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Oct. 4, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:22
October 4, 2007, Thursday, Hour #2
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Greetings and welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
Here we are, Rush Limbaugh, using up more than my share of fun today here behind the golden EIB microphone at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
By the way, the latest opinion audit is in from the Sullivan Group, the opinion auditing firm.
And Wesley Clark, you might be interested in hearing this.
What a moron.
But absolutely.
If you missed the first hour, Wesley Clark wants ratings on political speech.
He wants Congress to rate political speech ABC as, I guess A is acceptable, B is almost acceptable, C is intolerable.
The mad bomber of Bosnia.
At any rate, what was I going to say?
What was I saying right before I interrupted myself with Wesley Clark?
What was I saying?
You guys weren't there chatting amongst yourselves about the kids in school and all this.
And this seldom happens to me.
I seldom lose my place.
Well, it'll come to me.
Let me get to the audio soundbites because I need to thank some people, ladies and gentlemen.
There are other items in the news of some stuff I've held over from yesterday that are not related to this.
Oh, Sullivan Group opinion audit.
That's what it was.
In the last week alone, my opinion auditing firm has shown that I am now, I'm up a tenth of a point again, documented to be almost always right 98.8% of the time in the midst of dealing with this smear.
I mean, it's just, it's amazing.
Knew this was going to be the case, and I wanted to pass that on to you.
Fred Thompson, last night on Hannity and Colms, Sean said to him, your campaign released a statement from you regarding the comments and activities to condemn Rush Limbaugh on the Senate floor.
They're trying to divert attention from the embarrassment of having to align themselves with an outfit like moveon.org because they raised so much money for the Democrats.
And MoveOn, you know, practically calls Petraeus a traitor.
And most of them don't vote to condemn him for that.
And yet they'll take something that somebody like Limbaugh says, which was totally a distortion of what he was talking about, clearly, and to try to divert attention away from it.
And go to the Senate floor and take the time of the United States Senate to personally insult him.
You know, that's one of the reasons why Congress has an 11% approval rating.
That is Fred Thompson last night on Hannity and Colms yesterday afternoon on your world with Neil Cavuto.
Mitch McConnell, a Republican leader in the Senate, said to Cavuto said to McConnell, so far there are no reports of advertisers bailing.
His boss over at Clear Channel continues to defend.
It's the reports of advertisers.
Neil, don't tell anybody.
It's the opposite.
We have people waiting in line.
Psst, don't tell anybody.
This is Democrats Blast the Conservative Talk Show host over his phony soldiers comment.
My next guest is also supporting Rush, and he's a pretty powerful guy in his own right, majority leader or minority leader, Mitch McConnell.
Senator, they still whack him.
Anybody blows here?
I read what he had to say.
He's got nothing to apologize for, and he certainly said nothing to be condemned for it.
The Democrats are just trying to move past this outrageous ad in the New York Times by moveon.org calling General Petraeus, in effect, a traitor.
I don't know, you know, when we actually voted on that, about half the Democrats in the Senate voted with us to condemn the ad.
They had a similar vote over in the House, and more than half of the House Democrats also voted to condemn the ad.
That was something worthy of condemnation.
Rush Limbaugh didn't say anything that he should regret or that we should condemn him for.
Mitch McConnell on Neil Cavuto's show yesterday, and then last night, Senator McCain on CNN, the Situation Room John King, speaking to Senator McCain, said dust up in recent days.
Has been Harry Reid demanding an apology from Rush, calling a remark about phony soldiers.
He says he was taken out of context, was criticizing one person who lied about Iraq.
I don't know exactly about what the back and forth between Senator Reed and Rush Limbaugh.
I did issue a statement saying that I thought it was inappropriate.
And perhaps Mr. Limbaugh didn't mean it, but he should not have said it.
He has gone further than that now and has said, well, I know Limbaugh said he was talking about one soldier.
This guy's it's over for me.
The case closed.
So he's even gone further than that.
Now we want to go back to the House floor.
We're going to go back to Soundbits 12 and 13.
