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March 13, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:32
March 13, 2006, Monday, Hour #2
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The views expressed by the host on this program documented to be almost always right, 98.5% of the time.
I am the award-winning thrill pack Rush Limbaugh.
This is the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, and we are thrilled and delighted to have you with us.
You would like to be on the program today, 800-282-2882, the email address, rush at eIBNet.com.
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There are two of them that uh that you'll have to find.
Also, uh I got this get this email during the uh break here at the top of the hour.
Dear Rush.
Don't you think that you are insulting all of your wife listeners By referring to them as slave masters or whatever.
Um don't don't you think that your negative generalization of all married females is immature, condescending, and simplistic?
Do you think it's funny?
It would seem to me an intelligent man with your level of savvy sophistication and world experience would have the ability to interact successfully enough with women that he would not have to protect himself by claiming they're all a bunch of slave drivers.
You have to get over this.
It's beneath you and the women who are in the audience.
Fondly, but honestly, Martha.
You know, Martha has a point.
I I have to say, people that just tuning into this program D Dawn, I mean be honest with me.
You don't have to say anything, just nod or shake your head.
When you heard me read her email, did you were you saying yes that she's got a point?
I know, Dawn was.
I think No, uh Mr. Snerdley, we have to be honest here.
Martha has a point for people that don't understand stereotypical humor.
And because I'm I'm I'm sort of trapped here in my own previous statements about comedy.
For it to be funny, there has to be a grain of truth.
And they're in Martha, I hate to tell you they're in, I I know it may upset, it may upset the married women uh in the in the audience, but there's another segment out there.
Uh I but just to show you, I mean, I I sent Brian an email last night.
Brian is is soon to uh fall prey to this trap.
Just kidding.
I am just kidding.
It's a great institution.
In fact, I've got a story in the stack of stuff here that married women there is no gender gap.
Women in the last three of the last five elections have voted majority Republican, but the trick is married women.
Married women vote Republican, single women vote Democrat.
So way to go, Brian.
Uh I sent him a note last night, because you know it's it's gift time.
And I said I said, Brian, what is the name of your future slave master?
Uh and he wrote back with the information, no editorial comment whatsoever, because Brian knows it Martha, we love stereotypical humor.
I d I just I just like stereotypical humor.
Let me give you a stereotypical joke that we tell amongst ourselves around.
Even Dawn laughs when she can see the face.
I guess the fact if you're not watching a diddle cam and you can't see me smile, you know that there's nothing but admiration and appreciation and love behind all these jokes and behind these these comments.
It is a cheap way to get a laugh.
I will admit that.
And I will admit people who don't understand it, it does sound rather harsh and vile.
But just an example of a joke.
You know how your wife has died?
The sex is the same, but the dishes get even higher.
The stack of dishes gets even higher in the sink.
Now, even Dawn laughed at that.
Dawn, yes, you did when I first told it, yes, you did it.
She's become one of the guys here.
Now I didn't make up that joke.
These jokes get passed around all over the place.
Uh but I I I ought to be more sensitive about this.
Because I am trying to attract all three sexes to the program.
I'm trying to attack attract all religions, all ages, all races, uh, all ethnic groups.
And it probably does unnecessarily insult those who who don't, you know, understand the harmless vein uh in which I mean it.
For you golfers, I uh had a chance to play Augusta yesterday.
I flew up there it it was I think they had a record high.
Washington today is gonna be eighty-eight.
It was warmer in Augusta, Georgia yesterday than it's been here in uh in months.
The humidity was up, there wasn't any it was like a uh a southern steamy hot day in uh in July.
But of course just in gorgeous shape.
Tiger Woods was there uh yesterday checking out they've they've changed six holes.
They made some changes on six holes, and he was there checking it.
He shot a seventy on the on the course.
It's longer than ever they've they've made number eleven a five hundred and five yard par four.
They've added trees down the right side, narrowing the chute, the driving chute.
But at places is as always, it was uh it was gorgeous as it could be.
For those of you familiar with the course, the number one T is now practically adjacent to the practice putting green.
They've just moved it back as far as they can move it without moving the T to carry that sand trap and they've and they've deepened it.
It's absurd.
I ended up in it off the T. I pardon the first hole, though.
But I mean, you you you um I don't care it's so deep.
Uh once you're in it, nobody can see you in it.
You practice a rope to hoist yourself out of it.
Uh but it's a 331 carry to get over that sand.
