All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 4, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:44
January 4, 2008, Friday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, and conversationalists all across the fruited plain.
It is time for broadcast excellence, hosted by me, America's premier and perhaps only conservative.
It's Friday.
Let's go.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Yes, and you know the drill.
Monday through Thursday, we talk about things that interest me.
If it doesn't interest me, we don't talk about it.
But on Friday, we open the phones to virtually anybody who wants to talk about anything.
So when we go to the phones, the program is yours.
Telephone number 800 282-2882 and the email address, L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
Great to have you with us and wrap up a uh the first busy broadcast week of 2008.
The Hawkeye Cockye last night.
I want to remind you all.
I know I can imagine that there are a number of you uh Huckabee supporters who uh who can't wait to call in here and do your version of ny-n-nin-n-nin-yeah, waiting for you, ready for you, looking forward to talking to you.
Just want to remind all of you, in not just the Huckabee supporters, but everybody, it was I, who back on November the 7th, asked you to consider what happens if Mike Huckabee wins the Iowa caucus.
And I then further said, what happens if Mrs. Clinton loses Iowa and goes on to lose the Democrat nomination.
I wanted you to think about this because the conventional wisdom had it just the opposite, and uh I started seeing some movement on both sides to indicate that there was trouble in the conventional wisdom, and of course, it has happened.
Now, we're gonna I'm gonna focus on the on the Democrats first today, because I think what really happened last night on the Democrat side was historic.
But uh and it was so downplayed on the networks last night, it was comical to watch CNN try to bury the fact that the first black American to enter and win the Iowa caucus had occurred last night.
They were doing everything they could to bury this historic achievement by Barack Obama, because of course they're in the tank for Mrs. Clinton.
And they were doing everything they could to make sure that the reporting and the damage in Mrs. Clinton was minimized.
And so they kept focusing a Huckabee, Huckabee Huckabee, Huckabee all night long, uh, up until the uh 11 o'clock hour when uh when Obama came out and gave his speech.
But before we uh before we get to all that, uh I want to make a brief observation.
I think it's folks, as far as conservatism is concerned, is back to basics time here.
Uh it looks to me, and it's you know, it's tough to make assessments here after one state uh has had its caucus.
Uh, and it may be even tough to make a uh uh seasoned analysis after even New Hampshire, because New Hampshire and Iowa are both very liberal states.
And we're gonna get into the turnout, the nature of who voted, uh why the turnout was so large, uh the the demographic breakdown, because a lot of it is fascinating.
But just looking at things after Iowa, it appears to me that uh it looks to me like many in the Republican Party, despite all their yearning for the for conservatives in Washington, are rejecting conservatism.
And I say that with all seriousness.
It may change once we get out of these more liberal states, but with Huckabee and McCain leading in New Hampshire, Look, they're fine guys.
I I don't I don't want what I'm saying here to be interpreted as criticism.
These are just observations.
But with Huckabee and McCain leading in New Hampshire, they're not consistent principal conservatives.
Now, you may be so what rush conservatism's old, it doesn't matter, and Reagan was Reagan and it's gone.
And that's I understand that about Reagan, but I I I don't accept that about conservatism, and I'm not going to accept it.
Uh New Hampshire will be influenced by independents who can vote in a Republican primary.
It's going to be an advantage for McCain, uh, as it was for him uh the last time.
Uh I I just I'm struck by the fact that conservatives call this program, and you know who you are.
You have been calling this program for four years complaining about the lack of a conservative in the White House.
You've been complaining about the lack of conservative behavior and governance on the part of elected Republicans in both the House and the Senate.
So I know you're out there.
You definitely want conservatism, but there's something troubling out there.
You seem to be rejecting it at the same time.
Some people do.
I mean, not I don't mean all of you in this uh in this audience.
Uh one of the things that I picked up watching uh all the various networks last night and listening to the candidates is that populism seems to be just soaring.
