Media Can't Decide If Rush Matters
RUSH: The media can't decide whether I matter again. They're going back and forth as to whether or not they really need to worry about me and what I believe, say, and do. Remember, this is how I explained it on Friday right here on this program.
RUSH ARCHIVE: They go back and forth. One day I'm so serious, I'm so relevant that I'm the leader of the Republican Party. The next day I'm just a bloviating entertainer, in it for the money. And literally I can be both multiple times a day.
RUSH: Right, depends on the news story. Jonathan Martin at Politico was in a piece about Palin, speculating what's she going to be. Does she really want to be a Republican elected official, a politician running for office, or does she want to be a political celebrity like Rush Limbaugh? It's a new characterization of me, political celebrity. So Jonathan Martin said that's what Palin's gotta figure out. Does she really want to be an elected Republican official or just a political celebrity like Limbaugh. So let's go to last Thursday, we have a montage here, this took place on PMSNBC. And we're repeating this because it facilitates our ultimate objective here. We played this last week. This is a montage of members of the media replaying Mitt Romney's fate after I proclaimed his seeking the nomination basically over because of his stated position on manmade global warming, i.e., that the earth is getting warmer and that men are causing it, this is how that went.
BASHIR: If Romney stands by his view that the world is getting warmer and that man is an important contributor, then how will he fare when so many Republicans believe that global warming is, in the words of Rush Limbaugh, a "complete hoax"?
UYGUR: You've got 99.9% of the scientists in the world in one camp, but you have Rush in the other camp. The Republican primary is probably Limbaugh wins against all science and facts.
O'DONNELL: Rush Limbaugh saying, "Bye bye, nomination."
ZIMMERMAN: Thanks to Rush Limbaugh, all of these Republican candidates are terrified of reaching out to mainstream voters.
MATTHEWS: Rush Limbaugh declared him bye bye ville. Nomination over. Manmade global warming is a hoax. This is all Rush Limbaugh.
RUSH: Did you know that 99.9% of all scientists believe that manmade global warming is real? That was Cenk Uygur at MSNBC making that point and that thanks to me, all Republican candidates are terrified of reaching out to mainstream voters. Do you realize you people in the mainstream are the ones that believe hoaxes? You in the mainstream, you're the ones that believe the hoax. Well, of course they don't think it's a hoax. You believe manmade global warming, and I of course am not a man of the mainstream at all. So Friday night, NPR, All Things Considered, The Week in Politics segment. The guest, David Brooks of the New York Times, who said this during a discussion on All Things Considered.
BROOKS: The one thing that can be said about Huntsman is a lot of people are now saying, "Oh, he's too moderate to be the candidate." It's important to remember that Rush Limbaugh is not the Republican primary voter. Rush Limbaugh campaigned against John McCain for two years. McCain still won the Republican primary in South Carolina and Florida. Rush Limbaugh and the radio talk jocks are now campaigning against Mitt Romney for saying global warming may be real, campaigned against Jon Huntsman. They do not deliver votes.
RUSH: Okay, so nothing to worry about here, don't deliver votes. I don't deliver votes, nothing to worry about here. And, by the way, I did not campaign against John McCain for two years. This is the thing the primary people got mad at me about. I stayed out of it. I did not endorse anybody in the primary, but anyway that's water under the bridge. David Brooks, he doesn't deliver anything, but that's not his point. I don't think he's saying he does. To be fair, Snerdley, he's responding to questions about all these Republicans who seem to be afraid to cross me. And Brooks is saying, "Why be afraid of Limbaugh, look, Limbaugh endorsed the guy, he loses, Limbaugh doesn't endorse the guy, he wins, Limbaugh doesn't deliver votes."
