RUSH: Okay, Mary in Richmond, Virginia. Hi. We’ve had a lot of Virginia people the last couple days. How are you, Mary? Great to have you on the program.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I’m calling you from the very heart of the precincts that elected David Brat, and I think I speak for at least a lot of our friends. The reason we transferred our loyalty from Cantor to David Brat is because he is a principled candidate. He’s also extremely articulate thanks to his professorial background. He communicates big concepts in simple terms.
RUSH: I have heard that about him. In fact, I heard one of his students yesterday say something we do here, that he “makes the complex understandable.” He breaks down complicated things and makes them understandable for people, and that’s big — anybody who can do that — particularly in matters of economics.
CALLER: Well, for instance, he communicated how China and India are able to feed billions of people. It’s because they are moving toward a free-market economy. But what happened with my husband and me is, we went to a small neighborhood meet-and-greet for David Brat because I’ve known Eric Cantor for decades and saw no real reason to switch my vote.
But when I met David Brat person to person and saw what a principled candidate he is, I also saw at the same time how unprincipled Eric Cantor was to spread lies about him. So it not only made me mad, but it also motivated me. I called probably a dozen, maybe 15 friends and said, “Look, you need to take a look at this man. We have switched our loyalty. You may want to do the same.”
These are the people who won it.
This is a highly educated area of professional people, strong families, strong churches. These are people that are responsible citizens. They recognized what was being done, that Eric Cantor was losing sight of us. He used to be a principled candidate, and he just sort of… I think his advisors, their hatred for Tea Party… By the way, it’s not really the Tea Party that can take credit, in terms of the formal use of the word. It was people like us who recognized this is a candidate we can be excited about.
RUSH: That’s true. “The Tea Party,” quote/unquote. There are Tea Party organizations. None of ’em were in there.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: They didn’t go in there. They didn’t think he had a chance.
CALLER: None of ’em contacted us about him. It was meeting him. He did the hard work.
RUSH: Well, this proves my point all along. Ideas and substance have consequences, and you reacted to that. You reacted to principle, you reacted to substance, you reacted to ideas. I think this is totally understandable and I think it’s just an indication of a wave that is on tap for November for incumbents of both parties.
If they are perceived to be effete, elite, snobbish, unconcerned — if they in any way condescend to voters — they’re gonna pay the price for it. Reaction to this runs the gamut. You have Republicans saying, “This wasn’t about immigration. This is just a one-off and this doesn’t mean anything.” And then you have me saying that it was about immigration and a whole bunch of other things, too.
A lot of them are what Mary said. Even Ron Fournier at the National Journal thinks that the defeat, the Cantor defeat, may signal a populist revolution. He thinks that the Democrats and the Republicans both ought to be paying very close attention and be honest with themselves about what happened here — and if they’re not, they’re gonna get swept out, too.
RUSH: Here’s Tea in Richmond, Virginia. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: It is such a pleasure to talk to you. After 25 years of trying to get through, I’m so excited.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Thank you so much for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: And, by the way, the Tea Party is not dead.
RUSH: It never will be.
CALLER: No, sir.
RUSH: There’s no way.
CALLER: Never will be.
RUSH: There’s no way they’ll ever end the Tea Party. It’s never gonna end.
CALLER: You know, I live in the 7th. My daughter and I went and voted. We voted for Dave Brat. She’s 20 years old, so she was real excited because I told her, I said, “I think we’re gonna make a difference here.”
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: So when it all came to pass that evening and Eric Cantor was out and Dave Brat was in, we had a long discussion about what Dave Brat stood for. You know, all he ever talked about? He talked about the basic planks and the basic tenants of what being Republican is. He didn’t talk about social issues. He talked about the basics, the free-market economy, the things that matter to us — and, oh, God help us, he mentioned the “God” word, and some of the networks went off on that.