Uh candidates with a populist message, not conservative, but a populist message are just soaring.
Obama with a clear populist message in his speech last night.
Obama is as liberal as Mrs. Clinton, if not more so.
And that's saying something.
Uh Governor Huckabee clearly with uh with populism.
It was a great speech he gave last night.
I'm not taking it away from him.
Very articulate, very personable, uh, relaxed.
Uh he connects with his audience.
It's very crucial.
He doesn't talk over anybody's head, doesn't talk at them.
Uh it it really makes connections.
Now, the thing that bothers me about populism, though, as it relates to conservatism, uh, there is this continuing refrain that there is economic insecurity, that it is widespread, that there is terrible angst, and people are at their wit's end, particularly in the middle class, over their economic future.
Uh I happen to disagree with just how widespread the economic problems are, but I don't disagree that there's angst.
And I don't disagree that there's uh some people that are feeling uh uh pressured and insecure about their economic future.
I don't deny that at all.
But I'd like to find out why, rather than just react to it.
This does not make me a patrician.
Well, according to Susan Estridge, and it's amazing the the evolution that the Libs have assigned to me since I started 1988.
Now I'm a patron, I'm a George W. Bush or George H. W. I'm a patrician.
Uh I'm an elitist looking down at me.
It's just amazing how I have uh uh gone through this evolution as far as they're concerned.
But let me stick to this angst business.
We had the pew poll the other day on New Year's Eve, 84% of the American people very satisfied with their individual lives.
Same time 70% of the people think the country's going in the wrong direction.
This is easily to me explainable.
84% of the people clear majority, by the way, of the 84% are very satisfied with their lives and feel good about their futures.
So where does this angst come from?
Well, the angst comes from, I believe, the media.
Uh as I commented yesterday, there is no such thing as good news allowed in the American media today, particularly as the drive-bys are doing everything they can to get Republicans out of office and Democrats in, and of course, making people believe the economy is in a tank is one of the key ways that they hope to be able to accomplish this.
So we could find, we could have news today that cancer's been cured, and the drive-by's would put four experts, four examples, how this may be bad news.
Iraq deaths, Iraq citizen deaths practically came to a screeching halt.
How did the drive-by's report it?
The funeral business in Iraq is hitting tough times.
It's this kind of thing, and this happens daily, multiple times in this country, regarding your children's health and their future and their obesity, uh the economy and the subprime uh market and the crisis and the credit crunch and the housing markets and all of these things.
So it is what it is.
And if people feel the angst, the angst is real.
And so if there is a lot of economic uncertainty among American conservatives and among that, we know the liberals are pessimistic by nature.
We know that liberals get up as as pessimists, they go to bed as pessimists, and in between they're mad as hell all the time.
But this is not the characteristic of conservatives, But sadly it seems to be coming that.
Which troubles me greatly.
We live in the greatest country on earth.
When there are economic ups and downs, which there are, and some of you may think that there are bad times down the road, and maybe at present we're in the midst of them, or you are in your personal circumstances.
The conservative attitude and mentality about this is not to look to a human being running for president for solutions.
The solution is not getting up every morning and hoping something in Washington happens to change your individual life.
I'm asking myself during all of these laments about the angst and the crisis and the insecurity.
What happened to good old self-reliance?
What happened to the can do spirit?
What happened to the notion that we live in the greatest country on earth, and there are options, opportunities for prosperity unrivaled on this planet here in this country?
Why the eagerness on the part of seemingly so many conservatives to accept victimhood status?
Why the attitude on the part of so many Republicans and conservatives to all of a sudden believe they're helpless?
And that only a particular person running for president can fix their circumstances.
Why the this is this is something that is not characteristic of the conservative mindset of the conservative uh ideological understanding, and yet it seems to be happening.
And I can't deny that it's happening.
So it has to be dealt with.
How's it dealt with?
And maybe back to basics time, folks.
Uh, in terms of explaining what conservatism is, what it's not, why it's important.
