RUSH: You might have read, if you read blogs, or you watch television, you might have heard conservatives in some cases, say something along the lines of this: I don’t think Obama’s up ten or 12 points anywhere, but I do think he’s winning. I don’t think there’s any question. I think Obama’s leading this race. I don’t think there’s any question about it.
You sit there, you watch this, and you either tend to agree with it or ask yourself, the TV, why do you think that? And nobody ever answers. It’s a fascinating thing to me. People will disavow the poll that says Obama’s up ten, 12, whatever, in this swing state or that. “No, that can be right. He’s not up ten or 12, but I think he is winning. I think he’s winning, Bob. He is winning, Dana. Yeah, Greg, I gotta tell you, Angela ‘Tarantula,’ he’s winning.”
Why do they think that?
I think they really do believe it. I think people that say it believe it, and I don’t necessarily believe they’re fatalists. You know why they believe it? It’s real simple. They think the Romney campaign is a dud. The Romney campaign is not exciting them, so they don’t think the Romney campaign’s exciting anybody. They think Romney’s not going after Obama nearly enough. They don’t think Romney’s doing anything memorable in the campaign. Not a day goes by that people say, “Wow, did you hear what Mitt said today?” That hasn’t happened. There’s no apparent real energy coming out of the Romney campaign, despite all the crowds he’s drawing. So I think people, honestly, in their own minds, are legitimately thinking Obama’s winning because they think the Romney campaign’s so dull.
In normal circumstances, I would tend to agree with that. But — and it’s a big “but” — I don’t think it matters. ‘Cause I don’t think the election is about Romney. It was yesterday on this program that I made a point. I get calls from you, and I talk to friends of mine, and every time a poll hits that shows Obama way up, I hear from people. “Oh, God, Rush, aw, jeez, this is bad.”
I say, “Why?”
“Well, it’s just gonna depress everybody.”
“How about you, are you inclined now not to vote?”
“Oh, no, hell, no, you’re not gonna keep me away.” But it’s interesting. They think, these people that tell me that the polling news depresses them, they think it’s gonna make other people less energized to vote for Romney. It’s interesting. It’s like in a good economy the media’s out there telling everybody it’s a bad economy. And people who are not experiencing a bad economy will nevertheless be led to believe that it’s bad because they hear it’s bad for other people. It’s the same phenomenon. Folks, I told you, we had some friends over to my house, oh, I don’t know, three or four years ago. And a couple of them started in on me about how dumb Sarah Palin is and how we had to get rid of her. She’s a albatross on everybody’s neck. I said, “A, I know she’s not an idiot. I know she’s not dumb. So why do you guys think that?”
These are staunch conservatives. Why do you think this?
“The New York Times, Rush. I mean, we can’t have the media making fun of our candidates like this. We just gotta get rid of ’em. She’s hurting us.”
And I blew up. I literally walked away from my own dinner party. I got up from the table and I stormed out. I screamed first. I lost my composure. I started yelling, honest, I will never forget this, and I was saying things to them, like, “So it’s that easy, huh? Whatever the New York Times says about our candidate, you’ll throw ’em away. You’re gonna wait around ’til the Times approves our candidates before you’ll get behind them? Whatever the media says about our candidate will determine whether or not you’ll support ’em, is that what you’re telling me?”
“Rush, she’s just dumb and stupid. She doesn’t have a prayer.”
I said, “Where’s your sense of fight? Where’s your sense of opposing this kind of thing?” I literally lost it. And I got in the car and I went to the airport early ’cause I had to leave for a trip anyway, so I just left, ’cause I was so ticked off. And it’s amazing how this stuff happens. There are conservatives to this day that I hear from who, just this week, some e-mailing me in the fits of depression because of the New York Times poll that we cited yesterday.
“Are you not gonna vote?”
“Oh, no, oh, I’ll be right in there.”
But they think that other people on our side will be successfully turned away. They think that stuff is gonna work on weaker minded people than they are. And my point is this. We can’t let the other side call the shots on this. The reason why anybody thinks that Obama is ahead — if they say, “Well, he’s not up by eight or ten, but I think he’s still winning,” it’s because they’re disappointed in the Romney campaign, and they think that the Romney campaign is so dull that nobody would support it, outside of them. They think that there’s nothing memorable. They think there’s no energy. And so, since the Romney campaign is so bleak in their minds, [they think] that Obama has to be ahead. Now, I remind ’em, “Do you remember 2010?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, what happened in 2010? It was a landslide defeat for the Democrats.”
“Yeah, and there wasn’t a Romney –” That’s my point. My point to all of it: it doesn’t matter. This election’s about stopping Barack Obama. That is the animating aspect of this election. And there’s not one person — and don’t doubt me on this — there’s not one person on our side who will not vote because of the Romney campaign. People are going to be showing up to stop Barack Obama. They might wish there were some other nominee, but there’s nothing we can do about that.
Romney’s not a bad guy. Not infinitely preferable, but there’s no way that I would not want Romney to be president given these options here. I’m just convinced that more people are gonna be voting to stop this candidate than any poll will ever show. It’s just that you don’t have the confidence of that. You look at things in your universe and you think, “Oh, my God, Romney’s campaign’s dull. It can’t possibly be jazzing anybody. How can there be any excitement on our side? The Romney campaign’s not thrilling anybody.” Obama’s taken care of that. Three and a half years of Obama have taken care of that.
You’re not the only one who sees the truth and you’re not the only one who’s gonna react the way you react to the polls. The polls are not depressing anybody. They’re making people mad, if anything. If anything’s going on out there, people are gonna show up for two reasons: To beat Obama and to show up the media with these polls. I’m convinced. That’s why people will say, “Well, he can’t be up by eight or ten. No, no, no. But he’s winning. There’s no question.”
It’s strictly, it’s solely because people are not satisfied with Romney’s campaign, and they’re projecting. They’re thinking, “My gosh, there’s nothing exciting about that campaign,” ’cause everybody thinks you vote for things, ideas, and candidates in elections. And they get scared when you have to win based almost entirely on a protest vote, which is what this is going to be. We’ll see. We’ll see. I could be all wet. I could be dead wrong. We’ll find out soon enough.