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Jan. 14, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:44
January 14, 2008, Monday, Hour #2
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And greetings to you, thrill seekers, music lovers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane, the Rush Limbaugh program in the EIB network, here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number 800 282-2882 and the email address rush at EIBNet.com.
All right, moving on to the Republicans here.
It's L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
Sorry, the uh old habit.
New email address L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
By the way, Mike, I want you to stand by uh we're gonna have to replay popular demand email going nuts here, uh the opening monologue of our first hour.
We'll do that in the third hour open.
So an hour from now if you can get that ready to go, and you can do it in an hour.
We're also gonna uh get this up on YouTube.
Uh frankly, I'm a little surprised.
Everybody snerdly was just telling me it may not be the best, but it's in the top five, and so fine and dandy.
We'll uh air it again to make sure all of today's audience hears it.
Now, also over the weekend, uh I I will admit to you being a little distressed.
I'm reading more and more.
It's it's it's bad enough having to listen to a bunch of Republican candidates run out and uh and and basically say that Reaganism is uh Reagan era is over.
What was the Reagan era?
Reaganism, Reagan era was conservatism.
Conservatism is not over.
Conservatism is the founding of this country.
Conservatism declaration of independence.
Is the declaration of independence the era of the declaration over?
Uh it's uh it's highly troubling to me.
Uh McCain, uh, who is who is now uh well he's he's a close second to Romney in Michigan, uh, but the national polls have him uh have him taking off.
It's just mystifying to me.
For example, those of you in Michigan, just to give you an illustration.
You have, and everybody, you know, you've got the presidential campaign there going on now, the primary campaign, and you've you're hearing from all kinds of people uh about how the uh Michigan's a one-state recession.
And we're gonna fix it.
Now Romney's got his plan to fix it uh McCain is offering his plan to fix not just Michigan but the country.
But I need to ask those of you in Michigan, and I'm serious about this a question.
You know the dire economic consequences you face with the election of Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat legislature, and tax increase after tax increase after tax increase.
One of the things that really concerns me about Michigan is the automobile industry in this country is under assault by Americans.
It's under assault by Democrats just by virtue of the fact that it's a big corporation or a series of big corporations of big business.
It's also under assault by Democrats on the basis of global warming, climate change, and mandating cafe standards and other things that threaten to put the whole place out of business because it's gonna force people to buy cars that they don't want to buy, and force GM and Ford Chrysler to make cars nobody wants to buy.
Uh all under the guise of uh saving the planet via climate change, which uh the man-made aspect of it is nothing but a hoax.
John McCain and uh all a lot of Republicans are running around claiming that they are the new Reagan.
But Reaganism and the Reagan era is over.
And so they're asking us to accept that who they are and what they believe happens to be the new definition of conservatism, the new definition of Reaganism.
Uh what is what is Senator McCain's solution to the economic crisis in Michigan?
Well, I'll tell you what it is.
Massive expensive regulation of the auto industry.
How fuel economy mandates that are gonna add up to essentially an eighty-five billion dollar tax increase on the domestic auto industry.
These cafe laws, these cafe standards have cost the industry thousands of jobs already when they were first imposed during the last oil panic in the 1970s.
Uh and and Senator McCain is right on board with this global warming climate change stuff.
He's right on board and he's pushing it, and he's saying it's the new conservatism.
And I'm telling you, you people in Michigan, and I I know that another thing that bothers me here, uh if I may interrupt myself in midstream and mid-thought, is that McCain and both Huckabee are actively seeking support from non-Republicans.
Stick with McCain first.
Just as he did in 2000, he's seeking the votes of independents and Democrats in Michigan, probably uh d in as many states as he can find, uh, he would like to be able to do that.
Uh and of course, this is I got a new name for by the, by the way, these these independents and moderates.
I call them jellos now from now on.
And here's why I'm gonna call, and you independents, you moderates, you know who you are.
You are shaky.
We can see through you, you are transparent, can be filled up with marshmallows and processed mushy fruit, like the garbage that drive buys and McCain are trying to sway you with.
You're just a bunch of quivering masses of little jello out there.
Transparent, you can put you in a mold and make you whatever you want, uh, whatever we or whatever they want you to be.
I say this with all affection.
I say this with all love and compassion.
Nobody wants to be moldable, do you?
Nobody wants to be transparent.