Last night, on the floor of the House, this continues.
This is Congressman Steve Israel, Democrat New York.
When I heard of the comments of Rush Limbaugh, when I heard him impugn the integrity of our soldiers, when I heard him call them phonies, I had just about had it.
How dare he attack our soldiers?
How dare he impugn their integrity?
How dare he attack their credibility?
There is no place in America for anyone to attack our soldiers while they are fighting in combat or when they are.
No one has the right to call any member of our armed forces phony.
And Rush Limbaugh owes them an apology.
That was day eight, folks.
And Steve, Steve, you're embarrassing yourself.
You've had a week to learn the facts to get up to speed on this.
All these Democrats have.
How in the world can you say that nobody has the right to impugn or attack soldiers while they're fighting?
Look to your own party, Congressman Israel.
Look to your own party.
You cannot be this ignorant.
You cannot be that ignorant of what your own fellow congressman in the House of Representatives said, Congressman Murtha, for example, who has accused them of murderers, active duty soldiers as murderers, Marines.
Kafka-esque.
This is totally Kafka-esque, ladies and gentlemen.
It is.
Chatsworth Osborne Jr. had the right term.
This is Orwellian.
Do they not know how they are making themselves appear to the people of this country?
Mr. Israel wasn't finished.
If ever there was anything that suggested to me a dissent beyond the line, I would never call it traitorous, but I can't think of a better example of giving aid and comfort to our enemies than somebody who would call our soldiers phony while they're fighting, who would attack them while they're defending us.
He crossed the line.
He crossed the line of fair play.
He crossed the line of hypocrisy.
This standard-bearer of patriotism attacking American forces.
It is unacceptable.
It is unacceptable.
I realize some of you may be upset with me for laughing about this, but I tell you what, I think, Steve Israel, you have just become the champion of Jesse Macbeth.
That's who I'm talking about and others like him.
And I've been talking about them for a while.
Not Jesse Macbeth, Jesse Alzaid is his real birthname, Jesse Alzaid.
If you want to speak up for this guy and your party has been doing it before they find out that they're frauds, your party has been standing up for all of these guys that come back and start launching these tales that are not true or that were never there or frauding the VA.
It is your party, Congressman, that props these people up because it is you, Congressman Israel and your party, who detest the success of the U.S. military.
It is your party in both the House and the Senate that has been doing everything you can do to secure defeat for this country and these troops in battle in Iraq and in the war on terror.
And you know it.
You have been trying to get this war defeated and lost.
You've been trying to gin up hatred for the war and the troops amongst the American people so that you can gin up these public opinion polls to support your position to lose in this war.
It is you who have been doing this, you and your party who have been impugning the integrity, the honor, the character of the men and women who serve in uniform in the United States military.
They know it.
I know it.
And you know it.
And you embarrass yourself and make yourself out to be a fool on day eight of this, purposefully distorting it, lying about it, because you have to know the truth.
And if you don't know the truth, and if you haven't endeavored to discover the truth, then you pose a great threat as a member of the United States Congress.
Because if you don't see this truth, what other truths are you missing?
Welcome back, folks.
Rush Liboy here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, fastest three hours in media and the fastest week in media.
I said at the top of the program early on that the mayor of Atlantic City is another one of these phonies.
I've got a blog here, jammywearingfoolblogspot.com.
And the headline, another phony war hero, Atlantic City's Democrat mayor, goes AWOL.
It says, looks like we have another case of a Democrat embellishing his military record.
Though, of course, this account from the Philadelphia Inquirer doesn't identify his party affiliation.
To be fair, the mayor of Atlantic City did indeed serve in the military, but claimed to be a green beret when he was not.
And again, the Philadelphia Inquirer does not mention his party.
There are a lot of stories as well.
The Newark Star Ledger has done the story on the mayor of Atlantic City, as well as one of the local TV stations.
Here's the Inquirer story.
Where's the mayor?
Not since where's Waldo and where's the beef is such a query caused such a stir.