I must take a break here.
We're gonna come back, we'll start on the Democrat side.
I will continue to elaborate on this mini brilliant monologue as the program unfolds.
We have two hours, 43 minutes left to go.
Sit tight, be patient, and don't go anywhere.
And we are back on open line Friday, Rush Limbaugh, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Barack Obama, this was an historic win.
And I'm gonna tell you, I said I was on Fox News last night, I was watching Fox News, and I got an email, it was about midnight, and I got an email from Greta Van Sestra saying, would you come on if you're watching this and then join our panel?
Laura Ingram, Susan Estridge, and Shep Smith were there.
So I said, Yeah, okay, called in.
We have the audio sound bites of this.
I wanted to talk about at first.
Shep had the first question.
I wanted to talk about uh Obama.
He wanted to know my reaction to the Republican side, so I dutifully did that.
But I'm gonna tell you this historic last night.
Barack Obama, the first black presidential candidate to win an election in the presidential primaries, and it was downplayed throughout all the networks.
It was huckaby this, huckaby that, huckery here, huckerby there.
Clinton news network was beside itself trying to bury this news.
Uh and yet here it was historic.
Uh this win by Obama in in Iowa.
Do you realize what the black population in Iowa is?
Like one or two percent.
Two percent.
Uh given that, the win of Obama is bigger than it seems.
I mean, here the black guy won over the wife of the first black president who has an office in Harlem.
And now how do they attack him?
You know, everybody's wondering, okay, the Clinton's gonna go dirty now.
They're gonna get dirty ads, and they're gonna what can they do?
What can they do?
It's like I said last night with Obama, if if he goes on to win this, this campaign is gonna be strictly on issues as it should be.
You can't go after him ethically.
You can't go after him on uh on on uh character like you could Hillary and Bill.
Um you now you're you gotta be very careful how you do it, even if you think you can.
This is one of the dilemmas that the Clintons face.
How do they go after the black guy?
It's just that simple.
He's Well educated.
He's well spoken.
He's extremely nice.
How in the world do you set about demonizing this guy?
If you are the Yes, I I am I am all those things except I'm not black, and he is.
And being black in the Democrat Party, we're gonna see if the pedal actually hits the medal.
We're gonna see if the rubber hits the road, because the Democrat Party has built its current existence on many things among them that blacks in America have not been given a fair shake, that they're discriminated against, that they need affirmative action, they are being held down by conservatives and Republicans and racists and sexists and bigots.
And let's see now who it is that's going to try to hold this guy down.
Republicans aren't talking about this guy yet.
They got their own problems.
I want to see how Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton go after this guy.
It's gonna be very, very difficult to do.
Besides all that, this was a devastating loss for her.
This nine points last night.
Nine points.
A candidate of inevitability does not lose, and certainly not, by nine points.
Uh listen to this sound bite from Andrea Mitchell.
Andrea Mitchell is one of Mrs. Clinton's friends.
This was on PMS NBC last night, post Cockeye coverage.
Chris Matthews talking to Andrea Mitchell, who was at the Hillary Clinton celebration party before it began.
She was there at the Hillary Clinton Hotel headquarters.
Uh and the question to her was, Andrea, are they game now to win two here to come in second?
This room was until about five or six minutes ago completely empty.
This is a manufactured police celebration.
It really felt more like a funeral as people started strolling in from upstairs where they had obviously been gathered.
This is unlike anything that I'd ever seen.
Uh event.
And clearly now they've got to go on to New Hampshire.
A completely empty, dirge-like funereal event, and now they have to go on to New Hampshire.
It was bad last night.
They I don't care all of these expectations that they set for finishing uh third, and maybe oh, this is nobody anticipated going down by nine points.
And by the way, it wasn't we didn't see Andrew Mitchell for another two hours after this report.
I think Jeff Zucker and NBC would overcut the cable to her camera.
This this was just it was it was um it was that was the first, and I've been watching all night.