You want everybody to be able to see through you.
If I didn't know better, I'd say some of these candidates are actually have some sort of grudge against the Republican Party and are trying to harm it.
I mean, how in the world do you want to become the Republican nominee if you have to do it by going out and getting the votes of independents and Democrats?
By the way, Democrats are being urged in Michigan, since their primary doesn't count because they they don't get any delegates, they move their primary up before when the party wanted them to, and so they're being aced out of any delegates.
So Hillary's the only one on the ballot.
So Democrat Party in Michigan is urging Democrats there to vote uncommitted to deny Hillary a victory.
I mean, it's all convoluted.
But some of the things that I hear from people like Senator McCain would continue to wreak havoc in uh in Michigan.
You know, in primaries, one of the problems you have is that impressions and uh image uh count for and perception count for a lot more than substance.
Just, you know, we're gonna get to the issues eventually once we get to the presidential race.
Once we have both parties with nominees, we'll get to the issues.
But that's not gonna happen till after Labor Day, folks.
And those of you out there decrying and bemoaning the lack of issues, get used to it.
This is what primaries are.
They always have been.
People don't have the emotional stamina to stay closely in touch with all of this issue-wise for as many months as it's gonna be eleven months.
They just don't have the stamina, and plus they don't have the interest.
So right now, image and impression and uh perception are what's counting.
And of course, to independents and Democrats, the idea of a McCain, and to a lesser extent Huckabee, who are not strictly tied to the Republican Party and conservatism, why that's a godsend.
Because they have their cliched dislikes and hatreds for conservatism.
And we have a situation here where these early states, Republicans aren't even voting yet.
Particularly conservatives aren't even voting.
We're having independents and Democrats with a greater say so over who the Republican nominee is than Republicans.
But throw your party out.
I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat in Michigan, you can't possibly like what's happening there.
You can't possibly like the fact that you got a one state recession while the rest of the country has been relatively booming.
And you'd better pay attention to what these people are saying, that their plan for the country is and what their plan specifically for the auto industry is.
I just watched some videotape, big auto show in Detroit's going on.
GM just released or just put on display, it's brand new Corvette, 600 and some odd horsepower V eight, supercharged, I guess, hundred thousand dollars.
They may not be able to make this car ever again if people like McCain get elected president.
Or any Democrat, and I kid you not.
If these cafe standards, 45 miles a gallon in out years become law actually happens, and you think, oh, Russia is not going to give me that severe.
Look at the look at the uh uh light bulb business.
Oh, speaking of that, Mike, we gotta grab a quick sign.
I mean, let me find it, let me find seventeen.
Our buddy Frank Beckman, WJR Detroit, had this exchange this morning with Senator McCain.
I just don't want the government telling me to use these fluorescent light bulbs and the government is not doing that.
That's what that new energy bill does.
By 2014, we've got to we've got to change to those bulbs.
Well, uh, I think very frankly, you'll have a better light bulb and a more efficient one.
He doesn't even know that the energy bill mandates a switch from the incandescence to the compact fluorescence and finds out that it does from Frank Beckman, and then says, it'll be a better light bulb.
Be more efficient one.
Energy bill didn't even know what's in it.
So what's in this energy bill that involves cafe standards and so forth?
I'm telling you, when GM can't make the Corvette, and it's got buyers.
People who want them, you know what they're gonna have to do to keep selling the Corvette?
They're gonna have to manufacture a whole bunch of tiny little bubble cars that nobody wants so that their fleet-wide cafe standards meet these government targets.
So we've got the we got the government of California that wants to take over your thermostat.
They want the utility companies to be able to regulate the temperature in your house based on what they think it ought to be.
The irradial control.
You won't have any control over your thermostat if this happens.
And you say, Russia, that's never gonna happen.
Who would have thought that a bunch of Dingleberries would ban a light bulb?
It's happened in the energy bill.
If this thing ever does be employ get implemented the way that it's intended to be, uh people are gonna be stunned and shocked here.
So, you know, folks, especially those of you in Michigan, forget personalities.
For think of yourselves here.
Most people do.
Think of your state.
Think of what's gonna happen if people who want to turn this country into some sort of signatory to the Kyoto Protocol without actually signing it, what's it gonna do to the number one industry in your state?
Which is already devastated, and it's and it's a target, and it's silly that it's a target.