In this resort, where the streets are literally paid by gambling revenues, they're taking bets on what might have become of Mayor Bob Levy and whether his disappearance signals another impending scandal involving the city's top job.
Amid reports of a federal probe into false claims that Levy admits he made regarding his Vietnam military service, the mayor drove off last Wednesday in a Silver City-owned Dodge Durango and hasn't been officially heard from since.
Lawyer says that Levy's in a hospital but isn't giving up anything else.
Rumors flew last week that Levy was ready to resign and would hold a news conference, but his assistants insisted that none of that was true.
And where is he?
Might have something to do with this, maybe.
Levy's PR problems started last fall when he acknowledged to a reporter for the press of Atlantic City that he misrepresented his military background during his mayoral campaign.
He had claimed to have served in the Army Green Berets during the Vietnam War, but in November said he never was in the elite Army Special Forces Group.
His service record shows he served two tours in Vietnam and was decorated for bravery twice.
And as the blogger asks here, why would someone who was decorated for bravery twice find it necessary to embellish his record?
Nonetheless, like many Democrat office holders in New Jersey, many in Atlantic City face assorted corruption charges.
Get this.
Currently, one-third of Atlantic City's city council members are in prison or awaiting sentencing.
Another city councilman was caught in a videotaped sex act with a prostitute last year, said he was set up by political opponents.
These are the people that denounce me.
Since taking office two years ago, Levy may have spent as much time out of his city hall orifice as he did serving in it.
Anyway, the stories go on and on.
So he did serve in Vietnam to tours, but he was never a Green Beret and said that he was.
All right, James in Henderson, Kentucky, welcome to the EIB Network, sir.
Grad you called.
Hi, Rush.
Hi.
Hey, I think you're just being disingenuous about all of this issue on the action in Congress.
I am being disingenuous about all the action in Congress.
Yes.
Okay, let's play.
Tell me how.
Well, you know, I think the libs are playing the same game that you've played for the last 20 years and telling one side of the story.
And you've gotten away with it a long time.
You just can't take it because they're playing the same game.
Can't take it?
I love it.
You say that, and you can get your little lap boys in Congress to defend you.
Poor Whittlettle.
What am I picking on here?
What a poor widow was.
James, what have I been doing for 20 years?
You let you.
So you've been telling one side of the story.
No, I tell the liberal side of every story in order to show how wrong it is.
You just don't listen.
I spell liberalism out more honestly and openly than they do.
James, I couldn't possibly do a one-sided show here.
I am a conservative about which I do not apologize for which I don't hide it.
I'm very proud of it.
I want people to know.
I want people to join me.
But part of the time in explaining conservatism, I have to set it up against liberalism, which I do all the time.
I give both, we'll talk about the S-CHIPS health program.
I tell exactly what the Democrats are doing with it.
What exactly their purpose for it is.
You just can't handle truth.
This is the problem.
You've got this cocoon that you've woven that you live in.
And I, El Rushbo, come along and like a wasp or a bee keeps stinging little holes in it, and you are in pain.
And you can't, so you've got to call here and try to distort, which is what you guys are greatest at, and which is what I have become an expert at illustrating.
Thanks to the call.
See, there's both sides represented on this program in one phone call.
Bob and Queens, you're next, sir.
Welcome to the program.
Yeah, how you doing, Rush?
Yeah, that's fine.
Great America.
I was watching Newt English the other night, and he stepped down, as you know, he's not going to run.
And he said the reason was that the organization that he started, he was going to leave, you know, sever himself from them.
But he couldn't run as president of the United States because if he campaigned even on a thing, it was in the small print and McCain-Feingold bill, let's say making America the national language, that he could be charged with a felony because of this group he started.
So it wasn't a matter of severing yourself all ties.
It was a matter that you couldn't campaign on anything that they were putting out there.
Now, Hillary Clinton has just admitted, I mean, you could get in touch with Rush, in my opinion, to a felony, according to McCain Feingold.
Right, I know.
So here's, I know what you're setting up.
What you're saying is, how come Newt has to quit his presidential campaign or abandon it?
