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Nov. 7, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:32
November 7, 2006, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists, all across the fruited plan, Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, and the Distinguished Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Ready for three hours of broadcast excellence and looking forward to talking to you.
The telephone number 800282-2882, the email address rush at EIBNet.com.
Lots of weird stuff going on out there today, folks.
Matt Drudge just flashed me and said that already some phony exit polls are being posted at places on the internet.
There are no exit polls for house races, folks.
So just so you know, there are exit polls for the races in the Senate and the governorships that are up.
But we've been told that the exit poll participants, the people mining the data, are in this quarantine room with no means of communicating to anybody until 5 p.m. this afternoon.
I'm getting emails from people all over the place with reports of fraud and curious goings on in their places of polling.
Get this.
One of the fun things I've been doing today is visiting Democrat blogs and Democrat websites and went to the Democrat Underground.
They are worrying that the Republicans have actually rigged voting machines today in favor of Democrats so that the Republicans can then invalidate Democrat victories as stolen, which would keep the Republicans in power.
The paranoia of these people is breathtaking.
So the Republicans, Carl Roven and the gang, have ensured Democrats will win by virtue of fraud because they've screwed with the machines.
And this will invalidate Democrat victories.
Have you seen this in New York?
New York plans to make gender a personal choice, separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman.
New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate, even if they've not had, say, an addedictomy or chopped dicophamy, any kind of sex change surgery.
If you want your birth certificate to say you're a female when you're a man, you can do it.
In New York, under the rule being considered by the city's Board of Health, which is likely to be adopted soon, people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent.
Applicants would have to have changed their name and shown that they had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years, but there would be no explicit medical requirements.
You know who this is a victory for is the male lesbians in New York.
But there's always a catch to this stuff, and that is you have to live in your adopted gender for what, at least two years, and then promise that it's permanent.
But there's no sex change required.
If approved, the new rule would put New York at the forefront of efforts to redefine gender.
Well, now, I know this sounds funny, but once you start letting people redefine marriage and once you start letting people redefine family, who's to say we can't redefine anything?
I mean, I know some people who would like to change their identity to dog and get kicked around so much.
Some people would like to, where does this insanity stop?
No, you can't be a boy girl at the same time.
Well, I haven't read it.
Let me see.
They should not change the sex at birth, which is a factual record, said Dr. Arthur Zittrin, a midtown shrink, who was on the panel of transgender experts convened by the city.
If they wanted to change the gender for all the compelling reasons that they've given, it should be done perhaps with an asterisk.
So, yeah, Bush could go to New York.
Well, you have to live in New York to do that, but Bush could move to New York, change his gender, become the first female president.
By the way, you see, Bill Clinton was in Maryland last night campaigning for Ben Carton.
And it's interesting, the first black president is in Maryland campaigning against the black candidate for Senate in that state.
I have another note from a friend, and I must tell you, I've gotten a little frustrated, just mildly frustrated today, because, and I guess it's understandable, but I'm getting a lot of fear-based emails from friends and pessimistic emails.
Here's one.
I'm telling you, Rush, it doesn't matter if we win or lose.
The Democrats are going to be intolerable anyway.
If we win, we're going to see a bitterness that will eclipse both 2000 and 2004 because they believe there's no way they can legitimately lose.
So they'll either be A, furious and making accusations of fraud or B, completely and finally alienated, realizing it really isn't their country anymore.
They'll be so vitriolic it's hard telling what they do.
If they win, even by just a little, they'll take it as a mandate to crucify Bush and other Republicans, and they'll do it no matter what Pelosi says.
You know, and I have predicted that.
I mean, I think there's some sense.
The Democrats have a very high bar to reach today.
They have to do better than they have projected in order for them to actually feel like this is a big sweep.
If they underperform based on their own expectations, then they're going to have some things to answer for internally.
But they probably won't do that.
Why should they start examining themselves now whether they win or lose?
But if they do lose, it is going to be brutal out there.
It is going to be brutal.
Now, here's another email.
Hey, Rush, I just voted.
I have no hope that a Republican will ever again win in my state of Illinois or anywhere else.
We had the new electronic ballots.
I can see how the Democrats just took over the voting and why they've been so confident.
Number one, it was a complicated process for dumb people.
So they needed help for all of it.
And those election judges are going to actually be doing the voting for these people that don't understand these electronic ballots.
At the end of the process, it said ballot not accepted or accepted.
