RUSH: The first thing I noticed last night — and I’m not gonna put ’em in any chronological order, but they’re close. The first thing I really noticed last night seemed to be a gigantic contradiction. The Democrats have been telling us and the media have been telling us for weeks now that the enthusiasm is all on their side.

Oh, yeah, they own it, don’t they? They got people chomping at the bit. “We can’t wait to get out there. Give us those ballots! Give us those absentee ballots! Give us those mail-in ballots! Give us the early voting! We can’t wait,” and then they tell us the enthusiasm on their side is really not so much pro-Biden but it’s anti-Trump, and they tell us, “That’s great news because that’s bad news for Trump!

“There’s so much Trump hatred on their side that Trump doesn’t have a prayer. Trump’s gonna have to really make some serious changes,” and I said, “This the wrong way to look at that. If you’re running around telling people that a majority of the enthusiasm of your voters is not for your candidate, it seems to me you’re the one that has a problem.”

And that turns out to be true, because both Obama and Kamala Harris last night were obsessed with people voting. They were literally obsessed with it. Kamala Harris and Obama were telling everybody they need to start now to “make a plan to vote.” What do you mean, “make a plan”? You wait for Election Day, you grab your voter registration ID, you go to the poll, you stand in line, you vote, you go home — or wherever you go, the bar, whatever you do.

What do you mean, “make a plan to vote”?

“Well, Rush, you must understand, many Democrat voters don’t have their own transportation. They’ve gotta figure out a way to get to the polling place — and then you got to understand, Rush, that many Democrat voters, they’re people of color, and the polling places don’t want ’em to vote. Of course, the decks are stacked against ’em, and so Democrat voters have to ‘make a plan’ to get past all the blockades designed to stop ’em from voting.”

There is no such thing. There is no blockade to stop African-Americans from voting. In fact, the Democrat voter rolls are inflated with people who are dead, who live in different places. There isn’t anybody trying to stop anybody from voting out there, not in great numbers. There was a great Supreme Court decision that came down, however, for the state of Florida. Here it is.

The Supreme Court just ruled on the 2020 voting. They “denied voting rights for up to a million Florida felons.” Well, it’s about time. That thing should have never been on the ballot or in a Supreme Court decision anywhere. But the Democrats were counting on it, because they know their constituency groups. The Supreme Court just ruled on Thursday.

They “let stand a lower court ruling that could strip voting eligibility for up to a million Florida felons,” i.e., criminals “who have completed their sentences but have yet to pay outstanding fines, restitution, and other fees.” So they haven’t cleaned up their act altogether. A million felon votes now will now not be legal? Big problem for the Democrats.

But Kamala Harris and Barack Obama were obsessed with people voting, as though it’s some major accomplishment, as though it’s a major achievement, as though it is a dramatically hard bit of work to go vote — and it isn’t. It’s one of the most wonderful things about the United States. It’s easy to go vote. You register, and then you get your voter registration card to prove it, then you have proof that you live where you live.

In some cases, you don’t even have to do that. You just show up — you don’t even need a voter ID, photo ID — and then you go vote. The Democrats have literally got what percentage of African-Americans thinking they’re gonna go to jail if they show up and vote? I am not kidding. These people are so mean-spirited toward their own voters that they have scared them over the years that if you go vote, you might end up in jail.

That’s why they want you to have a photo ID. They have… I’m telling you, the Democrat Party has done more to ruin the integrity of the American presidential election system than Vladimir Putin could have ever dreamed of. Now it’s coming home, I think, to roost. But what does all this mean? It means they have no enthusiasm behind this ticket.

Obama’s speech, besides being one of the most low rent that I can ever recall… I mean, folks, it was trash. I kept telling people I was communicating with, “You know, this is why this guy doesn’t work as an endorser. This is why the people he endorses or campaigns for… You go look. His candidates do not win, starting with Hillary Clinton in 2016.”

After he did his personal thing with Trump — and, by the way, violating every… These people say they have the manners and they have the class, right? They and the Never Trumpers on our side, they’re the decent ones. They’re the ones who are clean. They’re the ones who are calm. They’re the ones who have character, and they’re the ones we can trust.