Because if he continues it with the American Solutions Group still operating in fundraising, that he's violating some fine print in McCain Feingold.
So your question is, well, if Hillary started Media Matters, and they are a fundraising group, I mean, actually, I don't know that they are.
I guess they are.
I don't know if they ask average people to donate, but they do certainly get, I mean, they're not making any money in the private sector.
It's people like George Soros.
There's a list of their donors.
So I guess they're fundraisers too.
And so you're saying, okay, so they're fundraising, and Mrs. Clinton started a group, and she's using the group to fundraise, but not for her.
Right.
And that's probably where the difference is.
I understand how you could have this concern.
You know, also, it may be that Newt's a little bit more sensitive to the law than some people are on something like this.
Campaign finance laws are routinely skirted, played with, and that's because they're so complicated.
That's why there's so many appeals to the Federal Election Commission to arbitrate some of the disputes that are brought up.
But my guess at the top would be that Newt's group, American Solutions, is a I'd have to know if it's a 501c3, which Media Matters has filed themselves as a nonprofit.
I don't know what Newt's filing is.
I'm not really sure.
Maybe you could get in touch with Newt.
He'd explain it better than I can, you know.
Well, he did explain it, and I just don't, I don't remember every detail of the explanation, but I have to assume that he's exactly right in his interpretation.
What I don't know, and I don't want to know what he knows, is that the I mean, there's no question that Newt founded and ran American Solutions.
Mrs. Clinton started Media Matters, but I don't know that she has day-to-day operative functions with them in a visible way like Newt had with American Solutions.
Now, let's take this a step further.
The interesting thing about this to me is Newt had two options.
He had the option of running for president and leaving American Solutions or cancel the idea of running for president, stay with American Solutions.
He chose the latter, obviously.
He wants to stay with American Solutions.
And what that tells me and a lot of other people is that he's serious about the group and what its mission is and that he wants it to succeed.
It's not just some fundraising vehicle to keep Newt Gingrich visible because a presidential campaign would make him far more visible than his American Solutions program is.
So I think it means he's committed to it.
And frankly, I think this is a great place for Newt Gingrich to be.
I think this is the kind of thing that he excels at.
He's got such an active, percolating mind that having it in part of a presidential campaign would be attractive and so forth.
But it's really his kind of strategizing and historical knowledge and his ability to bring that to others and teach is exactly what American Solutions is all about.
A presidential campaign doesn't give you that much time to teach because you're too busy dealing with the anal exam that the drive-by media and your opponents are giving you.
I got to run, Bob.
I appreciate the phone call.
Sit tight.
We're back before you know it.
I want to say one other thing.
Going back to Steve Israel, when he says I'm giving aid and comfort to the enemy with this, who is lying about all this?
Who has been giving aid and comfort to the enemy?
When Osama bin Laden or whoever releases one of these famous tapes, whose talking points are they using at Democrat parties?
When Mahmoud Ahmadinezad comes to the United States or hell when he's from his little balcony over there in Tehran, when he starts in on the U.S., whose talking points is he using the Democrat Party for crying out loud, the guy even criticizes Bush for Hurricane Katrina.
The little pip squeak from Tehran.
He used Democrat talking points, Congressman Israel.
It is plain as day for anybody.
You want to talk about giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Who is it that our enemies hope win elections?
And you, Congressman Israel, and your party, bin Laden and what's his name, Ahmedinezad, are all hoping that your party wins elections.
I mean, that's what would embarrass me.
It would embarrass me to see this little pip squeak come over here, be invited to speak at Columbia.
He's a maniacal mass murderer.
He sounds just like Democrats.
I would be embarrassed if I were a Democrat and this guy starts talking about my country the way he does this.
My gosh, he sounds just like I do.
This is horrible.
But you guys seem to embrace this.
You seem to embrace the enemies of the United States.
If they're on your side politically, if they hate Bush, if they can help you succeed in losing this war so you can hang that defeat around Bush and destroy his presidency and get it for yourself, you seem to embrace it.