They they're they've uh and there's just a narrow landing place to the left of it, and it's rough in front of that trap, so uh they're they're they're they're trying to make sure on these six holes that second shots are long irons and not wedges and nine irons, because these guys has gotten so long.
But uh it was a great day, and and uh I of course looked like it was is May.
I mean it looked like it'd been green all year long.
Quick timeout.
We will be back and continue right after this.
Okay, let's talk about the Republican uh Southern Leadership uh conference strong uh straw poll that was uh Saturday in Memphis, Tennessee.
Here's the what is this?
The LA Times version of this story.
Senator John McCain, the maverick John McCain, who made his name as a Republican maverick, uh is going mainstream.
Six years after the Arizonan emerged as George W. Bush's nemesis, McCain is taking a different tack as he prepares for a possible second White House bid, even as he has picked uh high profile fights with Bush over military interrogation tactics and with congressional colleagues over pork barrel spending,
McCain has been quietly courting GOP power brokers and conservative leaders, emphasizing his loyalty to the president and burnishing his conservative credentials on litmus test issues.
He recently met with the Reverend Falwell, leading evangelical conservative, whom he previously had denounced as intolerant to the delight of Republican partisans, he uh publicly lambasted Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a rising star among Democrats over an ethics and lobbying overhaul.
Uh Senator Lindsey Graham, the uh uh who we affectionately refer to here as Vice President Lindsey Graham, said that he and Senator McCain have learned from our mistakes, and if John does run, I think it's clear he's trying to be the leader of the party, not the leader of a movement.
You're gonna hear plenty of straight talk about the issues, but you're gonna see a man who is sensitive to the idea that this party is multifaceted and that the social and economic conservative groups are the heart and soul of his uh party.
Okay.
Well, here's what happened at this thing.
Uh the Southern Republican Southern leadership uh conference is his little straw poll, and and McCain knew uh going in that he would not win place or show, that he would not come in first, second or third in this thing.
And so he sought to uh made sure that that happened by announcing a strategy.
He asked his delegates to vote for George W. Bush in the straw poll for president in 2008.
He did this, uh he said, because he thought it was time that uh the president knew of the massive support that he has.
Now this was a scheme, it was a trick to cover up the fact that McCain was not gonna win place or show.
As I will tell you right now, with Bush not on the ballot in 08, a a percentage of these votes intended for McCain that end up as a write-in for George W. Bush is nothing more than an attempt to um uh show McCain is uh not thinking of himself, but all of us are thinking of the party, and he's thinking of the president.
The president needs our support.
It came out uh Howard Feynman has a piece that uh apparently last week McCain called President Bush.
Uh and the word leaked out, and so people said, What did you what did you call President Bush about?
McCain said, Yeah, I call President Bush.
I just wanted to call offering my support during this ports deal.
Um, I thought when I when I heard this, oh this this is this is gonna be a little problematic because McCain has he wants to be an insider and an outsider at the same time, and the question how do you do that?
How do you be an insider and an outsider at the same time?
How do you how do you publicly express and ask for support for President Bush and at the same time make sure the mainstream press loves you?
Well, McCain apparently had run a calculation figuring that the press would figure out it was a trick and would admire him and praise him for his political craftiness.
But is this straight talk?
Is this straight talk?
Is McCain on the straight talk express when he's doing something like this?
It's it's uh anyway, he ended up in fourth place, I think.
Uh Frist was the winner.
Uh but the press is still writing about this as the front runner, John McCain, even though he finished fourth in this thing.
Uh he gave the best speech.
Hey, hand the audience a palm of his hand.
He's deazzled him, he wowed him, he'd all kinds of uh gre great, great things.
And he's doing everything he can, by the way, to uh pick up as many people who worked on Bush's campaigns, Mark McKinnon and media, and and he succeeded in doing that.
He's he's reaching out to um to uh as many Bush people as possible.
Uh I I thought maybe the press would have a little time scratching their heads over this move, but they didn't.
They I think McCain's built up enough of a reservoir of love and adulation with the press that they'll cut him a lot of slack.
He's gonna have to do a lot of unstraight talk uh before the uh the media will consider him to be actually doing that, his media buddies.
So uh it was uh it was slick maneuver, but everybody caught on to it at the outset as to what it was all about.
Now I wasn't there, and I and I didn't watch this.
So all I have for you is anecdotal evidence.
The people who watched it told me that they were disappointed that nobody made a good speech.
