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Jan. 2, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:38
January 2, 2008, Wednesday, Hour #2
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The views expressed by the host on this program are thoroughly independent.
The views expressed by the host of this program are arrived at via intellectual application.
The views expressed by the host on this program documented to be almost always right, 98.8% of the time.
Great to have you with us.
Great to be back with you behind the golden EIB microphone.
Here's the phone number.com, where we left off in the previous hour.
I had mentioned that I had received a note from Governor Huckabee explaining that the last thing he wanted to do was to pick a fight with me, uh, but that he couldn't respond to what his uh advisor whoever said, because A, he didn't know who was who it was, and B, he didn't know what they said, even four days after it was said.
I didn't reply to the uh email from Governor Huckabee uh simply because I I I didn't want whatever I said to be printed out and waved in the air and said, okay, we've made peace with uh Limbaugh because the whole point was not making peace with me.
That was not the point.
I've stayed neutral during all of this.
Uh and even as of we speak today, I am neutral in all of this in terms of the uh Republican nominating processes we had under the Hawkeye Cawka and the New Hampshire primary on the uh what is it, the fifth or is it the seventh?
When is the New Hampshire primary?
All these dates are running together because I didn't care about dates or times last week.
I know this is the second.
At any rate, Governor Huckabee on uh Christmas Eve on MSNBC Live, the anarch uh anchor was Monica Novotney, and she talked to Governor Huckabee.
She said, You've been involved in this back and forth with uh Rush Limbaugh that's causing some controversy.
The political.com reporting today that Limbaugh's rejected your offer to meet with him and clear the air.
Apparently, one of your supporters nonetheless criticized him as being part of the Northeast chattering elite.
Will you try to reach out to him again?
Well, I I've tried to get a message to him.
Look, I love Rush Limbaugh.
I'm one of his loyal fans since 1992.
I think he's one of the great leaders of the conservative movement.
Uh somebody, and apparently it was told to me that somebody in Washington, I don't have any employees in Washington, so I don't know who it is that is uh supposedly said something.
Uh that's what I'd like to find out.
Who said something and what was it they said?
It wasn't me, and it wasn't someone in my immediate campaign staff, because I would know about that.
And believe me, we're all scratching our heads saying, gee, we don't have anybody that uh is on our employee as a full-time staff person in Washington.
So I'm at a loss to explain who it is and what they said.
There it is again.
Now I I uh You do you're gonna have to forgive me, folks.
This is Christmas Eve.
December twenty-fourth, it was whatever the date the Thursday before Christmas was that all this was said.
Um January eighth is a New Hampshire primary.
Okay.
So it was uh it was Thursday five days.
Uh and Governor Huckabee still claimed he didn't know what was said.
By the way, I want to stress again, none of the I don't take any of this personally as it's not it's not the point.
I'm looking at this uh through a much different prism.
How can you not know what was said by anybody about anything?
Uh five days after the fact.
I mean, if you get curiosity at least, you find out at least what was said, so that you could uh disavow that, but to you to say that I don't know who said it, uh, and I don't know what was said, so I can't respond is uh a bit curious to me.
On December 26th, the day after Christmas, this continued to royal on Fox and Friends.
Steve Ducey and the weekly standard editor Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracki talked about the all of this.
Ducey said, Look, is this a big deal, Mort, that there's something going on between the Hawk and Rush?
Well, this all comes under the category of slights on the right.
Uh, and it took only a slight slight uh uh as a matter of fact, on the part of some unnamed uh person uh it who w was identified out of blog as a uh prominent Huckabee supporter in Washington who said what you quoted uh as saying, and also said that uh Bill Clinton made Rush Limbaugh and that Clinton that uh Rush is hoping that Hillary gets elected so that he can be the voice of the opposition.
So that was it.
So then Rush decided to unload on him.
Um his massive ego was bruised, obviously, by this little prick.
And so he unloaded on Huckabee, and it's been going on ever since, and now Huckabee is pleading for mercy, and Rush ain't giving it to him.
Massive ego from this little prick from Huckabee.
Then Kondraki weighed in.
Uh Fox News Channel's special report, December 26th.
Brett Baer uh follows up and explain what this is all about, Mort.