And what makes this smear on me so patently ridiculous?
It has zero substance to it.
It is a total fraud, and you guys buy into it hook, line, and sinker.
You speak of me in ways you will not speak of our enemies.
You speak of me.
Wesley Clark censor me.
Ken Salazar from Colorado wants to censure me, and I can't even be censured because I'm not a senator.
Has he read the Constitution?
These are morons.
Harry Reid doesn't care.
Jan Schakowsky, all these people have gone to the House floor and the Senate floor.
Tom Harkin demeaning himself and his family with personal attacks on me from the floor of the Senate.
These people are saying things about me, ladies and gentlemen, they would not say about bin Laden, that they will not say about Ahmadinezad.
They will not say these things in general about our enemy.
And in fact, they have been highly critical of active duty military, impugning their ability to win, making up stories about atrocities that they never committed.
And yet, you won't speak that way of our real, genuine enemies.
Well, that's true.
Durbin, but there's so many to remember.
Kerry insulting their intelligence.
Kerry has built a career on attacking active duty military starting in 1971.
Durbin comparing the troops in prisons to Nazis and Soviet assassins and Pol Pots murderers.
You think that doesn't aid and abet the enemy, Mr. Israel?
I mean, this is real serious stuff you guys are engaging in.
You are genuinely aiding and abetting the enemy.
And it'd be nice to hear you have some critical things because you don't have to lie about them to be critical of them, Congressman Israel, or Senator Reid.
You don't have to lie about our enemies.
You don't have to lie about Fidel Castro.
You don't have to lie about Hugo Chavez.
You got to make it up about me, though.
You have to purposely, willingly make it up about me and people like me that you smear and attack.
I'm not by no means the only one.
Jack in Mac Allen, Texas.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
You're next on the EIB network.
Rush.
Yes, sir.
All-knowing, all-seeing, all-caring.
All everything, sir.
All everything.
Yes, all everything.
I'm a veteran.
I'm a Vietnam veteran.
My son's an Afghanistan veteran.
And keep kicking their butts.
Thank you.
And don't let this issue die.
Keep jamming it down their throat.
In South Texas, we got a saying, don't piss on my boots and try to tell me it's raining.
And that's what they're doing.
That ought to be the Media Matters motto.
Well, I'm glad you appreciate it.
Keep kicking their butts.
I liked it when you said ass first.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Say it again that way.
Say it again.
Well, keep kicking their ass.
And what's that South Texas saying?
Don't piss on my boots and try to tell me it's raining.
That's Jack from Mac Allen, Texas, a loyal member of the El Rushbow audience to Eugene Oregon.
Chris, you're next on the program.
Great to have you.
Thank you, Rush.
You're an honorable man, and you're doing a great service to this country.
I just wanted to make a comment about how ill-informed a great deal of Americans are.
They will not take the time to get well-informed on various things.
They're so busy making a living for themselves and paying their bills and dealing with their families and all their private parts of their lives and everything.
And I think that this is a problem in our country, is that these people are so involved with their own lives that they seldom will take the time to investigate things that they may hear over the media.
And I think this is a great example with what you're dealing with in Congress right now is whether it's people that are truly misinformed, they just throw this out and expect a great deal of the American public to take it at face value.
Well, because they think that the majority of the public is going to get the news from their willing accomplices in the drive-by media.
And they will.
They're right.
Yeah, and I just encourage the American citizens to take the time and find out what the details are about all sorts of things, and especially this mess that they're trying to throw at you and others to find out what the truth is.
Because I live in a very liberal city, and I'm amazed when I try to debate with people, and they're just not knowledgeable.
They just believe the bumper stickers or the single little comments they hear in the newspaper or the mainstream.
Well, you know, you're very right.
It's not just that people are busy.
Americans have a lot of leisure time, and there's a lot of things they can do with that leisure time, like watch video games and television and golf, whatever they do.
And a lot of people don't want to be exposed to this stuff this soon before an election.
But I think that's all the more reason here to try to keep it alive and deal with it.
