All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 2, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:53
August 2, 2005, Tuesday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
The views expressed by the host on this program make more sense than anything anybody else out there happens to be saying.
Seventeen years of consistency and reliability.
On the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, I am Rush Limbaugh, talent on loan from God.
You're going to be on the program.
It's 800-282-2882.
The email address is Rush at EIBNet.com.
I saw this today.
I thought this is a spoof.
This this has to be somebody's idea of a parody.
So I I was very careful about this, folks.
I I went into uh research mode.
I went to a bunch of different sources trying to confirm this, and lo and behold, it's not a spoof.
On the PR Newswire today.
A Democratic National Committee press release.
Bush should stop playing games with physical fitness.
The White House, by the way, the uh the contact on there, and this is Josh Ernest.
Josh Ernest of the Democrat National Committee staff.
The following is a fact sheet released today by the DNC.
The White House this weekend announced that President Bush received good news during his annual physical.
Doctors pronounce the president to be in superior physical condition, which media reports attributed to his rigorous six-day-a-week exercise routine.
While President Bush has made physical fitness a personal priority, his cuts to education funding have forced schools to roll back PE classes, and his administration's efforts to undermine Title IX sports programs have threatened thousands of women's college sports programs.
President Bush has dropped the ball when it comes to fully funding physical education in public schools and women's athletic programs at the college level, said the DNC spokesman Josh Ernest.
His personal habits indicate that physical fitness is not just fun and games for him.
Don't our kids deserve the same opportunities to be physically fit.
You believe this?
You can't be physically fit unless the federal government's paying for it.
Now they're making fun of Bush for being physical fit.
Now they're being critical of him.
Look it.
When Bill Clinton was in the White House, Bill Clinton was what's he was eating Big Macs.
Uh he his his weight was fluctuating up and down.
He finally had open heart surgery.
Does anybody recall the Republicans using those incidents to attack Clinton's policies?
Of course not.
I mean to take the fact that the president is in great shape and then say, well, it's good enough for him.
Why didn't he do it for everybody else?
Would somebody tell me what federal program or what school President Bush attends that has this rigorous regimen imposed on him?
Where did President Bush learn to do this, folks?
I guess I guess you can only learn physical education in school.
And if you don't learn it in school, then you will never be physically fit.
I don't think it takes one bit of school time to go jogging or whatever you want to do for exercise.
And to somehow attack the president's physical fitness program as unfair because while he's benefiting mightily from his own PE program, America's kids are sadly losing because of his cuts in education, of which there are none.
There haven't been any cuts in education.
We're spending more on education.
We can choke a bunch of toad frogs with what we're spending on education.
It is outrageous, and it's hilarious, and it once again shows the absolute nothingness that these people have.
They're just throwing things up against the wall hoping that they will stick.
Doctors gave President Bush a clean bill of health in his annual checkup this weekend.
A White House spokesperson Dana Perino proclaimed him to be in superior health.
However, America's youth are not so lucky.
While obesity has been declared an epidemic in this country, Bush's education policy is putting children at risk with cuts in physical education and school athletic programs.
You know, folks, this this is this is I don't know.
To me, it just indicates how vulnerable these people are.
They're so bereft of any ideas.
All they can do is critic.
When are they gonna learn that this is not getting them anywhere?
I I hope they don't, but at some point you've got to think that uh somebody will will figure it out eventually.
Democrats are also very excited today because there is a uh special election in Ohio, and this special election of Democrats, you keep an eye on this one, because this could be a bellwether.
This could be a bellwether election, or what's going to happen in 06.
This is the uh uh congressional district uh number two in Ohio, and Batavia, Ohio, typifies much of the second congressional district, which has not sent a Democrat to Washington in nearly 40 years.
But there's a special election today, and that competitive race for the seat has surprised many election watchers.
Uh Michael Margolis, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati said the second district of Ohio is normally not competitive.
It's an unusual set of circumstances here.
The vacancy opened in April when the Senate approved President Bush's choice of Republican Representative Bob Portman as U.S. trade representative.
Portman's congressional district was considered historically safe for the GOP, with the seven-term Portman never winning less than seventy-two percent of the vote.
Now that Republican sense of security has been shaken with the candidacy of Paul Hackett, an attorney and former city councilman.