Somebody told a uh blogger uh for Atlantic Monthly uh that that uh he was a uh a Huckabee person ostensibly said that that uh Rush Limbaugh is a D.C. New York entertainer, and you know, not to be taken seriously.
And this, of course, that set Rush off in a tizzy against the whole Huckabee campaign.
Now, I think uh Limbaugh probably doesn't like Huckabee because uh Huckabee's got some you know moderate tendencies and on taxes and spending and and that sort of thing.
And uh in fact, uh Limbo accused Huckabee of hiding behind his his uh evangelical faith uh a lot of liberal positions, and so that's that's where they stand.
So this has been going on, but it stopped because Limbaugh, I guess, is off the air for the rest of the holidays.
Um I guess when he said uh Limbaugh accused Huckabee of hiding behind his evangelical faith, a lot of liberal positions.
That's that's how uh that's how Kondraki there would explain identity uh politics.
Uh at any rate, uh it then continued on December 26th.
Fox and friend Steve Ducy uh said this about me to Fred Barnes.
Fred, you know, uh nobody's bigger than Rush Limbaugh.
You don't want him against you.
Absolutely not.
I mean, this is a I mean, this is uh trouble for Huckabee.
You're trying to get conservative votes, you're running for the Republican nomination.
Don't tick off Rush Limbaugh.
I mean, that's just crazy.
The audience that Huckabee is trying to appeal to, which is not elite Republicans, it's it's grassroots Republicans, it's middle class, it's not the country club types, it's middle class, lower middle class in Iowa.
That is Rush Limbaugh's audience.
If I were uh Mike Huckabee, I'd be on the phone this morning.
Uh I wouldn't say as Huckabee has, well, I hope Rush calls me.
I'd call him.
Absolutely.
Uh that that's a good point.
Huckabee's original say was, yeah, I hope Rush calls me because I don't have his number.
I don't know how to reach me.
And that's why in my press statement I said, they know how to reach me, is Arkansas staff people know full will.
And eventually uh Governor Huckabee Dud uh uh did.
Um uh Fred Barnes, uh Martin Kondraki continue to talk about this.
Huckabee has taken some hints.
When Rush Limbaugh is zinging you, now that can hurt because his particular audience, Limbaugh's is, is that uh it's not the Wall Street Republicans, it's not the country club Republicans, it's the more rural and main street Republicans who are uh the people Huckabee's really going for.
The Limbaugh fight hurts uh Huckabee in Iowa and helps.
Now, let me this business of the these people are categorizing and characterizing you in the audience, and I find it interesting.
Um they're for the most part uh right uh when they say it is not the country club Republicans.
Uh it's uh it's the more rural and main street Republicans, meaning it's Middle America, meaning but but our audience in New York is huge, and in Los Angeles and San Francisco, it's it's the audience to this program, I don't think it's be characterized by geography.
Uh it can't be characterized by education, it can't be characterized by income.
Uh this audience reaches all spectrum.
The one thing that you can say about this audience is that it is not comprised of the New York elite blue blood country club Republicans.
I have uh I've told you all uh this story a couple of times, and it it dates back to the uh early nineties.
But this is back in the day where I accepted invitations.
And one of the invitations was to a cocktail party out in the Hamptons, uh in the uh in the early summer.
And I shan't mention any names, not the point, just believe me when I tell you that the people that were there Were the classic New York uh moderate to liberal Republicans, who, as it turned out, sort of hit on me because they were embarrassed to be in the same party as the Christian right.
I remember at dinner, nothing really specific came up, but after dinner we're all gathered out there on the deck, and a couple of these guys came up to me and sort of poked a finger in my chest.
So, what are you going to do about those Christians in the South?
I mean, they're your audience and they're killing the party.
You know, and I little taken aback, I looked at this guy who's multi-billionaire, and I said, you know, many of them are probably your customers, even though you may not know it.
But I said, if it weren't for them, your party wouldn't be in power.
These are the same people, by the way, that really didn't like Ronald Reagan.
They didn't like Reagan because they thought he was a bumpkin and a hayseed, uh, and he was conservative and all of this.
So I said to these guys, you know what, you you really wouldn't be in a majority right now if it weren't for these people you claim to despise.
What it really boiled down to was that these guys that were talking to me so much didn't care.
It's that their wives were nagging them and getting on them about abortion.
Uh that they were just embarrassed to be in a party that was identified as pro-lifers, because that was, of course, not the elite Aerudite uh position.