Uh and that there were a lot of lot of hopes, say in George Allen.
In fact, the surprise was uh Mitt Romney.
Mitt Romney, who is uh he's Mormon, but he's still he's a northeastern mayor, he's from Boston, uh governor, and and and coming down to uh to uh Memphis, the the South, and uh scoring second in this thing to Bill Frist, isn't I mean he's from Tennessee, it's only natural he would win this there.
He would have the most delegates show up.
Uh that that apparently was uh uh something that surprised quite a few people.
We'll have more on this as the program unfolds because some ancillary political issues that attach to it as well, but let's go back to the phones.
Craig in Los Angeles, glad you called, and welcome to the program.
Russ, I can't believe it.
My 13-year-old daughter wants your job ditto.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Uh have her keep have her keep working hard at it.
I'm not gonna give it away to anybody.
She is.
There's no way McCain is already done.
It's too late for him.
There's no way that he will win the conservative vote.
Just like what Bob Dole did when he ran for the center.
There's I I was a conservative, but I could not vote for John McCain because he would he would not represent the conservative movement.
Okay, I I want I I understand this is a conventional wisdom.
There is conventional wisdom that McCain cannot win the conservative base, and he can't win the Republican primary.
And I you don't know what McCain's doing.
We haven't talked about it much on this program.
You don't think he can?
You know, I do too.
I because I he's all he's courting the uh the conservative intelligentsia.
He's in Washington, and they're uh they love the guy.
I mean, they're taught hey, they uh they they they love having attention be showed to them.
And he knows that.
Uh he's in he's going to dinner with them, and they're writing positively about their experiences at dinner.
Now, I know the conservative intelligentsia is not is not the base, uh but but uh uh I'm I it it it all depends on who the Democrat nominee is, how that race is shaping up, uh it it depends on a lot of things.
Uh I'm I'm I think it's too soon to say anybody is going to or is not going to win something.
And I think it's way too broad a generalization to say that the base is not going to vote for McCain.
I understand why, it's because of what happened in South Carolina and during the uh not just South Carolina, Michigan as well.
Yeah, the primaries in uh in 2004.
McCain went out of his way to insult Bob Jones University and Jerry Falwell and and uh the the Christian right.
He was on a on a uh campaign at that time to get Democrat voters to cross over in these primaries where both uh parties are holding their primaries in the same day and vote for him.
Uh and the base resented that as well.
They didn't want no stinking Democrat determining the Republican presidential nominee.
Uh McCain's not gonna pull that stunt this time, or he's just doing just the opposite.
You're gonna see McCain become the biggest friend George W. Bush has as these days go forward.
And I want to remind you to Republican pollster Ed Goaz, and this is a ought to be a warning to these Republicans in Congress who who acted out last Thursday and Friday like spoiled little kids.
Ed Goaz of the Battleground poll has data that says Republicans who abandon Bush, Republicans up for re-election, who abandoned their president in this campaign season are going to pay for it.
That the best thing they can do is stick with him.
That that's what the base don't need them to act like Democrats.
If they do that, they're going to lose.
McCain will not do that.
You watch.
Ha!
We're back.
Executing assigned host duties flawlessly.
Rush Limbaugh, talent on loan from God.
I um I like the take of our buddies at the uh redstate.org blog today.
Uh, we've got a piece uh posted entitled Media Love Fest with McCain continues today.
You want to laugh today?
Let's examine how out of touch the media is.
And they talk about the straw poll performance.
He came in behind Frist Romney, George Allen, and President Bush.
Uh he actually he came in and he asked for people to vote for Bush, but not all of his people did.
So he couldn't even move all of his people to do what he wanted them to do.
Uh and he ended up, if you count Bush in this, he ended up in uh in fifth place.
But the redstate.org people sample the media today and uh yesterday, they talk about how he's still being portrayed as the front runner, and they asked the question in what world is McCain the front runner?
Maybe in courting the media and some of Bush's donors, but among the grassroots, let's just point out again, McCain came in fifth behind even Romney.
Uh would uh McCain may very well pull it off given the Republican propensity to crown a nominee in advance of primaries based on the person's time having come, but calling McCain the front runner right now is silly.
It's just silly.
You don't think you don't think it's you I know the straw poll means absolutely well, it doesn't mean absolutely nothing, uh but it's an indication of things today.
It doesn't, it doesn't give us an indication of what's gonna happen.