This was the first honest representation and portrayal of what was like at Clinton campaign headquarters after this devastating defeat.
Then of course, Mrs. Clinton got out there and she started making her acceptance speech and making it sound like they won.
Everything was we, this, we, that, we are gonna go on, we're gonna do it.
Very, very slick, but it was uh it it didn't sell.
It it was just it was just amazing.
This this is gonna be uh see now, she's up in some uh districts in New Hampshire.
Uh and uh you know Obama is vulnerable in some ways, basically in his inexperience and this sort of thing, but Mrs. Clinton hasn't been able to be the one to uh to capitalize on that.
Uh this morning on Good Morning America ABC, Diane Sawyer spoke with George Stephanopoulos.
Um and Sawyer said to Steffi, well, what what what what does she do next?
It's gonna be very, very difficult for him.
One of the arguments that Senator Clinton is gonna try to make going into New Hampshire is that Barack Obama is not electable.
He's gonna be able to point back to those last two numbers, the numbers among independent voters in Iowa, and again, they're very, very important in New Hampshire, and the fact that he brought young people into the system, he can say that that proves that he's electable, that he's the most electable candidate.
He can bring new voters into the system, he can reach across party lines for Democrats, and that's where the battle is going to be joined in New Hampshire and beyond.
And Obama is really jamming.
By the way, did you hear Stephanopoulos?
It's gonna be very, very difficult for him when asked what Hillary's gonna do.
Little faux pawn, perhaps.
Obama was uh was at a at a hangar today.
Uh maybe it was late last night.
He said, This feels good.
This feels just like I imagined when I was talking to my kindergarten teacher, which is a slant.
He's killing Hillary, folks.
He's literally killing her.
He's just ramming it right back down her throat.
Remember, Hillary tried to say that he was lying about his ambition, because he had written a piece in kindergarten how badly he wanted to be president.
So he's out there saying, This feels really good.
This feels like I imagined when I was talking to my kindergarten teacher.
Uh it was a cold echoing airplane hanger where he made the statement.
You look at the turnout in uh the state of Iowa last night, and one of the things that you might be able to conclude just from Iowa is that the baby boomers' turn is over.
The vast, and I you know, I hate to keep saying it told you so, but one of the things that I found interesting was this was the baby boomers' last chance, the anti-war left's last chance to get their hands around the throat of this country and bend it, shape it, flake it, form it or whatever they wanted.
But Obama won this thing by getting people who had never participated before.
Younger people who have a totally different set of values and political identity, uh, and have no memory of whatever the 90s was, great or bad with the Clintons.
Quick timeouts.
Be right back after this.
It's open line Friday.
We are here at the EIB Southern Command, heading into the National Football League's wild card weekend.
800-282-2882.
Boston Globe has a pretty good breakdown today of the uh demographics of the voters in Iowa last night, and uh it seemed that uh first-time caucus goers were out in droves.
However, the profile of these voters varied dramatically, this according to entrance polls conducted by the AP and the national election poll.
Now, the the polls indicate that Obama relied on young voters among the record number Democrats who participated in the caucuses, many of them self-described independence.
By contrast, uh Mike Huckabee uh found his support among evangelical Christian voters who hold some of his party's more conservative views.
Now, the uh uh interesting thing Huckabee only got 14 percent of the non-evangelical vote.
Even more impressive on the other side of the aisle, Barack Obama won the women's vote.
I hate to keep telling you I told you so, but I'm watching last night, and the drive-byers are stunned when they report this data.
They couldn't believe that women did not turn.
Do you realize over 70 percent of the people in Iowa on the Democrat side who caucused last night voted against Mrs. Clinton?
They had two options to vote against Mrs. Clinton, the Breck girl and Obama, and they availed themselves of both.
It's not just that she didn't even get 30 percent.
It's not just that she came in third place down by nine points.
It's that 70 percent of the state voted against her.
This is profound.