We put the original video of what I said on YouTube, and it was anywhere from number one to number five in a host of categories for three or four days.
And that spreads it beyond this audience.
The YouTube crowd is a demographic.
People are still trying to get their arms around in terms of understanding who they are, what their interests are, what they do when they're not watching YouTube and this sort of thing.
And it's become a popular vehicle for that.
We've developed a rapid response team.
Now, YouTube tries to keep people like me off, but we found ways to bypass it and get things up there.
And we always have to try to stay ahead of things like that because it's common practice.
Censorship on the left is common practice.
So I appreciate your concerns.
But, you know, I've always had ultimately faith in the American media.
You can say what you just said, and you're right.
And a lot of people are standing up and shouting they agree with you.
But do you realize, I got to find this story in the stack.
This is an amazing statistic, and I've mentioned it before.
Since the turn of the century, only four Democrats have gotten more than 50% of the vote in presidential races, and it may not even be that many.
The idea that this is a Democrat-owned country or a majority Democrat country simply isn't true.
And look at who won the election in 2000, who won the election in 2004.
Look at Reagan.
I mean, these people in the drive-bys can be reached.
This is why so many of us here lament the lack of genuine leadership on our side.
People do respond to leadership.
And leadership is bold.
Leadership is confidence.
And leadership is not being defensive about things, and people will respond.
It can be done.
The people you're talking about can be reached.
And this program makes the effort to do that each and every day.
Now, having said that, Chris being concerned that whatever the drive-bys put out there sticks and that there's nothing anybody can do to change it.
Look at, I'll use myself as a personal example on this.
I'm in my 20th year of doing this.
And over the course of these 20 years, I've lost count of the number of episodes like this one.
There have been many.
This one may take the cake, but hey, it was no small thing after the Oklahoma City bombing when the President of the United States tried to blame me for it through his spokesman.
That's no small thing, folks.
It is no small thing when at the White House correspondents dinner at the Hilton, 1,200 people in there, the President of the United States tells a joke about me implying I am a racist.
That is no small thing when the President of the United States tries to get that out there.
You remember the wild distortions during the Michael J. Fox episode.
You remember all of these more than I can have time to recount for you here.
My point is that while at the time they happen, I know that they can disturb you, and some of them, Oklahoma City bombing thing, that's right on a par with this that's happening here.
But through all of this, never lost a radio station because of it.
Through all of this, we haven't lost a sponsor because of it.
We haven't lost any audience.
And it's another thing.
Dingy Harry on the floor of the Senate last Monday, a week ago, or no, this past Monday, four days ago, talks about my steadily dwindling audience.
If my audience is steadily dwindling, Dingy Harry, then why pay me any mind?
Why worry about the truth of the matter is what Tom Daschell said after the 2002 elections.
He came out, they thought they had those elections wrapped up, Chris.
Remember the Wellstone Memorial?
I mean, they thought the election was over just like they think this one's over.
They think Hillary is the president.
It's just a matter of time.
Going to talk about that after the break.
They're worried as some Democrats worried about this sense of inevitability.
So the Democrats thought they had the 2002 midterms wrapped up.
They were going to take back Congress.
And they lost seats.
Tom Daschell came out of a morning meeting and he was white.
He was palpably frightened.
He had just been shown research.
He said from his experts, radio ratings.
And what he found was that the audience of this show was not just Republicans and conservatives.
And he was stunned.
They all thought and think that this audience is simply all conservatives, and I'm just preaching to the choir.
What his experts told him was that there were Democrats who listened to this program, and many of them had changed their minds about things.
They were totally, look at, they lie to themselves about a lot of things.
And they lie to themselves about their opposition.
They lie to themselves about their enemies.
They lie to themselves about their own prominence.
They lie to themselves about their own successes.
And the drive-by has helped fuel this by doing puff piece news stories on them.
They're never challenged.
Look at the coverage Mrs. Clinton gets.
