There’s talk now of Crazy Bernie going third party, which we need to encourage.  There’s also a story that some Democrat power brokers are considering convincing Hillary to put Crazy Bernie on the ticket as the vice president, which we do not want.  That would not be good.  I ran that by Mr. Snerdley this morning.  It’s impossible.  There’s no way, not after the stuff Crazy Bernie said about Hillary.  It’s politics-as-usual.  You mend that stuff with a love fest at the convention.  “You’re forgetting about Crazy Bernie supporters,” said Mr. Snerdley.

I said, “No, I’m not.  I’m just remembering that they have a common enemy, and it’s us.”  At the end of the day, they despise us more than they despise anybody else in the world. So we’ll just have to deal with it as it comes.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know some of the superdelegates on the Democrat side, I’m hearing whispers and buzz that some superdelegates who everybody thinks are pledged to Hillary are getting nervous about it.  Wouldn’t that stand to reason?  What is there to be excited about in the Hillary Clinton campaign?  She’s losing and losing and losing, and when she does win, she’s eking out victories.

The only thing that has Hillary Clinton in the position she’s in is the rigged nature of the Democrat primary process, which is the superdelegates, essentially.  But there isn’t any supporting momentum. It isn’t real.  It’s the difference between PR and buzz and substance, and there isn’t any substance to the Hillary campaign.  It’s not a momentous, roaring, positive, sweeping-everything-out-of-the-way campaign.  She is struggling.  She’s barely eking it out.  All of the energy, all of the excitement is on the Crazy Bernie side.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  If it is now sexist to tell a woman she looks tired, and particularly if you do that when she’s not wearing any makeup… I mean, according to the UK Telegraph, that’s what makes men think women look tired, is they’re not wearing makeup.  Anyway, does all of this mean we’re never gonna be able to say that about Hillary ever again?  Because, man, is that not the common opinion?  I mean, even with makeup, she looks… See, not supposed to go there are we?

I mean, she looks haggard, looks bedraggled, looks worn out, looks put out, put on. It’s not a pretty picture out there, and it hasn’t been in a while.  … So here’s Crooked Hillary barely hanging on with Crazy Bernie yapping at her heels, and Crazy Bernie says he’s not going anywhere. He’s hanging in there until the last ballot is cast. And there’s beginning to be some cracks in the superdelegates.  Folks, I’m gonna tell you this.

For every report that you actually hear or see about Democrats being concerned, multiply it by 10.  This is not at all how this was supposed to go.  In fact, let me find something for you.  Let me find this.  Let me find… I found a piece from a year ago.  Here it is.  It was by this guy… What’s this guy’s name?  It was… New York Times, David Leonhardt.  “When a Presidential Nominating Contest Isn’t a Contest.” This is how this year was supposed to go.  This is published March 9th in 2015.  So about 14 months ago.

“The Democratic Party is on the cusp of a primary-election campaign unlike any in memory. It does not have an incumbent president running for re-election. It does not even have a sitting vice president with an easy path to the nomination. Yet the party may conduct one of the least competitive nominating contests in modern political history.” The New York Times could not have been more wrong, could not have been further off the beaten path.

Establishment pundits, pollsters, consultants, donors, could they have been any more wrong about Hillary Clinton — or Trump, for that matter?  Here we have a very smug opinion piece, and it couldn’t be farther from the truth.  It’s not a lie.  It’s just the guy had no idea. No Democrat did.  What this column was intended to be was a reassuring piece.  It was also to warn off any potential challengers to Mrs. Clinton.  It was supposed to send the signal, “Don’t even try it. There’s no path to victory for you. In 2016, it’s Mrs. Clinton’s in our party.

“So all of you Crazy Bernies and all you wannabes and Elizabeth Warrens out there, just stand down.  Next year is not your year.” That’s the message here.  And all of them listened to it, except for Crazy Bernie and Martin O’Malley (who never was a serious candidate anyway).  So the fix was in.  The fix was in for Crooked Hillary.  They tried to take the selection away from Democrat voters.  They gave Hillary all the superdelegates. They practically gave her the nomination before the primary season even began.

The one thing they didn’t factor was the public opinion of Democrat voters.  So here you had contempt, you had arrogance, you had conceit.  Arrogance alone is a killer.  But you combine arrogance with conceit and contempt, and you put it in charge of those who are already out of touch with voters in their own political party, and you got a recipe for disaster.  Here’s the rest of the piece.  Not all of it, but just enough to give you the flavor.