It is a huge story, and it's being undersold and underreported today.
The drive-bys are already salivating and panting about what the Clintons will do to rebound in New Hampshire.
Now, among Democrats, according to the entrance polls, age appeared to be the salient divide.
Fifty-seven percent of young voters, 17 to 29 shows Obama, five times as many as Hillary, uh, who depended on the support of older married women.
Clinton drew 45 percent of voters, 65 and older, three times as many as Obama, more than twice as many as the Breck girl.
Uh but Obama dominated the college towns, including Johnson County, home of Iowa University.
Uh his dominance among the youngest Democrat voters indicate that Clinton's gender-based appeals may have backfired among younger women.
I don't know if it was gender-based or whatever it backfired.
She's just not likable.
Here's the thing you got to understand.
Hillary went to Iowa.
The more up close people see this woman, the more they reject her.
Um, when she doesn't speak, her poll numbers stay pretty steady, maybe even go up.
It's when she starts opening up and speaking that her poll numbers traditionally have uh started to inch and creep down.
And she was in an all over this state.
And it just it the personal contact didn't work, and I I maintained to you had the same thing with her husband.
She started at Tail Squin when her husband got off the airplane, started making his three hour speeches about himself.
Uh he does not end up helping uh in any way, shape, manner, or form.
Uh now, here's uh here's the actual breakdown of voters.
Uh in the Democrat side, 57% male, 43% female.
On the Republican side, 56% female, 44% Republican.
By the way, everybody's talking, well, what it's a record Democrat turnout.
Whoa, wow, it was.
And the drive by saying it's the election's over.
The election of November's over.
Why look at his turnout?
Well, they're far more energized.
Republican turnout was a record last night, so at least it was up uh over the last two caucus.
But you have to remember here, folks, Iowa is a liberal state.
And so is New Hampshire.
And so to sit there and engage Republican turnout uh and versus Democrat turnout and project that to November, once again wishful thinking.
Uh 17 to 24 demographic, 7% Republican, 17% uh Democrat, uh 25-29, 2% Republican, 5% Democrat.
Uh 30 to 44, it was 14 to 16 Republican Democrat, uh 45, 59, 36 Republican and 28% Democrat.
Uh people who are older than 65, it was 30 percent Republican and 24 percent Democrat.
In race, you break it down that way, 99% of the Republicans were white, 94% of the Democrats are white, three percent were uh were black.
So uh it it was it was interesting.
Huckabee got uh only 14% of the non-evangelical vote.
All right, people have been waiting patiently.
We go to the phones.
Ron in Santa Barbara, you're up first on open line Friday.
Great to have you here.
Rush, it's a pleasure to be with you.
You are a national resource, a national treasure.
I hope you never die.
I hope you live to be older than water or dirt.
Well, I don't want you to be down in the mouth about uh the lack of not having Ronaldus Magnus on the ticket.
We don't have the New England Patriots on the field.
But last night was kickoff season for the political season, and both teams had run backs for touchdowns.
It's it's wide open on the Republican side, and you're absolutely right.
The big story is we're gonna begin to close the book on the Clintons.
They are history.
Let me tell you something.
The Democrat race may be over.
It's a little premature to say that.
The Republican race is still wide open.
There's still going to be three to four candidates in these debates on Saturday, maybe five.
Uh on the Democrat side, you got the Breck girl, but he's out of it because he doesn't have any money.
He's finished, he finished second after coming in second in Iowa four years ago.
Uh and by the way, I watched the Breck Girl speech last night.
There is no way the Breck girl is going to throw his support to Mrs. Clinton.
When the time comes, he's going to throw it to Barack Obama.
He made that clear.
If you can learn how to read between the lines and read the stitches on a fastball.
Look, let me let me try to clarify something.
I I I am a professional communicator, and apparently I'm failing here in my uh in my highly trained specialty.
I am not upset so much over the roster of candidates.
It is what it is.