RUSH: Let me tell you. You just said something that went by real fast that I think’s important, and we need to go back to it.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: He talked about basic things that the Republican Party believes in, that are now considered strange or only conservative.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: But he talked about what the Republican Party always has been and what it used to be, and that resonated. Don’t doubt me! I know it did with you.
CALLER: It resonated with all of us. The Republican Party has forgot who brought ’em to the dance, much like Eric Cantor did. You can’t forget about us, you know? We’re not just the Tea Party. We are conservative. We have conservative values. We raise conservative families. They don’t talk to us like we can even understand what they’re… I mean… I forget how I wanted to say that, but they talk over us.
RUSH: I know what you mean.
CALLER: They don’t speak to us and they don’t listen to us anymore.
RUSH: That’s it. That’s it. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. They seem distant and uninterested, and as if, “You just don’t know what we’re dealing with here. You don’t really understand. You can’t understand. We’re doing the best we can here for the country,” and you can understand, and you do understand, and you’re ticked off at what’s going on. The fact that they don’t see it also does not stand them in very good stead, as far as you’re concerned.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Well, so, what I’m hearing from you is you voted for Brat because of Brat. You voted for Brat because what he was saying. You voted for Brat because you liked his ideas and you liked what he stood for.
CALLER: Yes, and I don’t think Eric Cantor paid attention to what he stood for anymore. That’s important not just to the 9th. (sic) I mean, Eric Cantor is up there in his position. He lost sight of how he got there, of who put him there to begin with. And when you do that, you set yourself up for a loss.
RUSH: Right. You know what I think? I think that’s probably true, but I think there’s something else. It’s not bigger or more important, but I think a lot of these guys in the leadership think that voters like you really like that their guy is in the leadership and you’re gonna vote to keep him there because he’s in the leadership.
I don’t think that they get that that doesn’t matter to you. Big deal he’s in the leadership. What’s he do with it is what bothered you. I think they rely on the fact that they’re in the leadership and that the local district voters are gonna be really impressed by that and want to hold on to that position. It doesn’t matter if you’re not using the role correctly. One more question.
CALLER: Yes, sir?
RUSH: Honestly, did you vote more for Brat or against Cantor? Because you’ve made it plain here, you were irritated at Cantor, but you also liked Brat. So which was the dominant factor in your vote? No wrong answer. I’m just curious.
CALLER: Probably 60-40. Sixty angry with Eric Cantor, because I was a big Eric Cantor supporter back in the day, and 40% I went back and did some homework on Brat. You know, he had no money to advertise, so we got one letter from him last week, and I actually took the time to sit and read it, and that’s when we sat down and had a family discussion about this. This is important. This guy’s talking about what we believe in. I don’t like Eric Cantor, and it may not make a difference, but I’m gonna vote. But like I said, when we came out of the voting place, I looked at my daughter and I said, “I feel like something’s gonna change.”
RUSH: Well, it did.
CALLER: So the little guy wins. The little guy wins
RUSH: It sure did, Tea. Thanks for the phone call. I appreciate it. Thanks for your honesty in answering these penetrating, difficult questions.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Did you hear what that last caller said? It was something very, very interesting. She said that she was watching all of Eric Cantor’s advertising, $5 million plus worth of advertising, and Dave Brat wasn’t running any ads. I mean, it’s $100,000 that he spent. But she got a letter, and she decided to read the letter. Now, understandably, if she had been happy with Cantor, she probably would not have spent much time on that letter, if any, at all.
But she was angry at Cantor.
So one letter worked up against millions of dollars of advertising, and the letter made that woman research who this guy was, and she learned even more. So one direct mail piece was more effective than millions of dollars’ worth of advertising. That’s gonna send chills up the spines of Republican consultants. That is something important that needs to be gotten out. (interruption) Don’t take me there, Snerdley. (sigh)
Now the smart-alecks are saying, “I thought it was talk radio! I thought it was talk radio!”
(sigh)
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