It was by David Leonhardt.  “Hillary Clinton is in as strong a position as any nonincumbent trying to win a major-party nomination ever has been… Her poll numbers — and the decisions being made by rival candidates — all suggest she is far stronger than she was eight years ago. The legitimate questions about why she seems to have violated State Department email policy won’t change this fact.  While it’s still early in the 2016 campaign, it’s not that early. We’re well into the so-called invisible campaign, with candidates, donors and campaign aides all making decisions about 2016.

“On the Republican side, Mitt Romney, having struggled in the invisible campaign, has already changed his mind about running. On the Democratic side, in contrast to eight years ago, no one as strong as Barack Obama, John Edwards or even Bill Richardson … has shown signs of taking on Mrs. Clinton. The closest recent parallels to her are George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000 or Bob Dole in 1996…  The situation has both benefits and drawbacks for the Democrats. If it continues, it will allow Mrs. Clinton to save her money for a general election and to avoid having Democratic rivals criticize her in ways that voters remember.

“But it may also prevent her from working off her rough edges as a candidate early in the cycle — and will allow Republicans to train their attention and negative messages on a single candidate from the start. On a policy level, a Clinton cakewalk will mean the party doesn’t have some of the constructive debates about health care and tax policy that Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards did eight years ago.” Constructive debates that they ha…?  There weren’t any constructive debates about health care in the Democrat primaries in 2008!

Anyway, don’t get me off track.  That’s its own maddening assertion.  Fourteen months ago, the opinion of powerbrokers in the Democrat Party was, “It’s over. There isn’t even gonna be a primary campaign on the Democrat side. It’s Hillary’s; we are coronating her.”  This guy wrote this piece (and it goes on) and it’s totally wrong, misses everything.  My only point in calling this to your attention is to illustrate that that opinion was shared by practically every powerbroker you can find in the Democrat Party coast to coast.

And so what’s happening now is genuine earthquake status.  Tsunami.  They don’t know how to deal with it because this was not supposed to happen.  Mrs. Clinton was supposed to be at 60% right now and climbing, against any Republican.  Obama was supposed to be in his last year, sharing glory after glory after glory — after the amazing recovery of the economy, after dramatic implementation of Obamacare, after nailing immigration and securing endless Democrat voters via voter registration and amnesty for decades.

And all of this was to combine into one unbeatable Democrat campaign for the presidency led by Hillary Clinton.  And where are we today in reality? Where we are is that many in the Democrat Party are actually beginning to think that she will lose, and not just because of Trump.  There are people in the Democrat Party questioning whether she has it.  They have been in denial.  These are the Clintons.  They’ve been in denial, the Democrats have, for years about Mrs. Clinton.  She does not have her own base like Trump does.

Her base is inexorably tied to her husband’s.

So we have a disaster that is happening.

It’s not on the horizon.  A disaster is happening in the Democrat Party.  You know what?  There’s a NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll out there.  You ready for this?  See if I got this right.  I have to double-check this during the break: 10% of Trump supporters voted for Obama in ’08.  Now, when the Democrats look at that and then they look at where Crazy Bernie supporters are likely to go if he gets the full-fledged Democrat diss at the convention — and then they balance that against Mrs. Clinton’s ability to generate excitement and enthusiasm on her own, which basically is nil, zero — they’re beginning to think it’s not just that Trump… The verbiage here is important.

It’s not just that Trump can win.  They are very much concerned that Hillary can lose — of her own volition, on her own, that she can lose — despite the fact that anybody running for the presidency with a D next to their name is guaranteed 200 electoral votes.  They are starting to question whether or not Hillary can actually make that happen.  I know some of you say, “Come on, Rush! I can’t believe it. You know they’ve got it wired.  They’ve got it juiced, Rush! They’re got this voter fraud thing going on. Whatever they need to do, they’ll end up winning.”

No.  No.  That’s not the case.  Otherwise, there wouldn’t be an election.  Otherwise there wouldn’t be all the things happening now, if it were that fait accompli.  But, again, the real point is the comparison of where the Democrats thought they were gonna be a year ago and where they really are, and none of this was envisioned. Not a single aspect of this.  A year ago Mrs. Clinton was a goddess.  She was the epitome of popularity.  They were gonna redo first African-American president, transfer that to first female president, and continue on this program where the president is unassailable.

Cannot be criticized, because to do so would be to be sexist and racist and who knows what else.  And they’re finding Republicans are not afraid to criticize her. Well, Trump is not afraid to criticize her and not afraid to hit her where it really hurts, not afraid to go after her real vulnerabilities, which most Republicans — since the failed impeachment — have been reluctant to do.  And on the other side, you have Trump, and you have all of these traditional Drive-By Media hit pieces designed to take him out.

Which are making him stronger.