It's understandable that Democrats would target the auto industry because it's industry and it's big business, but for Republicans to start targeting, that's when your ears have to perk up.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
Hi, welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh.
Your guiding light and a harmless, lovable little fuzzball.
Well, the drive-bys and pundits all over singing.
The McCain chorus, they're proclaiming he is the only one who can win a head-to-head election with any Democrat.
Here's what Dick Morris wrote.
McCain's record taps into a latent populism that attracts Republicans, Democrats, and independents, the jellows.
His battle against big tobacco, efforts to address global warming, opposition to torture, i.e., waterboarding, during interrogations, and fight to reform corporate governance, and to protect investors and pensioners, appeal to voters of all stripes.
The fact that he's for blatant across the board amnesty, the fact that he is opposed to tax cuts or the Bush tax cuts, doesn't seem to matter at all.
For those of you in Michigan, listen to George Will.
Yesterday, actually, this is column that uh that ran yesterday.
Tuesday's Republican primary is one of the nations in one of the nation's w most worst governed states.
Under a Democrat governor, Michigan has been taxed into a one-state recession.
Native son Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate who best understands how wealth is created, might revive his campaign by asking this.
Who do you want to be president in 2010 when the Bush tax cuts, which McCain opposed, expire?
Can automakers endure more regulations, such as the fuel efficiency mandates that climate fixers such as McCain favor?
Do you want a president?
Huckabee?
Proponent of a national sales tax of at least 30%.
You want a president pledged to radically increase the proportion of federal taxation paid by the middle class.
Republicans should try to choose the next president.
They cannot avoid choosing how their party will define itself, even if by a loss beneath a worthy banner.
And folks, I'm gonna spend some time on this in the next half hour.
How the Republican Party defines itself and how I fear it is in the throes of defining itself is something about which we all need to be concerned.
Now that's coming up in the next half hour.
Another brilliant monologue on tap.
However, ladies and gentlemen, special dedication to the good people of Michigan, suffering as they are.
John McCain, if you don't know me by now.
That's our buddy, Paul Shanklin as Senator McCain.
If you don't know me by now, you remember who originally sang that tune.
That's right, Harold Melvin and a Blue Notes, and you know who the lead singer was on that song, Harold Melvin of Blue Note.
That's right, it was Teddy Pendergrass, who was the lead singer for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.
Quickly, Pete and Toledo, Ohio, nice to have you on the program.
One minute, sir, make it count.
Never mind.
There's too much time has gone by.
I don't want to put that much pressure on a caller to get it said in less than one minute.
So let me just preview what's coming up.
I get ready to replay at the top of the next hour, the opening monologue of today's program, which is being massively demanded by the public on both phone calls and in the uh in the email.
Coming up next, however, a couple of audio soundbites from Newt Gingrich, who was on this week with George Stephanopoulos yesterday, uh discussing, among other things, the end of the Reagan era.
That's all right, ladies and gentlemen.
At least 800 decibels to make sure that you catch every syllable.
Back to the audio sound bites.
Newt Gingrich on this week with George Stephanopoulos yesterday.
Question Some of the Republican blogs are actually suggesting that a brokered convention might be the best hope for you for Newt Gingrich.
They suggest that if the Republicans go to the convention brokered, they might turn to you.
I think a brokered convention would pick one of the people who had filed for president.
But I think the process, after all, it was, you know, Abraham Lincoln was running third and won the convention.
He didn't come in first on the first battle.
And so I think I just think there's nothing unhealthy about the Republican Party having a serious discussion.
We are at the end of the George W. Bush era.
We are at the end of the Reagan era.
We're at a point in time when we're about to start redefining, as a number of people have started talking about that we're starting to redefine the nature of the Republican Party in response to what the country needs.
All right.
Now that's conversation's fine and dandy.
And before I have my comments here, I want to remind everybody and preface this with the fact that as you know, uh I have supported Newt Gingrich and I've I've uh had a lot of respect for him, still do, uh, over the course of many years.
I first became aware of Newt Gingrich when I was in Kansas City, and he was uh a backbencher Republican in a very small minority in the House of Representatives.
This was during their second term of uh of Ronald Reagan.
Actually, it's the first term.
This would be before 1984.
Uh and Newt popularized the special orders.
These are speeches from the floor in the House at the close of business.