And so when you're getting nagged by somebody, you go to somebody you think and fix it.
And so they wanted me to fix this.
And I so these guys are pretty much accurate in the way they characterize the audience, but they're missing the boat in doing so in geographically and in terms of income level or education or uh or any of that.
And I just wanted to make that clear because if anybody understands who you are and who comprised this audience, it is I, uh, the host of the program.
Let's go to Live Desk on the Fox News channel.
Jamie Colby was the host, talking to criminal defense attorney Gary Casimir.
Criminal defense attorney.
And uh, what is what does Huckabee need to do?
What should Rush do?
Or is Rush said his piece, and that's it.
I think making Rush Limbaugh bad is a bad, bad mistake.
I don't think Rush Limbaugh is gonna I don't think Rush Limbar liked Huckabee that much to begin with, and now you've given him an avenue.
He's got access to so many people.
I remember uh Rush was interviewed earlier on during the campaign, and he said, you know, a nice base would be uh uh a contest against Hillary and somebody else, and he could really get his base out and really get the vote out for the Republicans if that happened.
And now he's spending time destroying Huckabee's campaign, and I'm telling you, it's it could be very effective.
Uh well, this is what they all think.
The purpose not to destroy anybody's campaign here.
Uh the purpose is simply to arm people with uh with information.
I have not taken sides in this, contrary to what people uh might uh might believe.
But what is this these guys are getting my base out?
Getting my base, as though I'm and you look at they there's no question that these liberal Democrats think they're running against me.
The Clintons think they're running against me.
Obama thinks he's running.
Oh, bob Obama's out there.
He'll never be able to reach me, meaning he'll never be able to get uh my vote.
And I'm not even a candidate.
Okay, one more bite in this uh in this in this well, actually there's more.
There's two more.
Let's just go ahead and get to them.
Let's go now to uh same show, news channel, uh Fox News Channel Live Desk, Jamie Colby talking with former Clinton advisor Suzanne Johnson Cook and former prosecutor Janine Piero.
Uh Colby said, Susan, uh this is this is really your expertise, so the Democrats are gonna talk about this.
They're talking about it right now.
But I think the question is, is this the kind of man you want for your president?
I mean, Hillary has been attacked from every standpoint, but she took the spot the stand.
These are my my issues, this is what I stand on.
I'm not gonna cry, I'm not gonna whimp.
I don't want to love Limbaugh.
I mean, he's whining, he's wimping out.
What does he stand for?
So is this who you want to do?
Toughen up.
You want to be president of the United States?
I want you to be my leader, not a whiner.
Um is she talking about me?
She talks at any rate.
I'm not even gonna try to analyze it, doesn't make any sense.
Face the nation on Sunday, Bob Schiefer with the editor-in-chief of the political, John Harris.
And Schiefer says, and on the Republican side.
Huckabee, the story of December was his surge.
He he went into first uh place.
Romney clearly, according to the polls, has fought back, really hit hard with negative advertising, which uh does Work.
Huckabee also has had to uh basically withstand a real assault by what I think of as sort of the conservative establishment, a lot of very influential commentators, George Will, Rich Lowry of the National Review, Rush Limbaugh, have been hitting Huckabee hard, saying, Look, this is not the our breed of conservative.
I think that's had an effect.
So it's a real toss-up, Romney versus Huckabee.
Okay, got to take a break because of the constraints of the uh programming format, but we'll be right back and continue in an LGFO.
And welcome back.
Rush Limboy here behind the golden EIB microphone, the EIB's Southern Command.
Since we are talking about Governor Huckabee, let's stay on point with Governor Huckabee.
We'll move on to Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama, the Brett Girl, and some of the Republicans as the program unfolds.
I'm sure by now you've all heard of the what I think was the Clinton-esque uh performance, Governor Huckabee at a press conference, unveiling an attack ad against Mitt Romney and then pledging not to run this attack ad, uh, hoping to appeal to the uh voters in Iowa who are sick and tired of negative ads.
So he's got the press assembled in this hotel room or whatever this room, wherever it was, uh, and he tells people about the ad.
He went, he spent all day in Arkansas filming this ad.
It was an Ed Rollins idea.
Uh, and if they spent $30,000 filming the ad and duping it, they had it ready to go and to to mail to all of the television stations they were going to buy time on.