I've got a story in the stack today from Ann Kornbloot at the Washington Post marveling at how Mrs. Clinton gets away with avoiding hard questions, just like they used to marvel at what a great liar Bill Clinton was, rather than excoriate her for not taking him.
They marvel at how she's masterfully managing her campaign and so forth.
So they lie to themselves about a lot of things.
And they're lying to themselves about the damage that they've done to me.
They haven't nicked me.
And they're going to keep trying, but they haven't been able to do it.
So while you sit out there and think the American people are buying all this stuff, don't joke to that conclusion too quickly.
Here are those statistics on Democrats and the majority of votes they get.
In the past 60 years, Democrats got more than one half of the vote twice.
It remains a fact that the party, even during two terms of Bill Clinton, has not broken 50% of the vote in a presidential election in more than 30 years and has done it only twice in the past 60 years.
Plus, there's plenty of precedent for a seemingly insurmountable lead to evaporate in a blink of an eye.
Think Michael Dukakis in the summer of 88.
You've been told that the Democrats are the majority party.
You've been told it so many times you probably believe it.
Some call it an urban legend, others truth by repetition, perfected by, you know, the spinmeister theories of Joseph Goebbels.
The Democrats are not the majority party in this country.
They are the majority party in the media.
And Mrs. Clinton is not inevitable.
Which takes me to this story.
I had this from yesterday.
This is in the Politico.
Democrats grapple with the fear factor.
And this sounds just like the circumstances I was just describing to you that existed in 2002.
For Democrats, things rarely get much better than this.
In 08, they'll be running to succeed an unpopular incumbent against an opposition that has rarely been more disorganized or dispirited.
Polls show a Democrat advantage on major issues nearly across the board, except for abortion.
Amid all these favorable signs, it's only natural that some of the parties stop strategists should be pondering the same question.
Wonder how we'll screw it up this time.
We're a little bit of a shell-shocked political party.
We somehow or another always figure out a way to blow it, says James Carville.
Democrats have to talk their way out of winning.
Carville was not exactly serious, but he wasn't kidding either.
Even as all the trends seem to be breaking their way, Democrats still sound a bit like a boy who's been beaten up too many times on the playground, certain another punch is coming.
And it's more than paranoia.
After all, many of the formulas political scientists use to predict elections suggested Democrats would take the White House in 2000 and 2004.
And it remains a fact that the party, even during two terms of Bill Clinton, has not broken 50% of the vote in a presidential election in more than 30 years.
It's been done only twice in the past 60.
Mario Cuomo said, no matter how the stars are aligned now, the stars keep moving.
Carville, Republicans have just gotten very good at this.
Somehow or another, in the last three elections, they've tended to close a little better than we have.
Number three is they have a more disciplined and effective echo chamber.
That means me.
And talk radio.
A portion of Democrat unease relates to the source of the party's improved prospects.
Democrat resurgence is a result of a complete implosion of the Republican Party.
Nothing that we're doing.
There's no great enthusiasm for Democrats out there, Carville says.
The dirty little secret, though, that nobody's talking about is a Celinda Lake poll.
She's half of the battleground poll.
A Republican and Democrat do that poll.
She's the Democrat.
And they are very worried.
There are 31 swing congressional districts out there where she doesn't run well.
She might win the state that those districts are in, but she might be a drag on a Democrat incumbent in that district.
And there are 31 of them.
That's a significant number.
The Democrats are very worried about that.
In addition, there are some candidates in the Democrat Party who are telling the DNC, don't send her to campaign.
I don't want to run with her coming out to campaign for she is her negatives are sky high for somebody who's inevitably going to be the next president, 49%.
She is, as Karl Roeb said, fatally flawed.
Yet the conventional wisdom is just get these Democrat primaries over, cancel them, put Mrs. Clinton as the nominee right now.
Let's save everybody some money because she's the next president anyway.
It ain't the case.
People are challenging me.
What do you mean saying that there are comparisons to bin Laden and what Democrats are saying?
Okay, you people challenge me on this.
You refuse to believe what I say so we can move on.
I will show you when we come back.
I will do so happily.
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