Uh often he was the only one there with a couple of other Republicans.
C-SPAN required to televise.
Uh, and it was some of the most spirited defense of the Reagan policies vision administration that I've ever heard.
It was entirely inspiring, and I was working at a news station in Kansas City at the time, station it carries my program even to this day, KMBZ.
Uh, and I had my uh my first interview with Gingrich at that point.
Clearly inspirational.
Now something has changed since then.
I have suspected, I have not known, but I have suspected that Newt is uh uh advising the Huckabee campaign.
And I believe, don't know this, just a wild guess, but based on this comment, the Reagan era is over.
The George W. Bush era Is over.
We're at a point in time we're about to start redefining as a number of people have started talking about.
Yes, they are.
Every one of these Republicans is starting to talk about redefining the party.
And this has been going on since the early days of this, not just now, but and if you recall all during last year, I told you this was my big concern that Reaganism and conservatives are going to be redefined so as to fit the mold of whoever these guys in our primary roster are.
One of the things that Newt said redefine the nature of the Republican Party in response to what the country needs.
Something about that rubs me wrong.
It's something about that sort of grates.
The Republican Party is supposed to sit out and I guess moisten its index finger, stick it in the air, find out what people want and be that.
That's not who we are.
Now it may be who populists are.
In fact, it is exactly who populists are, even if you have no intention of following through on what you plan to do as you promise all these wonderful things to your supporters as a populist.
But this is not what the Republican Party has been, it's what the Democrat Party has been.
Figure out what the country needs and then do it.
We know what the country needs already.
That's our ACE in the hole.
One of the things Newt said in this interview was far beyond just how do I subsidize your heating oil?
How do I make it unnecessary for you to buy as much heating oil?
And there are dramatic things we can do in that conversation.
Now, how do I, he means a president running a campaign, not him?
How do I subsidize your heating oil?
We Republicans are going to start talking about subsidizing people's heating oil now?
And we're going to call that conservative.
I mean, if you want to talk about that, fine.
If that's what you want the Republican Party to be, then be that and go and say that's what, but don't call it conservatism.
Dramatic things we can do in that conversation.
I want to make it unnecessary for you to buy as much heating oil.
Now, conservation's great, folks.
I have to conservation is great, but conversation conservation does not equal growth.
To sit out there and figure out people need to buy less and less heating oil, okay, buy natural gas furnace.
Or what I mean, any number of things.
But if if this country has always been about you need heating oil, it's going to be there.
You need gasoline, it's going to be there.
The burden's not on you to conserve so that it's always there.
It's economic capitalism is the greatest force for change in the world.
Mark Stein has a brilliant piece today on this very subject.
It's how capitalism forces major innovation and change.
Not politicians, not Washington, not government.
They don't force any kind of change other than in primaries with perception and attitudes and make people think that they're going to be better off, but it is capitalism that forces genuine change throughout culture and throughout society.
I mean, Newt could have just as easily said here that conservative principles don't change, that the Reagan coalition is simply looking for leadership, and that we need to bring more creative policy alternatives to the table than we have in the recent past.
But that's not what he said.
He said the era of Reagan is over.
It's the end of the Reagan era.
It is not.
If the Reagan era is over, if the Reagan coalition is dead, what replaced it?
Could somebody tell me?
Precisely nothing has replaced it, and that's why so many people are scratching their heads, why so many people are a little nervous, because there isn't any real leadership out there that causes people and inspires people to get behind it and go rah-rah and make certain things happen.
I mean, is there a Gingrich coalition that has replaced the Reagan coalition?
For that matter, what's what is the McCain coalition?
If we're going to have a new era, what is the McCain era?
What is the Huckabee era?
What is their winning coalition?
They don't have one.
You know, all this sounds like third way kind of talk.
You know, the triangulation of the Clinton years in the 90s.
But I don't know what the McCain era would be, and I don't know what the what the what the what the Hugby coalition, but they don't have a coalition.
They're out trying to get votes of independence and Democrats.
Pandering to moderates and independence.
And what happens, folks, I just want you to think about this.
What happens if either of these two guys happen to win, attracting the votes of independence, moderates, the jellos, and Democrats?
Does that not equal the demise of the Republican Party?
Do you think McCain's out there actually trying to get Republican votes?
Is Huckabee trying to get Republican votes?