It tells us what is now at that straw poll.
Those were Republican delegates and they were voting.
And Mitt Romney did come in second.
It was expected Frist would come in first.
Now, the real thing to watch, though, is McCain, because McCain is is is building his campaign as as Howard Feynman's piece says, the strategy is to build out the campaign with members of Bush's camp and and to basically recreate the Bush campaign organization, thereby getting the best people, uh, and the people with the most recent experience at having succeeded.
Now, let me comment a little bit more in detail about Ed Goaz and Selinda Lake.
They have the battleground poll.
We cite that poll frequently on this program, bipartisan poll.
She's a Democrat, he's a Republican.
They combine their results and they come up with pretty accurate trends analysis and forecast.
And Goaz made the point last week, I think it was early last week, that the Republican, and it was before the port snort fiasco.
Republicans who think that they have to run away from George W. Bush who are running for re-election this year in the House and Senate.
They do that.
They're only going to be hurting themselves.
They're going to be joining sides with Democrats.
We don't need Republicans sounding like Democrats.
We don't need Republicans talking about Bush like the Democrats are.
He made the point that Republicans who stick with the President have the best odds of being re-elected.
He can help them fundraise, and particularly it's Republican, he needed Republicans to vote for him.
It's silly to focus on crossover Democrats and this mythical independent swing voter sect.
Just go get the Republicans to vote for you, and that's all you need.
Not all you need, but you do well over 80%, 90% of the battle is done.
And that's, you know, with McCain, as as Feynman reveals, uh making this uh this phone call to Bush.
Uh oh, and there's something else.
There is a there's a lot, well, some buzz in the Republican Party about Haley Barber after the uh Hurricane Katrina aftermath.
Uh I like this guy, people are saying.
I wonder if he has a future in presidential or vice presidential politics.
And Haley Barber took himself out of it.
But at this straw poll down in Memphis, the McCain people were recruiting him.
And I think they succeeded.
Uh And if they did, I'm not sure.
If they did, if if if Haley Barber is going to become a McCainite, then that's going to carry a lot of weight in the so-called South.
I don't think they'll think Haley Barber's sold out.
I think maybe they'll think Haley, what is Haley know?
They respect him.
And then Feynman reveals this uh this this phone call.
What was the Bush call about?
According to McCain, he simply wanted to offer friendship during the furor over the ports deal.
Even though President Bush remains popular, popular with most uh hardcore Republicans, his overall poll numbers are about as low as you can go, flirting with territory once occupied by Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon.
As McCain explained it, you get no credit for standing with a popular ally.
The test of friendship is to be at his side when he's down, so the call was meant as a personal pick-me-up.
I wanted to tell him that I was with him and supported him, and that the polls weren't a test of whether he was doing the right thing, which I think he is.
That's on the port deal.
All of which would be fine even touching, were they not also a series of political and tactical moves, writes Howard Feynman.
So that phrase by Feynman, all of which would be fine, even touching, were there not also a series of political and tactical moves.
Wait a minute.
Does a straight talker get involved with uh political and tactical moves?
Well, in truth, yes, because in truth there's no such thing as a straight talker.
The media has dubbed McCain this.
So since they have defined straight talker as McCain, whatever McCain says is straight talk.
But they're starting to get, wait a minute, this this whole business of asking his delegates to vote for Bush, why that's that's a little curious.
And some people were saying, well, this is all well and good.
You ask for people to support Bush on something that's meaningless.
Where was your support for Bush on permanent tax cuts?
Where's your support for Bush on the issues?
You've been out there running against Bush uh trying to please the media in a number of times.
Where is your real support for him?
It's one thing to ask your delegates to vote for him in something that has zilch substance to it.
He he he he voted he voted for tax cuts this budget cycle, but he has yet to vote for per making him permanent.
He ran against these tax cuts.
This is what I'm saying, McCain is taking a go away as model.
McCain is going to move closer and closer to Bush.
I will tell you this.
If McCain comes out and supports permanent tax, and it's going to be a tough one for him, because the media hates tax cuts, permanent, temporary, any.
But if he comes out and supports permanent tax cuts, well, they he'll get away with it immediately.
Well, we understand what he's doing.
Um uh uh he's running for the Republican nomination.
We know what he has to do, and he'll be back to us once he wins that.
But if he were to do that, if he were to come out for uh and support permanent tax cuts, and of course this will never happen, but he's got an opportunity to denounce Feingold and this censure movement.