Hackett is an unusual Democratic candidate for the district.
He supports gun rights as a U.S. Marine reservist who served in Iraq, where he led troops in combat in Fallujah.
Said he believes his service will win votes in a district that twice delivered a two to one margin for President Bush.
He admits that he and the commander-in-chief don't see eye to eye on Iraq.
He says, I agree with the president.
We need to get the job done there.
Stay there.
Don't set an exit date.
Agree with him on that, but I disagree with him.
I don't think we should have gone into Iraq originally.
Gene Schmidt is his Republican opponent, former Ohio State House representative, who has the endorsement of Portman.
And of course, she disagrees uh profoundly.
But this guy, uh uh uh Hackett, uh he's he's he's is as liberal as he can be.
He says paying even higher taxes uh uh would uh would make him happy.
Uh you know, he's uh led in uh fundraising or trailed in fundraising by three to one, and I think he's trailing in polls by three to one, is he not, Mr. Snerdley?
Well A little tighter.
I thought it was three to one of the polls.
Third we're gonna check it out anyway, but the uh here's uh here's a seat.
Bush won this uh three to one, and it's been a Republican seat forever.
And so the Democrats are eagerly, eagerly eyeing this.
Because if this guy Hackett can unseat uh uh well, take the seat here from Gene Schmidt, his opponent who's never served in Congress.
The Democrats are then gonna say, see, see, everything that's happened up till now was a mirage.
This just proves the Republicans are gonna lose the House in uh 2006.
The Democrats are gonna win it back because if a Democrat can take this seat, we can take any seat.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So they're eager, they are excited, and this is how desperate they are.
They're looking at one special election, which does have special circumstances to it, unique ones, and they're looking at this, and they've got their fingers crossed, and they are hoping like hell they can win this.
And they got a candidate running for higher taxes.
Um, you know, this the the you know, Hackett is uh uh guy who has said that the president of the United States, George Bush, is the greatest threat to the United States today.
And he has not apologized for that.
Comments he made to U.S. uh USA Today.
He said, I've said oh I don't like the SOB that lives in the White House, but I but I'd put my life on the line for him, he's quoted as saying in the USA Today story.
Schmidt said there's something wrong when a person says that the greatest threat to the U.S. is not Osama bin Laden, but the man in the White House.
So that's who the uh Democrats are putting up, and they're all excited about it because this guy hasn't run around and he's articulating the kind of things that the Nancy Pelosi's and the Barber Boxers and the Moveon.orgs want said, and that is that Bush is the biggest threat to freedom in the country.
Bush is the biggest threat to peace in the world.
He's an SOB, according to the Democrat candidate running for office there, and the Dems are happy about this.
And Keep a sharp eye on this because they're looking at this.
They've got their fingers crossed.
This could be, as far as they're concerned, the beginning of the restructuring and the reacquisition of their utopia.
Quick time out.
We'll be back after this.
As we go back to the phones, this is Rick in Milford, Ohio.
Glad you called, sir.
Nice to have you with us today.
Hi, Rush.
Didn't know who's from the second district.
Thank you.
Nice to have you.
I thought it was interesting.
Uh Mr. Hackett runs television commercials here, and nowhere on his commercials does he say he's a Democrat.
Is that right?
Either in either verbally or in writing.
Is that right?
Why a Democrat is that right?
Well, he doesn't mention he's a Democrat.
Nope.
Nowhere.
He plays the same ad over and over, and it's all about he went to Iraq.
He doesn't address any issues.
It's just that he went to Iraq and you should vote for him because he went to Iraq.
Uh are the Republicans running any counter ads, talking about his quote on uh paying more taxes and uh Bush being the most dangerous man in the world.
Uh the re the Republican congressional committee's running an ad like that, uh, but Jean Schmidt herself is not.
Okay.
Well, uh doesn't matter.
The ads in the district, though.
Is it is it running uh with any frequency?
Who who which ad do you see the most?
Uh there well, they've stepped them all up in the last three or four days, so they're probably both about the same thing.
Oh you have you voted?
Are you gonna vote?
I've already voted voted person this morning.
Now they're expecting it turnout to be twenty percent today.
Did you is that pretty right, pretty accurate?
