RUSH: Mike in southern Maryland. I’m glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, I’m a first-time caller, long-term listener since your TV show.
RUSH: I appreciate your patience in hanging on today, sir. I really do. Thank you much.
CALLER: So I’m calling because I think there’s as many Tea Party people supporting Trump as there are Cruz. In fact, I’d say that people could easily switch from Cruz to Trump or Trump to Cruz.
RUSH: You think there are an equal number of Tea Party supporting both Cruz and Trump?
CALLER: Yeah. I think basically the two front-runners are anti-establishment, and I’m not convinced that a contested election — or a contested convention wouldn’t mean a bunch of current Cruz people jump to Trump.
RUSH: You mean delegate types at the convention, or —
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: — voters in November?
CALLER: I think the media supports the horse race concept, but I think the underlying electorate for the two candidates are people that are opposed to Big Government, are upset with the way things are going, and in fact what happened in Colorado could hurt a number of people in the Cruz camp who think, “Well, it’s nice that he played by the rules, but really it’s just another manifestation of establishment rules that are working against us, and he took advantage of ’em, so let’s go with Trump.”
RUSH: In this case, I don’t think a lot of people are gonna look at Colorado that way. I don’t see a lot of people penalizing Cruz for winning Colorado basically because he’s an insider establishment guy. I mean, you may be right. Let me ask you this. Do you think Cruz supporters are not bothered by Trump running around calling Cruz Lyin’ Ted all the time, you think they’re gonna be able to just forget that?
CALLER: No, I don’t think so. I think, you know, most of the people that are out to get Trump are not Cruz supporters, but Democrats.
RUSH: Take my word for it, there are a lot of Cruz supporters who detest Trump.
CALLER: I’m sure there are some hard-core, but I think when you talk about the number that need to swing to either candidate, I think they come from the same core Tea Party people that are opposed to the establishment.
RUSH: Okay. So what you’re basically saying is there’s gonna be unity when this is all over, that whoever, the Cruz people are going to have not as much trouble joining the Trumpists in November as people think might be the case now? And, by the same token, you think a bunch of Trumpists would not have all that much trouble joining Cruz if that becomes the result because they’re essentially all Tea Party or a large part of ’em. Maybe, but not all of them are. There’s a bunch of Democrats that support Trump and a bunch of moderates and independents, and a lot of moderate Republicans.
I’m sure that Trump has some Tea Party support, but I would think the lion’s share of that is lined up with Cruz and probably always has been, although there exceptions. Phyllis Schlafly is all in for Trump, right? You’d have to say Phyllis became a Tea Partier. Look, folks, there’s some stuff happening in the future. I need to point this out. Well, maybe I don’t. Maybe I can let somebody else point it out, have you get mad at them. Well, it’s upcoming primaries.
I’m just looking upcoming primaries. Trump’s got a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania with Cruz in third place, double-digit lead in Maryland, Cruz in third place. Cruz can’t afford any third place finishes here, even if you’re talking about a contested convention. Right now there has been, in the world of perception, a momentum shift away from Trump because, A, Wisconsin was a Cruz victory and what happened in Colorado. Yeah, people’s noses are out of joint ’cause of how Colorado happened, but just in terms of the energy, momentum, Cruz is on a roll right now, delegate-wise. Delegates out of Colorado, they’re his, delegates out of Wisconsin are his. He’s running around shoring up second ballot delegate loyalty in all these places that Trump won, which is perfectly legal.
But at the same time there are a lot of primary elections yet to happen. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, not to mention California. And, again, we’re in a lull here where all anybody’s got to talk about is the most recent event in the past and polling data. But next Tuesday we’re gonna have a New York primary and we’re gonna have hard, cold results. And those hard, cold results are gonna wipe out everything going on right now and change everybody’s focus, and the perception is gonna be all different. It’s a seesaw. It’s like an up-and-down roller coaster.
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