So when it's not accepted, the election judges will come in, correct the ballot, and that'll take away all those thrown out votes of the past.
Therefore, the dumb Democrats' votes will now count.
That means of over the 100,000 ballots usually thrown out in Chicago, they will now all count and most all of those ballots, all those dummies will now count.
And usually the dummies are the Democrat bloc voting group.
This will be all over the USA, and you can kiss the big states goodbye to Republicans.
You know, let me tell you, there's some thing.
I heard something last night that I really caused a red flag.
The Secretary of State in the state of Tennessee announced that 40% of the projected voters had already voted by early and absentee voting.
Something like 890,000 of 1.9 million people voted early, and they voted during a time when Harold Ford was up in the polls.
There's a lot of early voting and a lot of, in fact, in Ohio, in Cuyahoga County and some other counties, they're going to go ahead and process these early absentee votes tonight rather than wait because there are so many of them.
I'm getting reports of all over the country.
High turnout in various places, low turnout in others.
Turnout where I live, folks, is tiny.
And I have asked staff members here how the turnout was when they said tiny as well.
Zipped in, zipped out, no lines, hardly anybody at all.
Not true in Missouri, projecting 70% voter turnout in the state of Missouri.
And I guess voting is heavy now in St. Louis County.
And this early voting, you know, this is an outgrowth of the Florida aftermath in 2000, where the case was made that Democrats were defrauded, that Republicans in three Democrat-run counties, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Broward, were disenfranchised.
And particularly black voters in Miami-Dade County, they were disenfranchised.
The Republicans screwed them.
And so to counter that, we have early voting.
Now, this early voting, I mean, Election Day is Election Day for a reason.
Why don't we not let people early vote in July?
Why do we just not let them vote in August?
Let them vote six months before the election.
I mean, once you start deviating, where does it stop?
And the earlier you vote, the greater the chance for fraud.
And you know what the Democrats are doing.
I hope the Republicans are engaged in the same thing.
I assume they are, but Democrats go into these places where they think their voters are, like nursing homes and other places where groups of people traditionally thought to be Democrats are just going there with these early voter ballots and say, hi, Maud, I'm here to help you vote early.
Oh, wonderful, wonderful.
I'm so happy to see you.
And they fill out what they think Maud would do, tell Maud she's voted.
Maud feels patriotic, has no idea how she voted, and the ballot gets turned in.
We've got the fraud in St. Louis with 35,000 fraudulent registrations from that acorn group.
So it's going to be fascinating.
Regardless, the Democrats, for all their confidence out there today, folks, do not appear to let the Democratic process take place with confidence.
They don't trust it.
They have to.
I'm getting reports of some of the most outrageous stuff in the world going on in some Philadelphia precincts.
I'm not going to give you details until I can confirm it.
And this is not uncommon.
I mean, games are played with the electoral process at all times.
I just find the Democrats here so confident and so eager.
And so, I mean, it's Christmas Eve last night.
This is Christmas Day.
They're waiting for Sandy Claus to come down the chimney today, even have a soundbite of them talking about the election in this way.
But they don't trust the electoral process.
And why should they?
It's not gone in their favor for a long time other than two presidential races.
All right, a quick timeout.
We'll be back.
Lots more in all the various stacks of stuff.
We've got actually a couple fascinating pieces.
Michael Kinsley, writing in the Washington Post, really rips Nancy Pelosi and her whole platform.
We've got a great piece.
I wish this piece would have come out earlier.
A Democrat writing about the Iraq war and how it is the single most important issue and how it's making him vote Republican.
And it scares him that so many Democrats and so many people in this country do not understand the threat that we face.
It's nothing you haven't heard before, so it's interesting coming from a Democrat.
Lots of interesting stuff.
So sit tight.
We'll come back and continue right after this.
All right, let's go to the audio soundites, ladies and gentlemen, as the Democrats in the drive-by media start early today with fraud allegations.
They're throwing out all kinds of them, hoping that something sticks.
They started last night.
They've continued today.
They're accusing people of voter suppression, intimidation, robocalls, voting machines rigged, all the way as the evil GOP is cheating.
Here's a montage of various drive-by media personalities.
We now have reports of voting problems in Utah, Florida, Indiana, and Ohio because of these electronic voting machines.
They have frazzled voters.
Stop the tape.
Stop the tech.
I have to re-cue this thing to the top.
I asked this question yesterday.