And as the truck is on the way to the post office with packages containing video copies of the ad, Huckabee decides to not run the ad.
And in the process of announcing he's not going to run the ad, he shows the ad to the media with a giant screen wherever the room was.
And the drive-bys are in there and they've got their cameras and they're recording the ad.
The ad has now run all over Iowa.
It didn't cost any airtime on TV stations.
It just cost the $30,000 to produce.
Huckabee is denouncing the ad, saying, you know what?
I just want to appear to the better angels of the people of uh of Iowa.
Uh he said, I pulled the ad, I don't want it to be run at all.
But within minutes, the ad was being played on national TV and had been posted on blogs and other websites without costing his campaign a penny.
And of course, the drive-bys that were assembled watching all this just started laughing.
They started snickering and laughing when Huckabee said, I'm not going to run this ad.
I want you to watch this ad, but this is a bad ad.
I'm not going to run it.
And then he's playing it for the people who he knows are going to run it.
So now the drive-by's and the pundits are all engaged in analysis.
Was this a faux pas?
Is this really the result of the inexperience of the freshman Huckabee?
Did he really not know what was going to happen here?
Is this going to hurt him with Iowa voters?
Or is this a devious plot and a scheme here to get the ad out while denouncing it straight from the candidate's mouth.
Here is the press conference, a little audio from the press conference on Monday in Des Moines.
This is Governor Huckabee telling reporters he was pulling a negative ad ahead and run yet about Mitt Romney.
If I were to continue this strategy, which is really not what I personally deep in my heart feel like is the right thing to do.
It's not what I really want to do.
If you gain the whole world and lose your own soul, what has it profited you?
And ultimately that became just for me the issue that it's not worth it.
I know that some of you are saying that, well, did you really have an ad?
I want to show you the ad.
You'll get a chance to find out exactly what we're doing.
I want you to see it.
This is what we plan to do.
And I think once you see it, you'll realize this is why we're not going to run it.
Now, the guy who did the ad, Ed Rollins is standing right in the room when this happened.
So what Huckabee essentially did, and you heard the laughter and the snickers from reporters who think they see through the gambit here.
The strategy.
And of course, Rollins is it the Washington Post describes it this way.
Rollins stood uncomfortably to the side as Huckabee renounced what Rollins had helped produce for $30,000 the day before.
But Huckabee defended Rollins at the conference, saying that he was staying on as top advisor.
Now I'll tell you my here's my two cents on this.
This was no accident.
This was intended to be carried out exactly as it was.
I don't even think it's a matter of money.
I don't think it could be, but I I don't think they chose this route to get the ad aired without having to pay for it.
I think the attempt here is to uh uh for Mr. Huckabee, Governor Huckabee to be able to say to Iowa and say, look, look, look, I I I want to do the right thing here, but the press, you know, the press, they did it.
I I didn't want you to see this ad.
I don't know if it's gonna work.
Uh uh I I'm not gonna join the chorus and say that he's embarrassed himself and that this is gonna cause a huge backlash because I'm not sure that's the case.
More on this in just a second.
With half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
I just was watching PMS NBC.
There was an ad.
Actually, I saw two things.
Mrs. Clinton, this is a appearance on Fox, I guess it's videotape.
Uh, and Mrs. Clinton was posing for a picture at a campaign event, obviously from a fan uh or a supporter or something, and I said, Ah, look at the people are posing around a cardboard cutout of Mrs. Clinton.
And then she moved.
Folks, I'm not trying to be mean.
I'm really I'm just sharing with you what I saw.
Somebody's got a cardboard cut out of Hillary and they're standing around and taking pictures.
It was actually her.
Then mere seconds later, up on PMS NBC, there's a new Hillary ad.
And I uh was watching it, and the guys on the other side of the glass also have their monitors, and I say, You guys take a quick gander at PMS NBC, look at the soft focus on Mrs. Clinton's face.
And uh Snurley said, Yeah, they got that up fast.
Who says you don't matter.
About this Huckabee thing uh and his attack ad on Mitt Romney.
I have a tough time going along with the conventional wisdom of the D.C. punditry.
And the D.C. punditry in this case thinks that Huckabee really hurt himself uh by unveiling an ad that he never intended to run, or was saying he wasn't gonna run because it was too dirty.