Uh probably.
I was there at seven o'clock and I was number 20, so I want to so with 20% turnout.
I can't wait for the Democrat stories about how people were denied the right to vote.
They uh voting machines were stacked against them or whatever.
That's true.
Uh uh well, what's your sense of it out there, Rick?
Uh I think Gene's gonna take it.
What were the pre-election polls?
I'm I'm a little confused.
The most I haven't seen a whole lot of of polling.
Uh they had uh uh Mr. Hacking on the other night on a Chris Matthews, and I just caught the tail end of it, and Chris was asking him about if he had a concealed carry permit, and he said yes he did, and Matthews just kind of worked him over about that pretty good.
If he was gonna, you know, pack heat if he went to Congress.
Of all things, well, uh nevertheless, the uh the media is looking at this uh with baited breath.
The Democrats are looking at this with baited breath, and I just find this so telling.
Here they're looking at this as a bellwether election, and their candidate will not even admit to being a Democrat, which means they're still in the we've got a deceive people mode.
If we tell them we're the Democrat, that isn't gonna fly in this district.
This district is not going to elect Democrats.
Yet the media is looking at this as a bellwether election.
If a Democrat wins here, why we can win anywhere, and we're gonna be back.
You know, I was uh had a little fun yesterday with the people at ABC News The Note.
Uh their political units uh little blog on their on their website, and they get a little snarky with me today about this story.
They say Schmidt versus Hackett will be the topic de jour in most political shops in DC and Ohio, as the two compete to replace Rob Portman and Ohio's strongly Republican second district.
As we suggested yesterday, if the Democrat wins, it will be quite a story.
And no rush, that's not bias, simply fact.
I got on them for being uh well, I didn't get on them.
I just mentioned they are.
They're a bunch of Democrats at the note.
So, I mean, they so what?
It's mainstream media, but at any rate, uh you got a Democrat running who's not a Democrat who won't admit to being a Democrat.
Uh and uh only mentioning in his ads apparently that he served in Vietnam.
Nothing about the fact he supports higher and higher taxes, and uh nothing in his ads about saying that Bush is the greatest threat to the United States today.
Uh and then saying uh in USA Today, I'd uh I've said that I don't like the son of a bit me, but that uh I'd put my life on a line for him.
That was in a USA Today story.
So uh he's running ads that do not mention any of that, nor that he is a Democrat.
Yet the Dems look at this as a bellwether.
Interesting.
Mark in Cincinnati, nice to have you on the program.
Welcome.
Rush, great pleasure to talk to you.
First time caller.
And uh I had to call today because I'm in Cincinnati and I voted in the second district.
I voted for Gene Schmidt.
I voted this morning.
But um Miss Schmidt might be in trouble, and I give you my reasoning.
I'm I'm a staunch Republican, but I'm sick of Republicans, especially in the state of Ohio and Hamilton County in particular, not acting like Republicans, especially from a fiscal standpoint.
There was an article in a Wall Street Journal last week penned by Ken Blackwell and Laugher about how how Ohio is losing uh jobs, growing very slowly, and has the uh one of the higher uh growth in tax rates in the nation.
Hamilton County is following that, and Hamilton County is a very, very strong Republican county.
And I have friends who are staunch conservatives who are uh who uh uh toyed with voting for Hackett just to send a message that we're sick and tired of Republicans spending like drunken Democrats.
Well, uh, you know, th this is uh it's a it's an interesting dilemma.
Uh I I understand uh the my entire 17 years here.
I've I've spoken uh from time to time with angry Republicans uh such as you who want to send a message, uh and I've I've always tried to talk them uh out of that as a reason for a vote.
Uh at the same time, uh you you talk about the rising tax rates in Ohio.
You know, it's it's it's not just Ohio, there is a mass exodus occurring from uh the upper Midwest and the Northeast.
I saw the article on Connecticut uh this week about uh Jeb Bush welcoming the uh the uh death tax enactment in Connecticut.
I agree, I I totally agree with you.
I did not vote Democrat, I couldn't vote for Hackett, he's a liberal uh Democrat uh socialist.
Uh so I agree with that.
You have to vote with what is reality, but I'm I'm gonna tell you that, especially in in Ohio and Hamilton County in particular, taxes are becoming a uh and have become a huge, huge election balloting issue.