These are the people that violate every sensibility norm that politics has as a traditional value! Obama blew up every tradition last night about attacking a sitting president, your predecessor. It just isn’t done. There’s always gonna be the first time. There’s always gonna be the first time somebody breaks the rule, and Obama now is the guy. (interruption)

No, it wasn’t George W. Bush. George W. Bush has yet to go after Obama. George W. Bush didn’t go after Clinton. He became his best friend, for crying out loud. Now, Clinton and Gore went after Trump and they went after George W. Bush (chuckles) in 2004, trying to blame him for everything going wrong with the War on Terror. But traditionally, Republicans don’t do it.

But Kamala Harris, her speech was the same thing, urging people, begging people to get out and vote. It sounded desperate to me, folks. They sounded desperate. They sounded really scared — and to me, they were telegraphing that they know there’s not a lot of enthusiasm. Let me tell you something.

If you really believe that people on your side are chomping at the bit, if you really believe they can’t wait to get out there, you don’t spend all these precious moments you have. One night a year, you have unfettered access to the American people — and to spend so much time begging people to vote? “Make a plan! Get together with your community organizer after my speech and make a plan to go vote.”

It doesn’t require a plan. You just have to be able to be willing to make a short little trip somewhere. They’ve admitted all week that their polling shows a majority of people going to vote for Biden really are voting against Trump ’cause they hate Trump, and that that’s bad news for Trump. No. It’s bad news for them.

They’re admitting there’s no enthusiasm for Biden — and I’ll tell you, there isn’t any for Harris, either. (Snort!) That’s one of the big little secrets here. There isn’t any enthusiasm for her — at all — and they’ve got another problem with her, folks. They have another big problem with Kamala Harris, and it is this.

They are positioning her as an identity human being, meaning, “She deserves whatever she gets ’cause of her race, because of her skin color.” They’re turning identity politics on her and saying, “This is what qualifies her, this is what…” (interruption) Well, when they talk about, “She’s historic! She is the first woman of color to be chosen to be a running mate on a Democrat presidential ticket.”

Okay. So if you guys want to do that, if you want to portray Kamala Harris as there because of the color of her skin, then you gotta have to do something else. You’re gonna have to find a way to make her a victim. Because if you don’t do that, if you don’t find a way to make her a victim of something — a victim of America, a victim of American racism/discrimination, a victim of America’s bias against women, whatever — then this identity politics thing isn’t gonna work for you.

I find it fascinating that they’re not pushing her on the basis of her qualifications. I mean, she’s been the attorney general of California. She’s been a DA in San Francisco. They could create a rather impressive resume. Nope. Nope. They’re sticking with the fact that she’s the first woman and she’s historic, when they’ve been there, done that.

We had the first African-American president! We had the first woman run for president with Hillary. We had a bunch of women running for the Democrat nomination. Look, this history thing has been done. I know, they haven’t had the Hispanic route yet, but they’re gonna overplay their hand here. What they’re in the process of doing, they’ve got to find a way to turn her into a victim or the entire positioning of her is going to fail and bomb out.

So why all this focus on voting? Why all this fear? Why all this desperation? Why all of this almost wringing the hands in the speech last night, looking out through the camera, “You gotta vote! You gotta go vote!” I mean, it was over the top. There has to be a reason — and the reason is, there isn’t a lot of enthusiasm for Biden. There isn’t any enthusiasm for Kamala Harris.

How do they know that? That is what we don’t know: How they know that, whatever they’ve got — data, information — that would make them go out in both speeches last night and devote so much of the time to reminding people they’ve got to vote?

What do you mean, remind people they’ve gotta vote? Your people, I thought they were enthusiastic. I thought they couldn’t wait to get out. I thought they hated Trump so much. I thought… But they had to remind people how important it is to vote? That’s just the first thing I noticed.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I think the Democrats’ internal polling is bad, and I think that the people they’ve talked with about it know it. I think they’re looking… I think the news cycle is not in their favor. Let’s take a look at the news cycle for a second. COVID. COVID… (sigh) Would you say the peak has been hit?

Would you say that we may be on the downside of COVID? Now, they don’t like that! They want COVID to still be in an upswing. They need more cases. They need more people dying. They need the schools continually shut down. They need more colleges not playing football. They need a number of things to continue to happen so they can blame them on Trump.