What I am, and I'm not even really a I guess I'd have to I am upset about about the can I phrase this.
And I hope I'm wrong about how large the sentiment is.
But I'm I'm I'm a little distressed that so many people on our side, average Americans, the people who are the focus of this program.
Remember the focus this program is to create as many informed, educated, engaged people as possible participating in the electoral process and other things, and voting so that when we win elections, there's a mandate.
Now this is this is 2008 that we are in, and I'm into my 19th year.
Over my 20th year.
Uh 19 and uh 19 and a half years here.
Now, this is a little different than going back to 1988 when we started or 1992 when we started.
1992, um, we'd been doing this for four years, and the drive-by media was still pretty much a monopoly.
It was in the process of Being broken down and broken apart, but here we are 19 plus years after we started here, and it still seems to me that there are it it just it just bothers me that there are people who are willing to throw away what they know wins, what they know works in in exchange for populism or what have you.
My my concern is is not so much the candidates, because they are who they are, and we're based they're based on their desire to run.
Uh it is I'm still not expressing this correctly, and I'm I'm it's not that I'm having trouble finding the words.
Uh well, maybe it is that I'm having trouble finding the words.
Uh, but what it what distresses me is that I get all these phone calls.
Bush is a conservative enough rush, and when are you going to stop telling us that he's good?
When are you going to stop telling us that we should support him?
And these Republicans in Congress are they're a conservative, and I'm voting against them.
Okay, good.
I get you're not conservative before you understand that.
You're going to stop carrying their water.
Now all of a sudden you don't care about anybody being conservative.
You don't care about it.
What am I to do as host?
Why do you give me grief because I seem to stand behind people not conservative enough, and now all of a sudden it's you, and not all of you, of course, but giving me grief because I'm not abandoning conservatism like you are.
And you're abandoning conservative beliefs for reasons that scare me.
You're not thinking.
You're feeling.
You're seeing something that's conservative when it's not because you want it to be.
And uh and you're you're you're falling into this trap of becoming victims.
You're allowing the news media to dictate your mood and your attitude and your contentment, your happiness.
And then you're ultimately relying on the election of individuals to change your life.
This is not what conservatives support candidates for.
Liberals do that.
So if I have any angst of my own, uh it could probably best be expressed by the fact, by the perception anyway, that uh people who in the past have been rock-ribbed conservative and may still think they are,
are all of a sudden uh looking to government as their salvation, as their fix, as their hope, and it just troubles me because that's not what government is in your individual life.
I'm getting emails, Rush.
What are you what is this economic security business you're talking about?
Well, where does this come from?
I'm watching the news last night, I'm watching the election coverage.
I'm hearing all these Republican commentators say the Republicans' party are blowing it by not understanding that this feeling of economic insecurity is really rife and widespread among conservative Republicans.
Now, rather than argue with that, because I I don't think there's any reason, or not a whole lot of reasons for economic insecurity.
I I guess here I'm going to sound like I'm out of touch.
But I look at this economy, I see 96% of the American people paying their mortgages, they're not losing their homes, they're not being foreclosed on.
I see record unemployment or employment, record low unemployment.
Sure, we've got some things that gasoline prices rising.
This has happened before.
The price of everything goes up all the time.
We've got um the war in Iraq.
I understand that there's angst, so let me just accept it.
Rather than argue about it, and rather than try to lift people up with an emotional and inspirational plea to just not participate in it.
We're in the United States of America for crying out loud.
We are not prisoners of some tyranny or dictatorship yet.
We have the ability to do whatever we want, try whatever we want, it's up to us.
And yet so many people seem so willing to turn it over to the government when there's angst or trials of tribulation.
So let me just ask you a question.
Those of you in this large sizable, lovable, and highly appreciated audience, who are in the midst of feeling This economic insecurity.
What do you want Mike Huckabee to do about it?
What do you want John McCain to do about it?
What do you want Barack Obama to do about it?