Now, Hackett doesn't propose anything to fix that.
No, other than higher taxes.
But see, he's not saying that in his any of his adrius campaign appearances, apparently.
Your message the the the liberal Democrat message isn't gonna win him any votes, but uh third party possibilities are uh are a real threat, and and and that would threaten Republican uh unity, well continuity and majorities.
Uh yeah, I I actually think that and I've commented on this before.
I actually think that immigration is the issue that may cause uh the the rise of another parole-like third party candidate nationally.
I'm not speaking just of Ohio here, but I think immigration has a uh great possibility of of being the issue uh that that does that.
But you know, the the the the thing about about Hackett, uh you just you just said that a liberal Democrat message is not gonna win him any votes.
Well, okay, if that's the case, then why are the Democrats and the media looking at this as a bellwether?
They're not running a liberal, they are running a liberal democrat who won't admit it.
They're running a liberal democrat is trying to sound like a hawk on uh on a rock by a fact that he served there and he has a concealed weapon permit, so he's supposed to be this big gung-ho um uh conservative type guy.
So they're acting once again they're they're they're uh participating here in little deceit.
Uh how can we fool him today?
Uh I don't know if he's gonna win or not, but if he does win, I'm not gonna accept the notion that this is a bellwether anything until a liberal Democrat who campaigns as a liberal Democrat says, I want to raise your taxes, and I want the state of Ohio's government to get even bigger, and I wh I do think George Bush is the most dangerous man in the world.
If that guy then runs and gets elected, then I will accept it as a bellwether election.
But if this guy wins today and doesn't campaign on what he really believes and what he has said elsewhere, then this is no bellwether whatsoever.
It does it, it won't mean anything, and I'll be more than happy for the Democrats to take the wrong message from it.
Uh if if a liberal Democrat message is not going to win in this district, then we'll just see what happens when the returns come in tonight.
Back in a moment.
And they're coming out of the woodwork from the second district of Ohio.
We go to Batavia, Ohio.
Joanne, I'm glad you called.
Great to have you on the program today.
Russ, thanks for taking my call.
I'm so glad that you are mentioning this.
You know, We we fought this battle and won in November with seventy-one percent of the vote in my county alone going to George Bush.
And people are not defining Paul Hackett for who he is.
He is John Kerry, 20 years younger.
He's just using a different war, exploiting it for political gain.
And we take issue with that here in this county because a lot of the fallen soldiers have come from our very own neighborhoods.
He does not stand what we believe in.
Life, liberty, limited government.
We made that decision in November.
And we're gonna support it, back it up, and give it the resources to succeed.
Anyway, you keep talking and you keep thinking the same way.
Thanks, Rush.
I'll tell you what this this guy to me sounds like a typical lib.
He runs while trying to conceal his true beliefs and and uh is running as a marine.
Uh of course the implication there is that uh he's to the right of Gene Schmidt, but folks, he's not running as a Democrat because if he were running as a Democrat, he would run anti-war.
He would be an anti-war candidate.
It's not enough, and he d and he's not saying that.
He's not even saying he's a Democrat.
He's not even admitting what he has said elsewhere, thinks Bush is the most dangerous guy in the world, and uh he wants to raise everybody's taxes.
But what's gonna happen?
I just want to warn you if this guy wins in this election with a 20% turnout today, which is what they uh what they are expecting.
Libs all over the place are gonna be saying that this was a test of Bush and Bush lost.
Bush thought he could get this seat saved if he plucked Portman out of it to be the trade representative, but Bush took it on the chin.
It'll be a referendum on Bush, and it's not because you have a liberal running as a conservative.
You have a liberal running as a military hawk.
She's exactly right.
You've got a guy that's John Kerry Jr. running 20 years, 30 years later in a different war.
And I just just keep this in my guess.
I have no idea uh what what the uh outcome of this is gonna be.
Mr. Sturdley, have you found the most recent polling data?
Snerdley's still looking for the most recent polling data.
I thought for sure that I heard she had a three to one lead now uh uh last night that m that again I I could be confused it might be the fundraising lead uh that she had, which is mentioned here in the uh in the story.
But I just I'm just gonna tell you folks, this is no bellwether whatsoever.
