RUSH: Here’s Ebony in San Diego. Really glad you waited. I appreciate your patience. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I am a Millennial with a true-to-heart Republican father who I have been in a long lasting ongoing debate with about the fact that I am a registered Independent and what it really means to be a registered Independent. So if you can please help us settle this, what is the true definition or meaning of a registered Independent.
RUSH: Now, wait. I’ll be glad to do that, but I need to know the circumstances. You said you’re having a debate with your father?
CALLER: We’ve been debating about this for a while now because he is a registered Republican, a true-to-heart registered Republican. He’s always raised me that you cannot, as a voter, separate your spiritual beliefs from your political beliefs. So if I’m serious about my spirituality, then I need to be, you know, more or less voting as a Republican, ’cause that aligns with the way we have been taught.
RUSH: Your dad’s a registered Republican and you’re a registered Independent, he’s not happy with that, he’s trying to tell you —
CALLER: No.
RUSH: You ought to register Republican. Well, what have you told him is your reason for registering independent? What have you told him why you are doing that or what an independent is?
CALLER: That’s actually one of the main points I bring up. I bring you up when we’re talking is that I say, “Rush has on multiple times said that as a Millennial I’ve never seen a true Republican president,” and so I don’t really have that — I guess I don’t have that image of what that really means, and I guess the first president I really witnessed was Bush, and I actually voted for Bush the second time, but I voted for Obama, and I’m not voting for Hillary. And I don’t know who I’m voting for, but I don’t know —
RUSH: Well, you don’t know who you’re voting for, but is it possible you would vote for a Democrat in 2016?
CALLER: I can’t see anyone —
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: — no.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: No. At this point it’s about which Republican would I vote for or not.
RUSH: The first thing I need to clarify, when I was talking about Millennials was that — and this was not a critique or criticism of liberals. It was an attempt to wake up conservatives. The point that I made was, you know, Republicans, conservatives are running around whining about what Millennials think. And I had to remind ’em, you must realize by virtue of their age they’ve never had a chance to vote for a real conservative. There hasn’t been one on the ballot, Republicans. You put up a bunch of moderate squishes, but you haven’t put up a conservative, so the Millennials don’t know what one is, therefore what they think of conservatism is what the media tells them, and what the Democrat Party thinks of ’em, and what the Republican establishment thinks of ’em.
CALLER: And I’ve not seen — well, the practices of what — ’cause my dad doesn’t even agree with the views of whatever, the Bush or whatever candidate, he doesn’t fully agree with it because they don’t fully represent for him true conservatism. So I’m asking him, like it’s almost a question of why are you a true Republican, why are you still, I guess you could say, you know —
RUSH: No, no, wait. That’s because there’s no way he’s a Democrat. So he’s a Republican holding out hope that the conservatives will make a move and take over the party.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: That’s why he wants you on his side. As an independent, my guess is that —
CALLER: — the way he raised me — (crosstalk)
RUSH: — his view of an independent is that you’re not committed. An independent is sitting around waiting but really won’t commit to anything until they make up their minds, and even then they don’t want their commitment to be seen as to a party.
CALLER: Well, can it be that one side isn’t correct on everything? Can I be agreeing with this side on certain particular things —
RUSH: Of course, but let me ask you this. Are you married?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Is your husband right about everything?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: And you’re still married, aren’t you?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: All right. In fact, your husband’s probably very rarely right, is my guess, and yet you’re still there.
CALLER: He’s right, he’s smart guy, he’s pretty right.
RUSH: Okay, even better. So he’s right a lot of times but he’s not perfect.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: And yet you’re still Mrs. whoever.
CALLER: So then I think about the independent as like a nice comfortable place that I can feel where I’m sitting here and I can say, “Well, I’m not going to fully commit to either party until I see — (crosstalk)
RUSH: I know that’s what you think. I know that’s exactly what you think.
CALLER: — as a Republican, you can’t say that they — (crosstalk)
RUSH: That’s exactly, Ebony, what you think, and I’m not here, I’m not taking the occasion of your really, really good-quality question, I’m not gonna bash independents here. That’s not the point. But your dad, I understand exactly what he’s talking about. You just said it; you’re gonna sit around, you’re waiting, you’re picking and choosing. In the process, you get to tell yourself you’re not closed-minded, you’re open-minded, you are open to all things, whereas these people that identify themselves one way or the other, they’re just rock solid and they’re committed and they’re closed-minded or whatever.
You want to portray yourself as someone who is vastly broad-minded and open to anything and not locked rigidly into something because you fear what people might think of that. Or you don’t want to think ill of it. It stands to reason for a lot of people because the media and both political parties, by the way, have made the independents feel godlike. Consultants, particularly Republican consultants have vaunted independents to a level of importance that’s greater than rank-and-file Republicans. So it stands to reason you’d want to be one. You’d want to be the focus of everybody’s attention.
You listen to your average Republican campaign consultant, they’re running around telling, “Yeah, he who wins the independents wins the elections. I’m the guy that can get you the independents. The independents don’t like us when we’re critical of Obama. You gotta dial it back. You gotta be more moderate.” And so people say, “I’m one of those. I’m one of those, I’m independent, because I want to be the focus of everybody’s attention.” And there’s a difference between independent and moderate, Ebony. A moderate is a gutless liberal that won’t admit to being one. An independent is a little higher up on the chain than that, but your dad just wants a teammate. He just want you on his team, that’s all. That’s what he means. I’m fairly confident.