RUSH: Okay, pop quiz. Who said — it’s not a name. I don’t even have a name, so the question not really is who said. Where’d this come from? “We don’t need these fringe guys as much as we did anymore. We can let ’em walk on certain bills, and it just won’t matter. This gives us breathing room.” Where did this come from? What kind of person is saying, “We don’t need these fringe guys as much as we did anymore”? Just a little pop quiz.
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RUSH: Fort Walton Beach, Florida. This is Paul. Great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Yeah. Great to speak with you, too, Rush. Thanks for having me on.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I wanted to comment on the election for the Speakership that occurred in the House this past Tuesday. The contest was actually not in doubt even before the gavel hit the hardwood up on the dais because an incredible number of Democrats didn’t vote. Twenty all told. Yes, 13 were in New York at the funeral of former governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, but a further seven didn’t vote in the chamber, and those 13 that were in New York wouldn’t have gone without permission from minority leader Pelosi. So it appears there was a lot of gamesmanship involved here, because what happens, if people don’t vote, then that lowers the total required for successful majority to be elected. In this case, all told, with the 20 Democrats that didn’t vote, that lowered the total number of votes could be cast at 414 —
RUSH: Okay, I’m down to 30 seconds. Let me see if you can answer my pop quiz. Who said — or where did this come from? There’s not a name. Where did this come from: “We don’t need these fringe guys as much as we did anymore. We can let them walk on certain bills, and it just wonÂ’t matter. That gives us breathing room.” Where’d that come from?
CALLER: I don’t know. But the Democrats have the Speaker they want. And they arrange things through electoral gamesmanship to make sure he got the win.
RUSH: Okay, where did you call from yesterday, Paul? Where were you yesterday when you called?
CALLER: Well, I didn’t call yesterday.
RUSH: Well, the day before that?
CALLER: It wasn’t the day before that. I haven’t been on air for quite some time.
RUSH: Okay, I’m confusing you with somebody. I’m sorry. I’ll answer the question. Don’t go away, folks. Back after this. Don’t go away.
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RUSH: The answer to the question, “We don’t need these fringe guys as much as we did anymore. We can let them walk on certain bills, and it just wonÂ’t matter. That gives us breathing room.” That is in The Politico, and it is attributed to a senior Republican leadership aide in the House. The Republican leadership spokesman, “We don’t need these fringe guys,” meaning we don’t need the Tea Party. We don’t need the conservatives. We don’t need to care about what they want anymore.
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RUSH: Now, let me go back. Before we get too far away from the beaten path, I want to go back to this quote, my little pop quiz quote. “‘We don’t need these fringe guys as much as we did anymore,’ said a GOP leadership aide speaking on condition of anonymity. ‘We can let ’em walk on certain bills, and it just won’t matter. This gives us breathing room.'” Now, this is in The Politico. The Politico, by the way, has become the go-to source for the Republican leadership.
Everybody in Washington leaks, everybody has anonymous sources, and the Republican leadership has obviously decided Politico is gonna get their news when they want to put something out such as this. So I happen to know, folks, as you probably do, there is still… In fact, I don’t even think it’s debated much. The anger at the Republican leadership in Washington is still palpable, and the phones in Washington are ringing.
Let me guarantee you: The leadership is shocked at how much attention you all are still giving them. They were blown away by the number of phone calls before the Speaker election, and those phones are continuing to ring. What’s happening is that Republicans all over this country have not stopped calling Washington and telling the Republicans how ticked off they are. They’re not happy with the way the vote went.
Some of them think they were toyed with up to that 28 votes when you just needed 29. Boehner was toying with them, or others, too. But the point is the anger has not subsided with the election of Boehner. The people that elected Republicans in this massive landslide actually are still ticked off ’cause they think that they’re being used and taken for granted and they’re gonna be ignored, and they’re still livid about it.
I will guarantee you that people in elective office in Washington are shocked at this.
They’re shocked at two things.
They are really surprised you care this much. “About a Speaker election? Nobody’s ever cared about that! That’s so inside baseball.” They’re also really in a state of disbelief that even after the election, you’re still calling to register your anger. Now, what this guy — whoever this is, this nameless GOP leadership aide. When he says, “We don’t need these fringe guys as much as we did,” this is an insult, not just the Tea Party members of the House of Representatives.
“We don’t need these fringe guys”? They’re talking about you! The fringe guys? Who elected the fringe guys? You other fringe freaks. What they think now, what this quote is meant to represent is that the Republican leadership, is saying, “Now that Boehner survived, we don’t care about you Tea Party people. We don’t need these fringe guys anymore. We don’t even need ’em on legislation.
“We got enough Republicans sitting in here without the fringe guys! We don’t even have to give ’em any attention. We don’t even have to let them have any role in any bills that are coming up.” What this guy doesn’t understand, apparently, is with this reference here on the fringe guys he thinks he’s speaking specifically and exclusively of elected Tea Party Republicans.
I don’t think he knows that he’s also insulting the people that voted for ’em. So what’s happening here is that the Republican leadership has somebody that got hold of Politico and essentially called a lot of Republican voters “fringe guys,” too. That’s what I don’t think he realizes here. Now, this guy obviously just, “Hey, okay, all right, we survived these challenges to Boehner. Now we can do whatever we want!
“We can do whatever we want. We don’t need the Tea Party and we don’t even have to act like we care about the fringe groups.” The bottom line is this spokesman — this leadership aide speaking anonymously — has just confirmed that at least he thinks that the Republican base is a bunch of fringe kooks, and it’s very unfortunate.
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