Have you noticed that the people who demanded upgrading voter technology after Florida 2000 are the ones complaining about it now?
They're the ones who say, hey, our people are too stupid to use butterfly ballots.
Our people can't figure out these paper ballots down here.
We need to uptick.
So the federal government spent $4 billion on election reform voting machines.
Now all of a sudden, that's the problem.
No matter what you give liberals, it's not enough.
They are never, ever happy.
But once again, I think all of this is predicated on the fact that they don't trust the electronic process and they are not that confident today, folks.
In fact, Adam Nagurney in the New York Times story today for Democrats, even a game may feel like a failure.
Details coming up.
Here's this bite now in entirety.
We now have reports of voting problems in Utah, Florida, Indiana, and Ohio because of these electronic voting machines.
They have frazzled voters.
The web campaign says it has documented dozens of calls in which they were told that if they tried to vote tomorrow, they would be arrested.
These tricks they played forever in these black communities.
Scare the hell out of people.
The McCockens always go Democrat.
Of course, Alan.
We're trying to suppress them.
Reporting attempts to confuse voters and possibly suppress turnout.
The web campaign charging that Republicans are behind voter suppression efforts trying to keep people from voting.
I'm really worried there could be irregularities.
The voting machines.
Concerned about voting irregularities.
We are worried.
We've seen these irregularities already.
We're worried about voter suppression.
A lot of voter irregularities.
Voting irregularities.
I wouldn't trust one of these electronic voting machines that don't have a record any further than I can throw the thing.
There have been problems in some key districts with those new electronic voting machines.
Some of the machines went on the fritz.
They had to resort to paper ballots.
All right.
All of this talk about voter suppression, that goes back so that that is, I'm telling you, that's playing the race card, folks.
Make no mistake about it.
They did it in Florida 2000.
They tried again in 2002 during the midterms there.
And they do it every election that Republicans, especially in these states like Virginia, Tennessee, places like that, they're trying to suppress the black vote and making phone calls to people, tell them if they vote tomorrow, they'll be arrested.
What a cool practical joke.
I mean, just as a practical joke, I...
Well, Snartley is asking me who is that stupid that they would believe something.
Democrat voters.
This is the whole point.
Snerdley doesn't think they can be that stupid.
I do.
Somebody's reporting it.
Look, I had a thing sent to me yesterday that was a dire.
I mean, it looked as legitimate as anything I've ever seen from the AP Newswire.
And it said that the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had responded favorably to a Democrat National Committee request that Republicans vote today and Democrats vote tomorrow.
It was all over the internet, and there were some people buying into it.
I saw it on a thread where some, this is outrageous.
You've got to get this to talk radio.
And I sent it to some friends.
I said, this cannot be, but there are people that bought this.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals supposedly ruled yesterday, and they quoted Howard Dean as saying, this is fabulous.
And the Republicans were opposed to it because it was a Democrat trick that would actually allow Democrats to vote for two days since they'd also cheat and vote on Ted.
This stuff is just, it's rampant.
Now, here is just to take you back in time, just show you how this, at least in its modern incarnation, got started.
This is November 2000, the Today Show co-host Matt Lauer interviewing Robert Wexler, a Democratic congressman from down here in Boca Raton.
Lauer says, wasn't that ballot also approved by both parties?
This is a butterfly ballot controversy.
The actual punch holes are not there, so you wouldn't know that Al Gore's name, while it appears second on the ballot, is actually third in terms of where the punch number appears when you put it in the machine.
We have a tremendous problem here that goes to the heart of who actually won the presidential race in Florida.
Both parties, in fact, the ballot that he's talking about was designed by a Democrat election supervisor whose name was Teresa Lapore.
And it was sent out to every voter, and it was approved by both parties.
What happened was, if you've forgotten, is that some Florida Democratic voters, Jewish voters, ended up voting for Pat Buchanan by mistake, and that just sent everybody into a Tizzy because they knew that wouldn't be the case.
So they started blaming it on the ballot.
And that started this whole call for, well, we've got to modernize this.
This is outrageous.
So this has become a standard part of Election Day now.
Democrats accusing Republicans of suppressing the vote when what has been going on for the past year by Democrats in conjunction with the drive-by media?
They have been trying to suppress and depress the Republican vote for all six months now, at least, back in just seconds.
Man, a living legend, a way of life.
This vote suppression thing is really a joke, folks.
The Democrats have been engaged in that for six months.
What was the whole argument and campaign against Tom DeLay?