Brooks is trying to tell these guys, "Don't worry about Limbaugh, he doesn't do anything." That's Brooks' point, not that Brooks himself delivers votes because Brooks doesn't deliver votes. I don't know what Brooks wants to do. But he's just responding. The context is, again, all these Republicans, they seem to listen to Limbaugh, and that bugs these people. So Brooks is trying to say, "Don't listen to Limbaugh. He doesn't do anything. There's a lot of mythology associated with Limbaugh. People don't listen to Limbaugh." So it continued. And Melissa Block, who's the cohost of All Things Considered said to Brooks, "The Republican debate Monday night," which is tonight, "I'm curious to hear what you're going to be listening for from the Republican candidates."
BROOKS: I don't know if they understand their base. Their base is the white working class. These people have seen their wages stagnate, their jobs decline, their social order fall apart. Do any of them have an actual agenda thataddresses the white working class as opposed to cutting corporate tax rates? Huckabee last time actually did have an agenda, did have a feel for this population. So far Pawlenty, who should have a feel, that's his background, gave the speech which is really sort of a Wall Street Journal editorial page speech, not so much a white working class speech.
RUSH: Now, that's amazing. Pawlenty gave a speech. What's so wrong with the Wall Street Journal editorial page? Pawlenty gave a speech advocating policies that will result in job creation, for crying out loud. Corporate tax reduction across the board. Even Jack Welch, former NBC prexy, Pawlenty had a great idea in his speech. What's wrong with that? So Brooks has to come out now and impugn Pawlenty, but now I guess Brooks is an expert on you, the Republican base, the white working class. You've seen your wages stagnate, your jobs decline, your social order fall apart. What Brooks doesn't understand is that all of you to whom this has happened understand why. It's called Barack Obama. What Brooks doesn't understand is that you know that the reversal of this path that we're on requires the defeat of Barack Obama in 2012. That's what the Republican base understands. And the Republican base is going to respond to anybody who wants to take it to Obama.
The Republican base, mark my words, is going to rally behind whichever candidate makes them think that that candidate is standing up and fighting for them. The Republican base is not a color. That's another fallacy on Mr. Brooks' part, the Republican base, the white working class. The Republican base consists of the people who make this country work and they know what's standing in their way. It is liberalism and all who advocate it.
By the way, Mr. Brooks, don't forget, Barack Hussein Obama in February of 2009 told John Boehner and other Republicans not to listen to Rush Limbaugh. It was Obama's strategy during the midterms to run against me. How did that turn out? The Democrats' policies, strategy, campaign was to run against Rush Limbaugh, Mr. Brooks. I don't really care about any of that. But not knowing who the Republican base is, and Mr. Brooks, don't doubt me, they understand that it's not Tim Pawlenty that's their problem. It's Barack Obama. They understand it's Mr. Crease in His Pants. That's what they understand, Mr. Brooks. They understand that you were the guy totally flipping out over somebody for superficial reasons.
They have been really affected, hurt, damaged, harmed by the real-world policies of Barack Obama and the Democrat Party, and that's what they want to change. And any candidate in this debate tonight or any future debate who makes clear that he is unafraid to go after the reasons we are in this condition, led by Barack Obama, is going to be who wins this nomination. It isn't gonna be who's Mr. Moderate. It isn't going to be who's the most serious. It isn't gonna be any of these quintessential pseudointellectual characterizations. Because the people who make this country work don't have time for that right now. It's crunch time. It's serious. They're losing everything they've worked for. It is really horrifying. It's really scary to people who do not want to live on welfare.
Up next on this show is Mike Murphy. Now, Mike Murphy is a Republican consultant, an electoral consultant. If you recall, Murphy, during the Delaware senatorial primary and aftermath, he was a little upset because people said they knew how to get Christine O'Donnell elected and he was of the opinion it couldn't have happened, there was no way it could happen. He says, okay, okay, you guys show me how, you show me how, I'll sit there in Georgetown, I'll sip my cocktails, that's what you guys say I do. I'm part of the elites sitting around at the cocktail party, I'll do that, you show me how it's done.