When you've got a Democrat that won't run as a Democrat, when you got a Democrat who will not say everything Democrats are saying, and then they try to say he won the race.
Don't don't fall for this.
This is uh this is more smoke and mirrors, and it's a great example of how the left and the Democrats continue to lie to even themselves.
Jim in Warsaw, Kentucky.
Hello, sir.
Nice to have you on the program.
Rush, it is a great honor.
Thank you.
I've been listening since I was uh sophomore in high school.
I'm 31 years old now.
I wanna I'm in the Cincinnati Metro area, something else I can't believe the callers haven't mentioned.
Hackett's television commercials actually start off with President Bill Bush giving a speech about defending the American way of life, and then Hackett comes on the commercial and says, I agree with the president, that's why I went to Iraq and fought for this country.
And they say this is a bellwether election.
My ass, this is a bellwether election, folks.
I tell you, these these people are just laughably reprehensible.
You know, and they and and they I don't care.
If this guy wins, it doesn't matter to me.
If they can't even be honest with themselves, if their only hope is trickery and lying and deceit, they have no hope in the big picture.
So, you know, this election, I have no clue how it's gonna go.
Do you have any idea, Jim, how it's gonna go?
Local radio has been a seems like there's a pretty heavy leaning towards Gene Schmidt.
Uh well, that's good.
But how do you mean that?
Local radio's leaning towards you.
You mean the people on the air?
Uh local talk right here, a lot of callers calling in.
Uh, the only time I don't listen to locals when you're on, actually.
A lot of people calling in on the local, uh talking about their outrage about the hackett commercials, they're upset that he's trying to pull a fast one on him, and uh just seems like a lot of the people who are getting involved, the people who care and get involved as usual seem to gravitate towards the conservative.
If the second district is as Republican as the returns in recent elections indicate, I would conclude that there aren't a whole lot of people in that district that are gonna be fooled by this.
I I wouldn't think very many.
There I said There's a small group in uh Cincinnati, the city itself, like many urban areas that are just anti-Bush, and anybody who is against Bush, they're gonna vote for.
But I r I would really, really be shocked if he were to win this election.
Yeah, well, uh, we'll have to we'll have to wait and see.
What would be funny is if this uh Gene Schmidt babe wins this thing three to one.
I w I want to see all the stories tomorrow about the bellwether election that we had here.
Because I can't tell you how high their hopes are on this at the DNC and uh uh in the Washington media.
I mean, believe me, folks, they just they're they're so they're so desperate for anything they can portray as a win.
You understand just how much they're losing, how often that they're losing.
Uh you know, you you may think that they don't look at themselves as losers because they've got the mainstream press on their side, but they're losers, and they know they're losers, and the nomination of Roberts, I think was the final nail in that coffin, and then yesterday sending Bolton up there on a recess appointment.
I mean, they uh the the the Bush and his agenda is getting passed.
Uh he's not a lambduck, they're really not able to slow him down here.
He's still outsmarting them, all of these things.
And the only thing they apparently have to rely on is uh running trick candidates who cannot be honest about who they really are in a Republican district, hoping to capture it.
Matt in New York, you're next.
Nice to have you on the program.
Hi, Rush.
Good to talk to you again.
I first talked to you in 95.
Well, uh great to have you back.
Just wanted to uh say or ask you if you think that this bellwether reference is into what in uh reference what Hillary will try to pull in 08 where she's strong for the military, but hiding the other part of her ideology.
I'm I'm gonna tell you something about Hillary.
I haven't gotten that far with her candidacy yet.
I uh we've we've talked about the notion that Hillary is uh trying to duck and cover and act as a centrist here, and you know, she came out, she let it be said the other day, she really she really angered Chucky Schumer.
Uh because she uh and this is I think either while I was gone or the a couple days before I left, but she uh some assistant or some aide of hers said that she was supportive of Roberts and and Chuck Schumer had a had a cow over that.
Uh I I don't look, I I don't think Mrs. Clinton is going to be able to pull off any move to the center and come off as a centrist or a conservative, and I think it's wishful thinking that's not who she is.
Uh, people on the left keep forgetting we have a more educated, more informed, participating public today in our national affairs than we've ever had.