What was the Mark Foley circumstance?
What was this preacher?
What's his name?
Haggard out in Colorado.
By the way, the vote turnout in that district where that church is is sky high.
Maybe the attack on him has backfired or what have you.
What was that?
If not, especially the Foley thing, if that wasn't voter suppression, what the hell is?
I mean, that's been a technique and a tactic.
Folk, I am telling you, I want you to understand something.
Democrats do not trust the Democratic process.
And when you look at recent elections, why should they?
The difference is that when they don't trust it, when they don't trust you to vote for them, they will do what they have to do to rig the circumstance, to rig the situation.
And even beyond that, as I mentioned yesterday, and this is even, it's hard to say it's more hideous, but it's just as hideous.
We, well, I, on this program, have always told you what my objective is when it comes to the political aspects of this program.
I believe that the people in a representative republic, the people, are the power.
And the objective here is to create as many informed, participating people in the political arena of ideas as possible.
Have them motivated because of their passion and excitement to go vote and participate in this whole process.
Because that produces legitimate victory and it produces mandates.
Well, the Democrats have a plan to counter this, but their plan also is to subvert, if you will, the Democrat process.
When they lose election, why do you think they want control of all these institutions?
The judiciary, the public education system, the bureaucracies at so many cabinet-level departments of the government, State Department, the Pentagon, and this sort of thing.
Because when they control the higher education as well, when they control these institutions, they can subvert the will of the people.
Judges become politicians ruling in favor of their own political outcome preferences and so forth rather than on the basis of the law, which is why judicial reform has always been such a big thing to those of us who are conservative.
So if they can't subvert the electoral process at the polling place, they will do it with their control of institutions.
And that we see that constantly.
They don't trust the Democrat process.
They'll accept it when they win, when it produces power for them.
But when it doesn't, they thwart it every turn, every which way they can.
And the media, the drive-by media, you'd have to include them as one of those institutions.
Do you realize Dan Rather was on TV in North Carolina today still maintaining that the Texas Air National Guard story that he ran on Bush is true and that the documents were accurate.
Still maintaining this.
And he got some sort of a prize, a Peabody prize or whatever at some point.
They circle the wagons around him.
So controlling the institutions.
I mean, this has been, I've never seen it like this in my life, folks.
Now, I know it has been in all of American history.
Go back to the Civil War days and the founding of the country.
Journalism was far different, although it was just as ribald and it was just as cutting and it was just as over the top, but there was balance.
I mean, in certain cities, you had a Democrat paper and a Republican paper, and they would cover the same event in two totally different ways on the front page.
But that's not the case here.
It is now where you've got the alternative media, talk, radio, the blogosphere, internet, and conservative publications.
But these people, I've never seen it this way.
I've never seen the so-called mainstream media choose upsides so obviously and without any shame as in this election cycle and perhaps the last one as well.
But this one succeeds the previous in terms of outrageousness.
And so that is an institution, too, that you would have to include in these list of institutions that the liberals seek to control to thwart the Democrat process.
I consider the use of all these polls never-ending.
Every day we got a new poll, sometimes two, for a year.
And the polls don't mean anything.
They can't possibly.
A poll in July is worthless in terms of actually forecasting a result, but it is very valuable if you can use it to influence public opinion in your favor, if you can use the poll to suppress and depress people who are opposite you politically.
And that's what those polls have been used for.
And this is nothing new in the terms of the polling use.
It's just a new way of supposedly making news and reporting it as some earth-shattering new event or occurrence.
But I just, on election day like this, all these charges of suppression, I wouldn't be surprised if some of these phone calls, if they're happening, some of these phone calls to people say, you're going to get arrested if you go vote today.
I still think it's funny.
Sorry.
I wish I'd thought of it.
But I'm a practical joker from way back.
I'm just teasing here, folks, about actually doing it.
But you get a phone call.
Let's say it's yesterday and you're sitting home mining your own business.
The phone rings.
Hi, this is calling from the so-and-so Republican campaign.
Just want to warn you that if you attempt to go vote tomorrow, you will be arrested.
I doubt that Republicans are making those calls.
If those calls are being made, I think the Democrats are probably the ones making them just so they can raise the issue, just so they can get their willing accomplices in the drive-by media to start talking about all these voter suppression techniques.
But when you boil it all down, it boils down.
They don't trust the Democrat process.
What happened to all this confidence?