What do you want John Edwards to do about it?
What I fear is that people are confusing populism with conservatism.
Populism is a political figure telling you whatever he thinks you want to hear, designed to make you think he only cares about you and fixing your situation.
You know, I have to chuckle.
The Breck girl tells all these horror stories that make this country sound like it's 1920s Louisiana.
And he's out there and he's doing these personal interviews on stage during his appearances with people who've lost their jobs.
Or they've lost money or they've lost this or that.
And they're up there and there's it's it's like it's like remembering in New Hampshire some time ago, he took a question from a young girl who was having problems amongst you with her student loans, and she was beside herself.
She knows how she's going to pay them back.
And what did the Bret girl do?
Did the Bret girl offer to help her personally?
No.
Did the Bret girl offer to help any of these sorry cases that he cites?
Does he ever offer to help them personally?
Does he ever offer Well, I can help you right now.
No, he makes them wait until he's elected president.
And what's he gonna do?
He's gonna supposedly get even with the people causing them their stress.
But he isn't gonna help them because government can't.
Unless you turn your life over to it and become a victim, and you're gonna become dependent on government doing everything for you, that's the only way it can happen.
But you have a momentary economic crisis in your life, it's your responsibility, you fix it.
If you turn it over to the government, you gotta turn over every aspect of your life.
Because they don't fix individual problems.
And yet so many people think that candidate A or candidate B is going to do that.
Especially in the area of health care.
Yeah, I wanted a liver transplant.
I didn't get it in time, and my daughter died.
Yeah, you're gonna elect John Edwards, and maybe 20 years from now the people responsible be held accountable.
What do you what do where is this notion here that electing any single human being is going to fix a momentary, temporary, very personal economic problem.
And the the resulting descent into victimhood, and then seeing a populist approach and you think it's conservative because it's compassionate or cares or whatever, is just, folks, it just it just it just scares me.
Uh because this is this is how we get charlatans elected.
It is how we get people who use the the misery and suffering of others in order to advance their own political fortunes.
I'm not thinking of a particular I'm speaking in terms of hell, there have been so many Perot was a populist.
Pat Buchanan in 1992 was a populist.
Remember NAFTA?
He's running against George uh H.W. Bush for the Republican nomination.
I endorsed Buchanan in New Hampshire because I wanted a conservative presence in the debate, because I feared that George H. W. Bush are going to lose because he'd abandoned conservatism, read my lips, no new taxes.
Remember this?
Buchanan is running, and I was stunned.
He was one of the arch conservatives of my youth, and here he is running as a populist.
He's talking about all these factories that he's visited in New Hampshire, and they're closing down.
And he's he's uh he saw these people it was and he went on to lose, by the way.
Uh but and he had he had the uh the the peasants with their pitchforks, Perot had to volunteers.
Uh it just it seems history repeats itself in this regard.
Populists have a an appeal, and I learned, I say, I'm really wasting my breath here.
How did you stick with the issues of what happened in Iowa?
And I think I'm gonna start, I'm gonna be done with this at the end of this hour, because one thing I learned in 1992, you can't talk populist beliefs out of people.
You just can't do it.
All it all it does is just steal them and they hate you.
And they resent you uh for trying to tell them that what they're feeling is incorrect.
So you can't you can't talk a cultist out of his cult belief.
I'll learn that in 92 with Perot.
You can't talk people who have a populist belief in a candidate.
You just can't talk them out of it.
At some point, it has to be revealed to these people individually.
So I've had my say.
Look, folks, it's real simple.
I have more respect for you than you can possibly know.
I have more appreciation and understanding for your potential than you do.
You can be so much better than you are.
We all can.
But you're not going to get there waiting for a single candidate to come along and pay the electric bill, damn it.
What's more to go straight ahead?
We have one hour down, two to go on open line Friday, the fastest.
Three hours in media.
Rush Limbaugh, having more fun.
Not down on the dumps at all.
▲
Export Selection