And they're laughing.
And they think that Iowans will see through this and that uh Huckabee set himself way back.
Uh I'm not so sure uh about this.
Given the people who are excited about Huckabee, uh, I think it'd be very easy for them to look at what Huckabee said.
He essentially got two ads for the price of one here.
The ad that he produced with Ed Rollins on Sunday, and then the press conference, which is another ad, essentially, in which he says, I'm renouncing dirty politics.
I've had it.
This is not what this is to be about.
I don't want to go for it.
You know, gaining the world if you lose your soul, what if that's not it's not worth any of that.
Uh and knowing, ladies and gentlemen, this is what the drive bys forget, knowing that there is an intense distrust of the media everywhere.
I don't care.
Republicans, Democrats, average Americans have a distrust for the media.
Um it's quite possible that people will see Huckabee's press conference as an attempt to be honorable, that the drive-bys have now sabotaged him on.
And they could easily conclude, look, he didn't air the ad.
You guys did.
I mean, the people that are looking at Huckabee in a supportive way are not analyzing Huckabee.
This is what you have to understand.
They are not picking apart his policy, they're accepting him for what he is on the basis of his identity politics.
And so I don't think they're gonna take it to the nth degree that the drive-by pundits are.
Oh, we'll see.
We'll find out uh when the uh when the votes are cast in the first Hawkeye Cockye tomorrow night.
This is Doug in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Doug, I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hey Rush, how are you doing?
Good videos from Snowy West Michigan here.
Thank you, sir.
Good deal.
Hey, um, this wasn't the reason I call, but I want to touch on it real quick since you've been yakking about it for so long here.
But I think Huckabee showed great restraint in what he's done responding to Mitt Romney's attacks.
So I just wanted to voice my opinion on that.
And uh, this is all he can do, that'll be.
Wait a second.
Wait a second.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
You can't you can't say Huckabee showed great research.
Have you heard what Ed Rollins said the other day?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But you know what?
No, tell me what Ed Rollins.
Tell me what Ed Rollins.
Go ahead.
No, just go ahead.
What I was going to say is that.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'll let you get to what you want to say.
But you're I I can't accept the premise of what you said that Huckabee showed great restraint.
Tell me what Ed Rollins is quoting.
I didn't hear what I didn't hear what Ed Rollins said.
He said, I would love to punch Romney's teeth out.
This is Huckabee's campaign advisor.
He said, I would love to get down low and aim at the groin of Mitt Romney.
Well, maybe maybe he can't take him in a fair fight.
I don't know.
You know, who knows?
No, but look at I'm not commenting either way.
You but you said that the Huckabee people are showing great restraint, and I actually didn't he didn't he didn't ball up his fist and make the first punch.
He was trying to run an above above Lord Clean campaign, and Mitt started to get creamed in Iowa by a guy who can't possibly.
Welcome to the real world.
This is politics.
Well, I know that.
I know that.
But anyway, I'm just saying I'm just saying that Huckabee's response as compared to other politicians.
I think they showed quite a bit of restraint.
We're not turning immediately from it.
Huckabee goes and produces a negative ad, announces he's not going to run it, and shows the ad, and you believe he showed great restraint.
I told you this is how the Huckabee people are going to look at.
Thank you.
You have confirmed once again that my instincts are extraordinary.
Well, anyway, here's the gig.
Um the read the reason I actually call I think I think that Huck is still getting held to a fairly high standard compared to the other candidates out there.
And I started peeing attention to Huckabee well back in November as I'm looking at the field and trying to figure out what am I going to do?
I mean, my guy was going to be Fred Thompson, and he came in with a big flap.
And uh so started looking around and wait a second.
Wait a second.
Thompson may come in third in Iowa tomorrow.
Well he may.
That's not flopping.
In fact, Thompson's running around saying, you know, I hate campaigning.
I want to be president, but I hate campaigning, and I'm not going to do it to where everybody else is doing it.
And he's trying to appeal to people on the substance of issues with uh 17 minute videos.
He's trying to appeal to people in a way that is different.
I don't know if it's going to work, but he may show up in third place, which is not a plop.
Yeah, no, I haven't written Fred Thompson off by any means, but you're a Huckabee guy.
You can admit it.
Well, I like Huck.
I got to admit I like Huck.