What happened to all this news that there were going to be a giant blue wave sweeping America?
Democrats are going to win 40 seats in the House.
They're going to take back the Senate and they're going to get out of a rot.
What happened to all that?
I mean, if the polls give you that kind of confidence, why not trust it?
Can't afford to trust it.
Democratic process hasn't been kind to Democrats.
Democrats are also upset.
Their drive to get illegal aliens and ex-felons to vote in this election failed in most places.
They still get the dead vote.
I know that dead voters are registered four to one Democrat.
And if you think I'm making this up, if you think I'm joking about this, Missouri is expecting a 70% turnout today at the polls.
In Missouri, it has been learned there are 10,520 dead people still registered to vote.
This is from Gateway Pundit, the blog Gateway Pundit, 500 or 10,520 dead people still registered to vote, 35,000 questionable Acorn registration forms.
That 70% turnout could go even higher when you count 10,520 dead people still on the voter roll.
And then anybody want to tell, I'll bet anybody, certainly I'll bet you a buck that something happens in the city of St. Louis.
And it goes something, somebody's going to allege fraud.
I got to keep the polls open to like midnight tonight or 10 o'clock because some people weren't allowed to vote or what have you.
St. Louis, very, very Democrats, a dying Democrat city in some people's minds.
St. Louis County, voter turnout, they're very heavy today.
Amendment 2 is driving this, I think, along the talent McCaskill race.
I'm sure there's walking around money being tossed around all over the place.
It's not that hard to get people from East St. Louis across the bridge to vote, especially if you can intimidate voter officials.
So it's laughable to me when I hear all this about Republican efforts to cheat.
Here is Howard Dean, by the way, going back to December of 2003.
He's doing a town meeting somewhere, and a female audience member says, I heard a rumor, and I want to know if it's true about the voting, the actual computerized voting, and I'm really nervous about it.
Can you address that, Dr. Dean?
The head of a company called Debo that makes voting machines sent her out a letter in Ohio promising to do, quote, whatever it takes to get this president elected in Ohio.
It doesn't give you a lot of confidence in the electoral process.
And that's all it took.
And from then till now, the voting machine has been rigged in favor of Republicans.
It was Democrats who wanted and demanded an upgrade in voter technology after Florida 2000.
Then June 4th of 2004, John Kerry, the haughty former Vietnam veteran, was on C-SPAN.
I have almost 2,000 lawyers already who've been put together.
We have a comprehensive legal team that is looking right now at districts in America where voters are harassed, where they are prevented from registering, districts where people who are registered are purged from the polls and told the day they arrive thinking they're registered, they're no longer registered.
We're going to be looking at voting machines.
We're looking at the entire process to guarantee that never again in this country do we have a situation like we had in the year 2000.
Uh-huh.
So you see, it's a standard technique, and it's Democrats who raise the charges.
I think it's Democrats out there making these phone calls, allowing them to make these charges.
By the way, one observation, of the 10,520 dead people in Missouri, the Democrats are probably thinking that it's okay for them to vote because if we had embryonic stem cell research, they wouldn't be dead.
We would have found cures for whatever ailed them and they'd still be alive.
So we ought to let them vote anyway.
That's the kind of thinking that goes on here.
Also, I don't know if it's still the case.
I read earlier today that the telephones at the George Allen for Senate headquarters in Virginia were out.
Nobody knew why.
Nobody, they were looking into it, and they gave an alternative number.
But it means that the Allen for Senate campaign people can't make phone calls today to get out their vote.
So we're going to help them here.
If you're in Virginia, you know that this is a crucial Senate seat for Republicans.
And the Allen, if you're, I don't know why you'd be waiting for a phone call anyway, but understand that there's something odd that has happened.
It's too soon to accuse or allege anything here, but it does seem, it does seem odd.
Then up the road in New Jersey, last night, some pranksters chainlocked the door to Tom Kaine Jr.'s headquarters.
What we don't know is whether Kain's supporters did that or whether Menenda's supporters did.
Be right back after this.
Stay with us.
Well, folks, I'm in a giddy mood today.
See, I'm laughing at everything.
I probably shouldn't laugh at this.
News just in from Kentucky, poll worker was arrested today, charged with assault and interfering with an election for allegedly choking a voter and pushing the voter out the doors, said an official.
Election officials call the police.
The voter wanted to file charges, said Paula McCraney, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County, Kentucky clerk.
This about tops off the day, McCraney said.
