is looking at ways to help him get all the delegates and a winner-take-all for Texas, and then I read things like, well, that will never happen, you know, they need to do this and there’s too many things that have to being overcome. You know, well, why is Romney’s path so easy yet everything that Newt or Santorum does, oh, that’s never gonna happen? I can barely watch Fox News anymore, you know? It just seems like there’s an attitude it’s gonna be Romney, and hell or high water, you know, he’s our guy.
RUSH: Well, this is an interesting thing that is happening. The Romney campaign has really continued to run a negative campaign, full with attack ads on Santorum and Newt —
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: — back and forth, and they are not helpful in terms of unifying.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: For example, we start in this whole process, we’re all Republicans, but now you I think are a great example of an average Santorum supporter. You guys are ticked off over what’s been done to your guy. Why are Republicans doing this to each other? I mean why can’t you run a campaign, Mitt, that talks a little bit about you? Why can’t you tell us how great you are? Why do you have to constantly bash — and I think Newt people are saying the same thing.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: People are worried that Santorum and Newt supporters are not gonna come together in November because of the lingering bitter taste in your mouths —
CALLER: Yeah, how can Romney win when he hasn’t won all these southern states? He’s gonna need to —
RUSH: Because his opponent’s Obama.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: That’s how Romney can win.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I don’t know that anybody’s thinking this. I’m just telling you that if anybody at the upper levels of the GOP establishment’s worried about this, they’re telling themselves, come November, come October, everybody’s gonna be on board because the real objective is gonna be getting rid of Obama more than it is going to be electing Romney or anybody else. The real objective people are gonna have will be getting rid of Obama and the only way to do that is vote Romney. That’s what they’re thinking is gonna happen, and they think people like you are gonna be on board when the time comes, and I’m not so sure.
CALLER: Well, do you feel that this will be different than with McCain? ‘Cause Romney says the same kind of things. McCain didn’t want to call him Hussein, and Romney says I’m not gonna light my hair on fire to make the conservative base happy. And it’s like you are repeating exactly what McCain did. McCain lost. Five million popular votes. You know, if we had a Tea Party, I think we’d feel more comfortable than we feel in the current Republican Party.
RUSH: Well, let’s be honest. I’ll tell you what’s disappointing a lot of people. In 2010, this the Tea Party phenomena happened.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: It came to life, and it was the lifeblood of the Republican Party. The Tea Party engineered the 2010 midterm elections. The Tea Party engineered this massive landslide victory, which equals a massive landslide defeat for the Democrats. The Republican Party didn’t do anything. The Republican Party was still running around scared, tail tucked between its legs. The Tea Party, average, ordinary Americans who were fed up, scared, whatever, of what they were seeing wanted to stop it. They get in gear. They mobilize. They bring about this big victory, and after all of that, the party nominee is another moderate.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: And the Tea Party people are scratching their heads, “What the hell happened here?” And what happened was that a dyed-in-the-wool Reagan-type conservative never got in the race. The Rubios never got in. The Paul Ryans didn’t get in. Some people think Christie would have been good. He didn’t get in. They didn’t get in. It was Romney and you know who the list was.
CALLER: I was big for Sarah Palin for a while and then I was thinking if she ran they just would have slaughtered her, you know? I was for her, but I think that we do not know how to handle the press on the conservative side. We don’t.
RUSH: You’re really scratching an old wound with me. This business, I can’t tell you, folks, how angry I got during the Palin era of this. I’d run into people on our side who’d say, “We can’t have Palin, she’s damaged goods.” She’s what? “Yeah, the media’s destroyed her.” So you’re just gonna sit there, you’re gonna let the media destroy us? You’re gonna throw somebody away who would be great, just because the media’s destroyed ’em? Why did you let it happen? The media’s gonna destroy everybody. Wait ’til you see how they will try to destroy Romney. You ain’t seen anything yet. When Romney secures this, if that’s what happens, you wait and see what they got in store. They’re gonna destroy anybody we have.
I can’t tell you, because on the one hand we’ve got people who know full well what the media is, and yet they’re content to sit there and say, “Well, the media destroyed her, she’d damaged goods, she can’t possibly win.” And then the number of woman that don’t like her astounds me. The argument, “Well, she’s dumb.” Every stereotype the media put out, there were people that believed it. It was endlessly frustrating to me. Not that she was ever going to be the nominee, just the fact that she’s a good conservative, she’s a good person. She never did anything to anybody. And we just had people that casually sit around and throw her overboard ’cause the media destroyed her. Well, if we let that happen we’re gonna end up throwing everybody overboard because that’s their objective, is destroy every one of us.
So you just said, “I liked Palin, but she was damaged goods.” Damaged by who? Not by her. She didn’t damage herself. You might think so because you believe some of this — For example, I read this the other day. Even I — this shows you how nobody’s safe and nobody’s immune from this. For the longest time I actually believed that Sarah Palin said, “Well, I would be good with foreign policy because I could see Russia from my house.” Tina Fey said it on Saturday Night Live as Palin. Palin never said it. You know how many people don’t know that? On our side. But the media’s like advertising. They have vastly more power over our thinking than we realize. Even the smartest among us, even the most conservative among us, are not immune to it. So easy. All they have to do is hit the right hot button, a prejudice or an opinion that we already hold. All they’ve gotta do is come along and confirm it, and that’s it. Whether they’re right or wrong about it, whether we’re right or wrong, they can confirm it, we think we’re right when we’re not.
I can’t give you an example of that off the top of my head, but it happens. So I think by the time all of this is said and done, when you see what Obama has planned for Romney, you’re then gonna judge, how does Romney deal with this? My fear is that Obama says Augusta needs to let women in, and five minutes later Romney’s out with the same thing. My fear is that we’re gonna get a lot of that. I hope not, but only time will tell. Won’t be long.