RUSH: Here’s May, Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Great to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Been listening to you since 1988.
RUSH: Wow. You’re a lifer. That’s year one. Thank you so much.
CALLER: A lifer, indeed. Two points. First of all, I was a little surprised that Bernie Sanders didn’t attack Hillary for the Clinton I think it’s, what, the community…? You know, get a house with almost no money down thing, from when Bill Clinton was president that kind of started the whole hedge fund thing? You know, he didn’t mention Soros contributing to her campaign. And then the second thing — and I’m gonna hush after I say this — is we have to get some of the lightweights out of the Republican campaign or we’re gonna lose to either a criminal or a socialist. And I do wonder what your thoughts are.
RUSH: Well, wait a minute. You need to name some names. Who do you mean the GOP lightweights gotta go?
CALLER: Lightweights. You know, if you don’t have 10%. You know, because our country, we really decide by March who the president’s gonna be, because the —
RUSH: Okay, so let’s name names. So you think Christie should get out, you think Jeb should get out, you think Kasich should get out, you think Fiorina should get out, you think… Rand Paul go did get out. Santorum did. Who is left? Jim Gilmore?
CALLER: You know, maybe after this week Bush or Christie, probably Christie gets out. He’s at, what, 2% or 4% or something like that. And all this infighting, I just think it’s terrible for our party. There are too many candidates. We need to rally together or we’re gonna have one of these idiots in the White House.
RUSH: Well, let me give you a counter theory. All of these “lightweights,” as you describe them — let it be known that it was May in Jacksonville, Florida, who described ’em as “lightweights.” The “lightweights” you’re describing are all establishment candidates, right? So what about…?
CALLER: I don’t mean they’re lightweights.
RUSH: Well, okay.
CALLER: I mean, percentage-wise in the polls, they don’t have very much.
RUSH: They’re bringing up the end; they don’t have a lot of support. I gotcha. I gotcha. You don’t mean they’re lightweight intellectually. You don’t mean they’re dumb people. You’re just —
CALLER: No.
RUSH: You mean the losers, the people at the trailing end. Here’s the thing. What about this theory? What about keeping them in divides the establishment vote and establishment money and keeps it from unifying around a candidate who, I guarantee you, you probably don’t support? Not… I don’t have a candidate.
CALLER: I am a Rubio supporter. I think… I don’t think that, in all the times we’ve had a person running for president, that we’ve have had someone be quite so insulting and bigoted-sounding and just angry like Trump.
RUSH: Right…
CALLER: I don’t think he has a chance, but that’s just my opinion, and you obviously know a lot more than I do.
RUSH: No! Nobody knows who’s gonna win this. Nobody knows. Like the polling data that’s out there now — you can believe it or not — going into Iowa, 13 of those polls were wrong. The recent history of polling is its inaccuracy. Remember… Who was it? Gallup said they’re getting out of the presidential horse race balloting because they’ve been so wrong. Well, 13 pre-election polls, pre-caucus polls in Iowa were wrong. Thirteen of them had Trump winning by four. He lost by four. The same polls are saying that Trump’s negatives are so high nationwide that any Democrat, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, would wipe the floor with him.
And then they say that Cruz’s electability numbers are low. The same polls that are wrong going into Iowa. I look at those polls, particularly those polls, and I… Folks, I have to tell you: To me, they’re meaningless. We are barely into February, and we’re supposed to make decisions here based on what polls tell us people will and will not do in November? There’s not enough data yet. You can’t say that whatever the number is… Let’s say Trump, his unfavorable or negative numbers, 50. Let’s just make it up. I don’t know what it is. Say it’s 50.
It’s not gonna be 50 if he’s the nominee, when there’s only Trump versus the Democrat. Throw the number out. You throw the number out for any of them. Cruz as well. Some of this polling data serves a purpose. Some of it’s accurate; some of it isn’t. But this stuff that purports to tell us who doesn’t stand a chance in November? Isn’t it interesting it’s always the front-runners that those polls are telling us that about? I’ve always been suspicious of that. In the current case, Cruz and Trump both supposedly have massively high unfavorable numbers, and those numbers are being translated by polling experts as “can’t win a national election.”
“Hillary Clinton will mop the floor with either one.”
Really?
Okay, so what are we supposed to do?
“Well, Jeb Bush shows up best against Hillary in our poll.”
Jeb Bush can’t get beyond 3% in the primary.
“Yeah, but when you get to November, Jeb Bush has got the…”
Are you kidding me? And they want us to make decisions now based on that? Isn’t it fascinating that our front-runner, whoever they are — whoever the front-runners are, happen to be, according to polls — are the guys with the smallest or least chance of beating Hillary and the Democrats. I smell a huge rat with that stuff. But, May, I don’t know any more than you do about what’s gonna happen. Nobody knows what’s gonna happen. I mean, there are educated guesses, wild guesses, but nobody knows. I appreciate your call.