Well, what I'm saying is that compared to the other candidates out there, I mean you exploriated McCain a little bit ago.
I enjoy that.
But who else is there that has the conservative bona fides that you can look for?
Who else is there?
No, you don't you really want me to answer this?
Do you think are you asking this rhetorically?
If you really want me to answer the question, who else is there that has the conservative bona fides that you can look for?
You really want me to answer that.
Well, if you want to go out on a limb and in state.
Well, you asked, I'm at do you really want an answer or is just a rhetorical question?
Well, it's kind of a rhetorical because I was gonna film him in the right.
That's right, because you don't want the answer.
Well, no, go ahead.
Go ahead.
I don't care.
Look at I don't care.
I'm looking at Rudy.
Uh I'll just jump in.
I'm looking at Rudy, and it's like it's like great.
Rudy's Rudy's got some some conservative things that I like about him.
He's strong.
Uh, I'd like to shoot the bad guys in the head, all that kind of stuff.
Shoot the bad guys.
But well, you know, but the thing about it's like abortion.
It's like the abortion and gun control issues.
It's like, well, Lincoln and Nod, it's like I'm a vegetarian, except I like beef and chicken.
It's like, no, you can't have it that way.
Doug, I love you.
I really do.
We just we we have just had conservatism reduced to shoot the bad guys.
Don't point the gun at yourself, sir.
Um just kidding, folks, now lighten up there.
This question, uh, who else is there?
With he's talking about Huckabee when he asks me this question.
Who else is there with conservative bona fides?
Let me ask the question again I just asked about Senator McCain.
If somebody told you that a conservative was someone who supported amnesty for illegal aliens, who supported limiting free political speech.
McCain Feingold, who embraced the ACLU's Brief for terrorist detainees and getting constitutional rights, U.S. constitutional rights.
If someone told you that a conservative is someone who opposed tax cuts during the Bush administration and has recently confirmed he would do it again, what would you say?
Most likely you would say, hell no.
That's not a conservative.
Yet I just described to you several of Senator McCain's positions over the years.
Now the idea that he's a great conservative in this race is an affront to conservatives.
The media is pushing McCain hard now.
Particularly the local New Hampshire media.
They are just going overboard with this love that they have have for McCain.
In fact, let's go back to December 3rd.
I just want to show you again what it means for you to be listening to this program be on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
I predicted that the drive-bys had switched from McCain to Huckabee and that they would move back to McCain.
I said this on December 3rd a month ago.
Listen, right now it is obvious the media wants Huckabee.
And the reason the media wants Huckabee is because they know that they're going to down the road be able to portray him as a nutcase Bible thumping evangelical who's going to take his religion and God into the Oval Office.
And they'll use that to incite fear among liberals and progressives and so forth.
They built McCain up.
McCain loved it when they built him up.
They tripped him up over the war, and uh now they're trying to revive his campaign again.
Are they not doing so?
Did I not tell you?
Yes, I did.
Uh they're pushing McCain hard now.
They were waiting, see what happened.
Now they're pushing.
Uh they are willing, the drive-bys are willing to tolerate his position on Iraq in exchange for all of his other views.
Opposition to tax cuts, uh limiting free speech, uh siding up with the ACLU.
Uh these are things they're willing to tolerate in McCain as they overlook his uh his position on Iraq.
And really, they don't have to overlook much because his position on Iraq isn't all that different from Rudy or Thompson, so it doesn't matter to the drive-by's anyway.
Uh it would mean that in November there is no conservative, quote unquote, real thoroughbred conservative running.
And when there, if there's if there's if we don't have anybody on the ballot, the Republican side who is a conservative and who is willing to say he's a conservative and espouse those principles, we are going to lose.
The Democrats are going to win and win big.
If our nominee is either not conservative and is pandering to the left to try to get some of their votes, or if our nominee is so afraid of his record that he's relying on identity politics to get votes, or if our nominee decides that in the only way he can win is to go out and pick off some libs in the Northeast and out in the West, it's going to be a bloodbath.
And the Northeast liberal Republican elite's going to be loving the whole campaign because they think that their ideas have regained prominence and power in a Republican Party all before it goes down defeat in a massive landslide.
So the question that you ask is, what do we want?
Now, this notion, back to the question asked by the guy from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
What was it?