And the old tricks of trying to be somebody you're not, uh are not as easily pulled off.
I just I don't think that's gonna I I just don't even think it's a relevant factor.
Uh now I know a lot of the people, conservatives inside the beltway who are so close to all this policy wonk stuff that they sometimes get negative and pessimistic and they think that oh we've got to watch out for her, look what she's pulling off.
But that's based on the fact that the people out there are easily fooled today, and I don't think they are anymore, especially not by the left.
Left is not fooling anybody anymore.
They're not easily or any other way fooling people anymore, especially now when they're not even really trying to.
So Hillary moves to the center.
All she does is demonstrate how left the Democratic Party really is.
She've got her voting record.
That'll be easy to show that she's um as liberal as as anybody they could nominate.
But I'm I'm still not convinced that she's the choice, uh, folks.
I mean, I I've got this stack here.
And I'll tell you what I'll do.
I'll f during the upcoming commercial timeout, I'm gonna find a couple stories in this stack from last week uh about the problems of Hillary's electability and the problems the w with the fact she has no charisma, that she's basically a dry ball.
She's not a likable personality when you see her on television when you see her.
She just she doesn't have that the it factor that reaches out of the TV and says, magically, you like this woman.
She just he's cold.
And uh, and there are a lot of Democrats worried about this.
That the the I think both these stories have uh Democrat sources uh concerned about her electability uh and concerned about uh about the fact that she's uh stiff.
She's not that exciting as a uh as a personality.
So we'll we'll take a break here in just a second and I'll find those for you.
And I I tend to think that everybody's jumping the gun.
We're three and a half years away from the uh from the election.
Well, a little over three years away from the election.
So much can happen uh in an even shorter period of time than that.
Plus, I always I have this thing, uh, and uh it's a trait of mine that I've had my whole life.
I just have this natural inclination to buck conventional wisdom.
Conventional wisdom is groupthink.
And I've always I've always just been inclined to buck it.
Now I will also admit that uh uh in the past I've been wrong about about Hillary.
I didn't think she'd run for the Senate, but she did uh in New York.
So I will be gladly, uh I will gladly admit that uh error uh and still claim that I'm not convinced.
Um not that she's not gonna run here, but I'm not convinced that she can win.
She might win the nomination, but I don't I'm not one of these people who thinks it's a slam dunk that she either gets a nomination or that she wins the uh the uh race for the presidency.
There are a lot of Democrats that want this.
Names you're not hearing a lot about.
You know, forget the John Carey's and the John Edwards's and you know, these these hasbins.
You gotta think about people like Evan Bye.
There's a story out about him recently.
He's he's he's raising money like crazy out there, Indiana.
And then there's Mark Warner from um from Virginia.
Uh and and these guys are loved and adored by people in Hollywood.
I think it's Hollywood.
Well, I'll have to double check this.
I think it's Hollywood types that are not convinced of Hillary's electability.
At any rate, uh let me let me take a break and find those two stories.
I'll have them for you when I come back after this.
All right, I just saw the ad, the hackett ad.
It's it's if you if you watch this ad, you convince this guy's the Republican in the race.
It is the most deceiving and disingenuous dishonest ad, given who this guy is.
And I have seen it a long time, and and uh uh uh we're what we're doing, we're getting the audio from that link from that ad to play for you here.
And I just instructed Coco Jr.
Coco is on vacation this week, so Coco Jr. is running the website.
And I just sent the link to Coco Jr.
I said, Coco Jr., I want you to link this ad, the video, uh, on our website and do it ASAP, and let me know when it's up so people can go see this ad.
It's just it's uh it's Mamon, did you get the email with the audio link?
Yeah, he did.
You're working on the uh on the audio link even now, so we'll have it, but it's just it's funny.
You think this guy's the Republican, folks?
It is the most deceitful ad, and I hate to sound like a broken record, but to those of you at ABC's uh the note and anywhere else in the media and at the DNC, this is not a bellwether election for you all.
You are not putting George Bush on trial.
You are running a candidate here that's trying to make everybody believe he's to the right of George W. Bush.
The Democrats are not running who they really are.
There's nothing bellwether about this.
And it'll be interesting to see if this ad fools a uh a district that uh traditionally has voted 70% uh for Republican candidates.