Now he's got a it's uh it's a real risk uh denouncing Feingold because one half of the campaign finance reform bill, um, or the the other chief sponsor was fine uh fine gold.
Um and so uh you know it it you watch him.
I uh I will bet you that uh he makes uh series of public moves that will um uh make it appear as though he's moving closer and closer to Bush.
He wants his campaign team.
Uh if he comes out for permanent tax cuts, the disconsider him permanent until I win tax cuts.
But remember, he can anybody can change legislation every year.
There's no such thing as permanent anything in Washington except Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Those those and now Medicare Part B, the prescription drugs.
That's about all that's permanent.
Other than that, you can change everything else.
Now, there's a there's a piece today, um where's this from?
It's what it's it's uh Lloyd Grove in the New York Daily News gossip column is John McCain a lesbian, is how the piece opens.
Maybe we'll learn the answer from Edward Klein, who insinuated as much about Hillary Clinton in his 2005 biography, largely a a clip job of hit pieces, reviewers said.
Apparently, his Klein fellow is apparently hard at work on a poison pen Book about McCain.
According to Crane's New York business, Klein claims that he'll chronicle the Republican presidential frontrunners sexual infidelity, chronic gambling, and anger management.
In a book that's uh that's coming up.
So we we shall see as as Feingold ends well, if he Yeah, I well could appeal to Democrats if there's any truth to any of that, particularly the anger manager.
You've got anger because I mean the true test for the lunatic fringe Democrat basis, how angry can their candidate candidates be the angrier the the better.
Now, here is here is here is uh here is how uh McC uh Feingold ends his McCain piece today.
It's on MSNBC's website.
Still, McCain's uh procedures here expose the risks of their embrace the president strategy.
If they're such good buddies, McCain and the president, and if McCain's the natural follow-on to George Bush, shouldn't the Senator have been the toast of more people in the Peabody Lobby Hotel, meaning the delegates, uh down in Memphis.
It's a tough hand to play.
Uh, weary McCain strategist said, is there a playbook for how to run as an insider, an outsider, an establishment, and an anti-establishment guy?
If you find it, let me know.
So, you know, I don't know if this is Feynman deciding to get off the straight talk express or not, but uh I I knew this was gonna happen.
I've been asking you.
Let's say McCain gets a nomination, and Hillary is a nominated.
What are they gonna do?
Well, you know flat out well what they're gonna do.
It's bye-bye McCain.
And now, as McCain is is is publicly gravitating to the president, what are they gonna do?
They're gonna have a tougher time calling him a maverick and a straight talker and and all that, because they're gonna assume he's gonna be an insider and an outsider, establishment anti-establishment uh at the same time, and that's only because in their minds he's been anti-establishment.
McCain is pro-MCain.
You know, whatever that that's the way to define it, and they have been willing accomplices in uh in promoting that because he was the most credible and the loudest Republican opposing Bush.
Who they despise.
Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Rush Limbaugh and the Limbaugh Institute for advanced conservative studies.
Let's listen to some audio on this whole straw poll business.
We first off here, we have a montage of uh various uh political bigwigs and media people.
You got Chris Matthews, Chuck Todd of the Hotline, Charlie Cook, Feynman, uh CNN's John Roberts, you got Chris Wallace from Fox, John Dickerson from Slate, and George Will.
And they're all talking about Senator McCain's status for president.
And this uh all this took place over the weekend, primarily on Sunday after the uh the straw poll vote in Memphis Saturday night.
Still McCain is the frontrunner coming out of this.
McCain's still the front runner, he's still the front runner for the nomination.
McCain is the putative front runner.
John McCain is the presumed frontrunner.
Frontrunner, John McCain.
John McCain is the real front runner.
The stars are aligned right now for Senator McCain.
Well, that's the probably the most accurate statement.
He didn't fall into the uh the the trap of echoing everybody else, the putative, the presumed uh the front runner uh stars may be lining up.
But I it's it it's way too soon here.
Uh like like our buddies at Red State said, anybody thinks he's the front runner right now, especially after coming in fifth in this thing, is jumping the gun.
And again, it it's once again it's conventional wisdom, it's conventional wisdom tsunami, everybody's getting aboard.
Uh all these insiders are, all these inside the beltway types and drive-by media types, and they just they're you know what it is, they just they're too paranoid that they're not gonna agree with everybody else in their crowd, and so they all want to end up saying the same thing because that keeps them membership in the clique.