Who else has conservative bona fides?
Ladies and gentlemen.
Governor Huckabee, who might be a fine man, and is a great Christian, is not a conservative.
He's just not.
If you look at his record as governor, it just is got some conservative tendencies on things, but he's certainly not the most conservative of the candidates running on the uh on the Republican side.
There are other aspects too, uh, which if I wanted to, I could spend time getting into.
That I didn't start this program Today on Huckabee because I didn't want people to think that the whole point here was to focus on Huckabee, and I I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna keep some of the powder dry here because I I don't want to be accused of piling on.
Uh but if if people are going to ask me questions, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna shirk from them and try to hem haw around.
Uh so there you have it.
I gotta take a quick timeout, EIB extreme profit center timeout back after this with more.
I just checked the email here during the break and and uh it's always fascinating.
And I I got a question at that uh uh oh in normal times might irritate me, but this gives me an opportunity.
The person said it was on a subscriber line at Rush 247.
Rush, it is what it is, as you always say.
Why are you so concerned that we get a conservative, thoroughbred conservative?
There's not one in the race.
Why are you so concerned about it?
I'll tell you why it's frustrating, folks.
Let's go to the state of New Jersey.
State of New Jersey, three great legislative acts since the Democrats took firm control over that state, massive increasing taxes and spending.
They have abolished capital punishment, and now they're planning to apologize for slavery.
This is irrelevant.
Well, the spending and the taxing isn't, but uh and abolishing capital punishment isn't.
But you put liberals, full-fledged liberals, in charge of this country, as they are in many of the states, and it's not going to be pretty.
Maryland.
Maryland elected a Democrat governor.
Throwing out a Republican last time around, the state has massively increased all kinds of taxes.
Virginia.
Virginia continues to elect Democrat governors, despite its reputation as a conservative state.
Now it has massively increased a wide variety of taxes.
Look at what Mrs. Clinton is doing.
Mrs. Clinton is actually telling Iowans tomorrow, by the way, if you want to go to the caucus, my campaign will supply you with babysitters.
Okay, you laugh at this.
You find this cute and so forth.
How is that any different than walking around handing out campaign cash in a federal election?
Mrs. Clinton's TV ad around Christmas time as though government programs a little freebie gifts sitting under the tree that she's going to pass out to everybody.
Uh this stuff matters to me.
And conservatism is the bulwark against liberalism, not a seventy percent conservative and a thirty percent moderate or liberal.
I realize it is what it is, but there are degrees here in this list of candidates.
Uh that that uh are are worthy of uh of note.
Uh Rick, Kansas City, Missouri, glad you waited.
Uh welcome to the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Rush, 17 years worth of dittoes, my friend.
Well, thank you very much.
It's an incredible honor to get to talk to you.
Um listen, I want to ask a a very important question just to contextualize philosophically, I think the dilemma that uh most of the conservative Christian conservative Republicans right now that we're all dealing with.
And uh if you would allow me, I would love the opportunity just to briefly voice why I, as a uh disciple of Jesus Christ and a disciple of Rush Limbaugh, and still firmly behind my Mike Huckabee and why I disagree with you that when you say he's not a conservative.
Go ahead, go right ahead.
But I wish I'd have known you're gonna do all that.
I've I've only got a minute, so go.
Okay.
Well, well, first of all, I want to ask you, priority-wise, which is a more important issue to you, the abortion issue or the tax issue.
See, I don't separate 'em.
Right.
I don't see you you've got you've got these people.
Well, I'm a physical conservative, but I'm a social liberal.
You've just described for me a Northeastern Republican.
Right.
A moderate Republican.
And I don't, you know, conservatism is what it is.
You don't pick and choose and say this aspect is more important.
It's a whole package.
Right.
Just real briefly, Rush.
You know, I agree with you that if you give people the fruit of their labors that uh technically this country should prosper.
But I'm not a single issue vote about it.
I am a priority issue voter.
And to me, as a as someone who believes in God, I believe that if this nation allows the unfettered wholesale slaughter of the most innocent liberal landscape.
Right, I agree with you.
So we've talked about this.
I can't tell me.
So I gotta take a break.
I'm way longer.
Go, go, go, go.
Uh, attention, ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States can do one thing about abortion substantively, and that's the nomination of justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.
More on this when we come back.
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