Now these these uh two Hillary stories, the first Hillary story is from Slate magazine, Slate.com, and it was from July 29th, is by Jacob Weisberg.
But why can't Hillary win?
Political insiders mostly agree, despite being an early front runner for the 08 Democrat nomination, Hillary Clinton faces long odds of ever being elected president.
But if she can't win, why can't she?
Well, one facile argument often voiced by Hillary loathers on the right is that she's too far to the left.
The real Hillary is closer to Howard Dean than Bill Clinton.
A recent piece in National Review asserted that's wrong, an unhedged supporter of the war in Iraq, Senator Clinton stands at the hawkish interventionist extreme of her party on foreign policy.
Despite her pandering vote against CAFTA, she's a confirmed free trader and deficit hawk on the cultural issues that often undermine Democrats.
She seeks common ground, sometimes with flat earth conservatives like Rick Santorum, and has been nattering about the tragedy of abortion.
In fact, Senator Clinton's political position couldn't be better for 2008.
Uh despite being a shrewdly triangulating centrist on the model of her husband, she remains wildly popular with the party's liberal core, seems to share the right's erroneous view of her as a closet lefty, draws closer to her with uh every inane conservative attack.
Uh but nevertheless, I'm one of the few in the semi-inner circle who don't think she can win, said her advisor, Harold Ickies to Time Magazine, just after the 2004 election.
It'd be a brutal and bruising fight, it would make this year's race look like kindergarten.
Icky's is surely correct that any contest involving Hillary will get nasty and ugly.
Uh well then What then of the complaint that Hillary is doomed by association with her president or perhaps by the marital issues?
And they go on and talk about these things.
But when you get right down to it, they say this, Hillary does face a genuine electability issue, one that has little to do with ideology, woman-hating, or her choice of life partner.
Plainly put, it's her personality.
In her four years in the Senate, she's proven herself to be capable, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
She can make Republican colleagues sound like star-struck teenagers, but she still lacks a key quality.
Like ability.
Hard as she tries, Hillary has little facility for connecting with ordinary people, for making them feel that she understands, identifies, and is at some level one of them.
You may admire and respect her, but it's hard not to find Hillary a bit inhuman.
Whatever she may be like in private, her public persona is calculating clenched and relentless, a little robotic.
Hillary isn't as obnoxious as Gore or as off-putting as Carrie, but she's got the same damn problem, and it can't be fixed.
That is Slate.com.
And then we have Robert Novak from Saturday, July 23rd.
Prominent New York City liberals are concerned about Hillary Clinton's electability, quietly talking up Bill Richardson as her alternative.
Richardson intrigues Democrats because he's a Hispanic American with a Mexican mother.
Richardson would be expected to pin down the burgeoning Latino vote.
So all I'm telling you is that on the left, there are real big concerns.
The woman can't win because she's not likable, doesn't have a likable personality, and just isn't electable.
So all the conventional wisdom out there is to the ops.
Okay, we got the audio for the ad.
This is the audio to the ad.
Paul Hackett, a Democrat, is running in Ohio.
The election today, special election second district.
Remember, this is a guy who has said he wants to raise taxes, that George Bush is the most dangerous man in the world.
He's provoking all these situations that endanger America.
Called him an SOB in a USA-to-day ad.
This is the audio to the ad, or in a spot, rather, a story.
And he's not saying anything about being a Democrat.
He's not running anti-war.
He's trying to run as one of Bush's big supporters, one of Bush's big buddies, when in fact he's called Bush an SOB and has said that Bush is the most dangerous guy in the world today.
Now here's this is this is just classic.
A Lib who has to lie about who he is in order to win.
Anywhere, in a conservative district or wherever, doesn't matter.
So there's nothing bellwether here, but I'm telling you, listen to that.
You think this guy's the Republican candidate, wouldn't you, Mr. Snerdley?
Quick timeout, be right back.
Don't go away.
Okay, if you go to the top of our homepage at Rushlimbaugh.com, you'll find a link to see this hackett ad, and it is amazing.
The Libs once again trying to hide behind a military uniform.
It didn't work for Carrie.
I can't imagine it's gonna work for Hackett.
Well, we'll see.
But you gotta see this ad to believe it.
▲
Export Selection