Murphy is like most consultants; he believes the election is won with that 20% of the electorate that calls itself moderate, independent, undecided, or what have you. Which is all fine and dandy, but I prefer candidates who try to get everybody, not just 20%. But that's just me, and of course I'm not a consultant; it's not my business; he knows it better than I do. I don't pretend that I could do it better than he does, but I want you nevertheless to listen to what he says yesterday on Meet the Press about the upcoming presidential race from the standpoint or perspective of an electoral consultant. David Gregory said to Murphy, "You framed this in your TIME Magazine column in a very interesting way, which is the economy, of course, is the vulnerability. The ace up his sleeve, as you wrote, is demographics." He's talking about Obama.
MURPHY: The playing field is changing. When Ronald Reagan was elected, you know, our favorite election we all like to talk about, I got a little shrine in my house with candles and everything. In 1980, 88% of the people who cast the vote in the presidential election were white and they voted more Republican than Democrat. In the last election, last presidential election that was down to 74%. And so what's happening is, the voter groups that Republicans do a bad job of getting are growing quickly, particularly Latino voters. We're also having trouble with young voters. The demographics are pushing in a more Democratic, right now, situation, versus the bad economy and if Republicans don't get into these new demographics, eventually we're gonna run outta oxygen.
RUSH: Okay, now, what does that mean? Here's a Republican consultant urging Republicans to go after new demographics, particularly Latino. Well, no, this is immigration. This is amnesty. That's what that's about. You can't oppose immigration reform. But here again, notice that the focus is on the hyphenated voter. You have a policy to get that voter hyphenated and then this voter hyphenated. I saw polling data last week, Obama no longer cool among young voters, yeah. He's no longer Joe Camel out there with these people, no longer Joe Cool. He's lost it. So you see inside-the-Beltway thinking is that Obama is not a shoo-in, but I mean the demographics are moving in his way. I mean it's not over yet, but Obama's clearly the favorite in their way of thinking.
RUSH: My question to Mike Murphy and David Brooks is: How do you explain this landslide last November? How do we explain this top-to-bottom shellacking that went beyond federal all the way down to the state level? I mean it was complete, a total repudiation of liberalism, the Democrat Party, and the Republicans didn't run any national issues. By definition they didn't. There was no Republican candidate on the ballot. There was no Republican issue per se. There was just one opportunity to reject the status quo, and that was reject: The Democrat Party. That's what happened. Now, how do you explain that? How do you explain all of those different demographics voting Republican all across the country? How is that possible?
I'm serious. I'm not a political consultant. How does this happen? We didn't go out and make a play for Hispanic-Americans, not that I'm aware of, did we? We weren't making a play for anybody. Our leadership was cowering in fear in the corner, keeping their fingers crossed, hoping that it would be a big win. They were worried, "Let's not say anything! We don't want to upset the applecart here." Okay, but we're supposed to go "get" minorities, there then becomes the question: "What do we say to them?" What do we say to "get" the minorities? Do we say, "Look, we can give just as well as the liberals! We can put you on welfare programs just as easily as the liberals can."
Do we tell these various demographic groups trending toward Obama, "Hey, hey, hey! What about us? We can be liberals. We'll pander to you. We'll destroy your family as well as they do. We'll drive up unemployment numbers among your demographic, too! We can do everything the liberals will do. We will destroy your family for ya." What would they tell us to say? I prefer to speak to Americans as Americans. Mr. Murphy,with all due respect, I think I had the answer last week for this next campaign: "We have 9% unemployment. Do you want 10? You want more of the same? You want four more years? You want four more years of this? Name for me anything that's happened the last four years that you want more of.
"Do you want more unemployment? Do you want more value in homes lost? Do you want gasoline prices going up? Do you want food prices going up? What is there that's happened the last four years that you want more of?" Now, are we supposed to then realize that maybe some demographics do want more of this? Which ones? Tell me, where's the demographic that wants higher gas prices and where is the demographic that wants higher food prices? See, our message is for everybody, and it is that big government is bad for everybody. Big government harms everybody. Big government socialism is bad for all peoples. Unemployment, homelessness, high gas and food prices, they don't know race or ethnicity. They just know price. You want four more years of what we've had? That's the campaign. You don't have to get demographic about it at all.
END TRANSCRIPT