But… Back to school? I don’t think they win back to school. I think the sentiment for back to school is growing. It’s obvious they oppose it. The violence in the streets — you know, with individuals now being beat up. We now have seen the videotape of two individuals be literally kicked in the head, sent to the hospital.

No police around to do anything about it. We’ve identified the perps. There are manhunts in Portland and Seattle to try to find these two perps. People are getting fed up with it. I think also that as the days go on, they’re getting paranoid about Biden getting addled. They cannot be confident.

Biden didn’t know where he was the night he accepted the nomination. It was clear that when the snakes and the balloons came down the ceiling, he didn’t know where he was. Folks, they’re gonna have to find a way to try to renege on these debates if… They’re just gonna have to do it. I don’t know how they go forward without that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It’s the fastest three hours in media, and here’s evidence; the first hour’s almost over. Somebody sends a note, “They better hope the ratings are low. They better hope that nobody’s watching this convention. The best thing could happen to them is for millions to miss it.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right. Grab sound bite number 30. They just make me look brilliant. What is one of the points I made in analyzing the Obama and Kamala Harris speeches last night? I said, “Man, do these people sound desperate. They kept talking about the importance of voting. Why would you need to do that?

“If there’s so much enthusiasm already on your side, why would you need to spend so many valuable minutes — in her speech and your speech — reminding people to vote, telling people to ‘make a plan to vote’?” I don’t know about you, but when I vote, it usually involves waking up like I woke up today. I woke up today and thanked God that I did, and then you know what I did?

Then I got in the shower (I don’t think I’m divulging any secrets here) and then I got dressed. And then I went down to the library and did the stuff necessary to be able to leave the house. And then I called for the staff to come get me, bring the car around. I went out, got in the car, and drove to work. If I was gonna vote, I’d go to the polls after work when the crowds are down.

I’m too famous to go there in the morning. I would go in there and vote. It wouldn’t require any thought. It wouldn’t require a plan. It wouldn’t require calling a cab. It wouldn’t require calling anybody. It wouldn’t require anything. What? What plan? But they spent all this time talking about the importance of voting, and I didn’t understand it because with all this enthusiasm they claim they have.

I mean, even if the enthusiasm is hating Trump instead of loving Biden, they’ve told us all these months, “Man, Trump is so hated; he’s so despised. These people can’t wait to vote!” Okay. Then why did you spend so much damn time telling them how important it is to vote? Are your people that stupid; they don’t know it’s important to vote?

Are they so stupid we can tell ’em the election is a week later, and they’ll believe it? Well, look at this: “Earlier this week, NBC News released a PSA entitled, ‘Plan Your Vote,'” and here is the PSA with Lester Holt, who anchors the NBC Nightly News, and the Meet the Press host F. Chuck Todd.

HOLT: This year’s election is different.

TODD: Some polling places are closing. Some are opening weeks early.

HOLT: And mailboxes around the country are becoming voting booths!

TODD: This year, how you vote is just as important as who you vote for.

HOLT: So let’s get planning.

RUSH: And there were graphics on the screen that say, “NBCNews.com/PlanYourVote.” That was Lester Holt that said, “So let’s get planning.” So what we have here, is we have the Obama campaign — sorry, the Biden campaign — working in concert with NBC News and Kamala Harris, and Obama talking about the need to “plan your vote.” I’m sure those of you who heard that asked, “What do you have to plan for?

“You get up, you go to the grocery store, you go vote, and then you leave. It’s done.” Plan? Notice what these people are doing. “Plan your vote. How you vote is just as important as who you vote for”? How the hell is that true? “How you vote is just as important as who you’re voting for”? How in the world can that be?

‘Cause I’ll guarantee you, they don’t ask you where you vote, unless you’re stupid and you vote somewhere you’re not legally registered, but beyond that… Now we find you that NBC News has been coordinating a get-out-the-vote movement with the Biden campaign. They released this PSA. This is earlier this week to coincide. So obviously these speeches were written a long time ago to coincide with NBC’s joint, cooperative effort on “plan to the vote.”

We’ve had “Rock the Vote,” MTV.

We had “Get out the vote.”

Now it’s “plan the vote,” “plan to vote,” what have you.