Hey, got let's see, one, two, we got two little bites from McCain.
Here's his gambit at the straw poll, snuggling up to President Bush uh and giving himself the excuse for finishing fourth or fifth, depending on how you want to tabulate it.
For the next three years with our country at war, He's our president and the only one who needs our support today.
So you see what he was doing here.
He's out there not asking just his delegates.
He wanted all the delegates to vote for Bush.
Because he didn't, he didn't he didn't want to, he didn't want to show that he came in fourth or third, whatever he was going to come in.
He didn't win place a show.
Now there's one th look, I I I can't I cannot help but observe this.
We've we've all seen what McCain's up to here at this straw poll.
The question is, is it straight talk or is it cynical?
Do we also realize how uh stupid he thinks the GOP rank and file is?
I mean, I I think I think there's some weakness on display here without knowing the ultimate outcome, uh, and nobody should be surprised that the media don't run the Republican Party, and he has spent years campaigning for the media support.
I have I've tried to with in in a very gracious and thoughtful, compassionate and caring way on this very program.
I have tried to warn Senator McCain all of these years.
If you make the media your base, you are alienating Republicans.
They despise the base of the media as much as they despise the Democrats, because they're no different.
They're the same people.
And when you go cozying up to these people, it's not helping you.
And the and the media does not elect Republicans.
They don't have anything to do with the media doesn't run the Republican Party.
You know, and he he's he spent five years off and on uh undermining President Bush.
How about how about this?
How about when this is one thing I'll never forget.
You might have your own example.
But when John Kerry asked him to be his vice presidential running mate, and McCain didn't immediately say no, even though there was no way he was gonna do it, but he still flirted with the idea.
Talking about a great guy John Kerry is.
This is just you don't have to run out and dump on the guy who has to be vice president.
Understand the trick that Kerry was trying to play and and uh acknowledge to your own party that you understand it and you're not gonna fall for it and that you uh you're not moved by it.
But he went, Oh, I'm I'm so impressed.
I'm I'm so touched, Senator Kerry would uh be thinking of me in this light.
I'm gonna gag me with a spoon.
It was time for my index finger down my throat.
And I I would assume um most people too.
Now, Friday night on uh on Chris Matthew's show, McCain appeared with Chris Matthews, and uh Matthews said this Southern leadership issue, I mean, you uh you endorsed Bush for write in tomorrow at your own expense.
Come on, Chris.
I mean, even you are better than that, your own expense.
This was a own expense.
He's trying to cover up what was going to be a poor showing.
This is what McCain said.
Let me be serious a minute about him.
He's having trouble right now.
We Republicans all know that.
That's when you need to stand by him.
He doesn't need us when his numbers are at 65.
He needs us now.
And that's that's my only message.
Is your is your hope that he'll win here tomorrow?
I hope so.
What's the laughter about?
I hope so.
That's my only message is that Bush needs our support right now.
Ways are going about doing this if he if he wants to, but but you you he's going to he's gonna create a bunch of cynicism in people's minds about his motives and behavior.
Uh doing it this way.
What one other thing about Haley Barber, I gotta I left something out when uh the McCain people are trying to get Haley Barber, it's a dual-pronged purpose.
They're trying to get Haley Barber's an official endorsers of one maybe on the short list, long list for VEEP, who knows.
Uh, but that's there's two reasons for that.
One is is to is to get Barber to sort of quell some of the unrest for McCain that there is uh in the South.
And the second thing would be to take Barber out of the running because they consider him a threat.
You know, Barber said he's not interested, but he could change his mind any day.
And any barber's a threat.
So you get Barber on your team to get him out of the running.
So there's any number of things uh that are that are work here that that uh are not straight talk.
Back in just a moment.
Here's Charlie Cook from this weekend on the Republicans uh straw poll.
I think that party regulars in general and Republican Party regulars in particular don't like mavericks, they don't like independents, they like team players, but I also think that reform does its sell with party regulars, and I don't care if you're a Republican or Democrat.
Why not, Charlie?
They're ideologues.
They don't want reform, they're power they're they love politics.
Yeah, well, don't sound so mad about it.
It's exactly right.
Republicans want conservatives.
That's how you win.
You win with conservatism.
You want to call them ideologues, go, well, we want to win.
We don't want to just have people say clever things that make the other side mad.
We want to win, and we know how it happens.
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