Wasn't immediately clear what sparked the altercation.
The name of the poll worker was not released, and a Louisville police spokesman did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
By the way, I erred a moment ago.
I said Dan Rather was on TV in Raleigh.
I made a mistake.
He was on our radio station, our EIB affiliate in Raleigh, WPTF, on the morning show.
And he was questioned about this and stood by the accuracy of the whole Bush National Guard story.
So they're choking voters in Kentucky now.
And it's not even one o'clock in the afternoon Eastern time.
Bob in Niles, Michigan, let's squeeze some phone calls in here.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Last night to talk to you.
Thank you.
Listen, I want to make a comment about you talked earlier about the people wanting to on paper change their sex without physically doing it.
And I think it might be just a ploy to backdoor legalizing gay marriage.
Oh, that's probably true.
It's probably true.
I mean, folks, if you missed this, in New York, this is in the New York Times today, separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, the New York City, well, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate, even if they've not had sex change surgery.
Applicants would have to have changed their name and shown that they had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years.
But there would be no explicit medical requirements.
If approved, the new rule would put New York at the forefront of efforts to redefine gender.
And so it's probably a decent conclusion.
This is one way to advance gay marriage.
You say, oh, marriage is restricted to a man and a woman.
And so these two guys show up and get married.
One of them, there's a foreman on it.
He says he wants to be a woman on his birth certificate.
What do you do if New York City has legalized this?
John in Hamilton County, Indiana.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hi.
Pete Manning for MVP Development Rush.
Hey, Robin, just a quick anecdote from the most Republican county in the country, certainly one of them.
I went to the polling place this morning at 6 a.m.
And I was the third person in line to vote, and we have touchscreen voting machines, and the two voting machines were not operable.
There was, fortunately, and I asked for a paper ballot, but there was a third voting machine for handicapped voters.
I guess it didn't say for Democrats only.
It wouldn't matter.
There aren't very many of them.
They're kind of like a nice.
Hey, You can't make fun of the handicapped in this country.
My wife would say.
Not on this show, sir.
It's not going to happen.
But anyway, my point is: if there's someone Republicans just suppressed their own vote in Hamilton County, Indiana.
Long story short, my wife followed me up there later.
The machines were working fine.
Well, Republicans suppressing their own vote.
Well, this would go back to what I read on the Democrat Underground earlier today.
Democrat Underground worries that the GOP is actually rigging voting machines in favor of Democrats so that Republicans can then invalidate Democrat victories as stolen, keeping the Republicans in power.
So according to the wizards at Democrat Underground, this makes total sense.
Republicans suppressing their own vote in Hamilton County, Indiana.
Adam Nagurney, New York Times today, for Democrats, even a game may feel like a failure.
For a combination of reasons, increasingly bullish prognostications by independent handicappers, galloping optimism by Democratic leaders and bloggers, and polls that promise a Democrat blowout, expectations for the party have soared into the stratosphere.
Democrats are widely expected to take the House, and by a significant margin, perhaps the Senate as well, while capturing a majority of governorships and legislatures.
Charlie Cook, the analyst who is one of Washington's chief setters of expectations, said in an email message on Monday he was dropping the words possibly more from his House prediction of 20 to 35, possibly more.
Two years ago, winning 14 seats in the House would have been a pipe dream, said Matt Bennett, a founder of third-way moderate Democrat organization.
Yeah, yeah, no such thing.
Now, Mr. Bennett said, failure to win the House even by one seat would send Democrats diving under their beds, not to mention what it might do to all the pundits.
It would be crushing.
It would be extremely difficult.
Charlie Cook put it more succinctly.
I think you'd see a Jim Jones situation.
It would be a mass suicide.
Now, who first raised this?
This is in the New York Times today.
They're lowering expectations.
They're all of a sudden talking about what happens if Democrats lose.
I myself raised this three weeks ago.
What happens if they lose?
Nobody's talking about what happens if they lose.
They've set their bar so high.
What will be the outcome if they lose?
Well, I mean, we're getting a taste of it now.
They're already accusing Republicans of rigging the election.
If they lose this, folks, if they don't perform to their expectations, I'm telling you, you think that they have gone berserk and wacko and have descended to the early stages of utter madness now.
You haven't seen anything yet.
We will be talking to the chairman of the Republican National Committee at the top of the next hour.
Mere moments from right now.
That would be Ken Melman.
We'll chat him up for a while when we get back here on the EIB network.
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