Romney is, Giuliani is, Fred Tomplin certainly, if Thompson certainly is, but if we have a nominee that is is a nominee on the basis of moderate and independent Democrat voters, then what happens to the Republican Party?
Do they not know this?
If they do know this, is this their aim?
Is their objective for whatever reason?
Sour grapes.
Don't think they can win as Republicans because they're really not Republicans.
Is this the objective here is to redefine or maybe ruin the Republican Party?
And even so, the coalition of Democrats, independents, moderates, the Jell O's, that is not a coalition.
They don't have a coalition.
McCain doesn't have one, Huckabee doesn't have one.
They want to transform the party into a center-left party, uh, like the so-called conservative parties in Europe.
And to do that, they've got a they've got to say the Reagan era is over, and they have to embrace expediency, which in the end, of course, is a losing proposition.
If you want to, if you want to let me just let me hit you right between the eyes here.
If you want to find out what would happen to the country with a McCain or Huckabee president, take a look at what's happened to Governor Schwarzenegger in California.
Here was a guy who actively ran as a conservative and as a Republican, and as you know, was elected.
We all know now what has happened to him.
He has abandoned all of that.
And look at the state of California with their budget mess, their increased taxes.
Now we've got this emergency session that the governor has called, that's just a blank check to raise more taxes.
California runs the risk of becoming the next Michigan.
I mean, what Schwarzenegger has done to California is what non-Republicans would do to the United States running as Republicans.
Disaster.
And of course, the Republican Party conservatives are non-factors in any of it.
You know, defending liberty takes leadership and guts.
Promoting big government doesn't.
Promoting big government is liberalism, and that's easy.
It's one of the easiest things that you can do to run out and simply say, well, government's going to fix this.
I'm going to have a plan here, and my plan's going to do this, and it involves the government.
If conservatism is dead, and if the Reagan era is dead, then I assume that this means the Declaration of Independence is dead as well.
That the era of the declaration declaration has come and gone.
Now, what we actually have going on now are people posing as serious thinkers, a common thread in all of this, folks.
That conservatism is dead.
And by the way, that's that's what the Reagan coalition is, after all.
The major elements of conservatism combined into a political movement is what Reaganism was.
And of course, they're now saying that's era, that era is gone, we need to replace it with something else.
Well, conservatism isn't dead because it cannot be dead.
Conservatism is not man-made.
Conservatism is a philosophy.
It's not a scheme.
It's not a plan to figure out what the American people need and want and then give it to them.
That's populism.
Conservatism is a philosophy based on God given natural rights.
The Declaration of Independence.
Is that dead?
Of course not.
What's dead is leadership on the Republican side.
And because there is a lack of leadership of someone who has the substantive understanding of liberty and the political skills to advance it, we get all this cockamamy nonsense about the death of our principles.
Our principles are not dead.
Our principles cannot die.
I tell you in a lot of ways, this reminds me of Jimmy Carter in his Malay's speech.
He blamed the American people for his miserable failures as president.
Now we have conservatives and conservative wannabes, many of whom have held high office or hold high office or speak and write from formerly conservative outposts who blame conservatives for their own miserable failures.
What is lacking is not ideas and principles.
What's lacking is the right people to speak those ideas and principles, folks.
Admit it, you know it and I know it, and that's why this Republican roster of candidates has always been somewhat disquieting.
And we know that it is because if you look at it, it's pretty much evenly spread the support around all the four top-tier people.
And look what happens, by the way, when one of them happens to pipe up.
Look what happens.
I have a headline, a combative Thompson sways voters.
And last night we hadn't even been thinking about him.
All of a sudden it was clear he was the one, said Mr. Barenbeck, a retired teacher.
The bluntness, the forcefulness.
He was really impressive, talking about Thompson in the last South Carolina debate.
So candidate aside, put Thompson aside for a moment.
When conservative truths are heard, it's an affecting and effective message.
People have revelations when they hear it.
They just haven't been hearing it from people who want to lead the party and who want to lead the country.
So what's lacking here is not ideas and not principles, but the right people to speak them.
Now the right people to develop strategies to win elections based on those ideas and principles.
What's lacking, if you will, is intellectual and political leadership.
Where's the Russell Kirk?
Where's the Bill Buckley, the Milton Friedman of our day?
Where's the Barry Goldwater, the Ronald Reagan?
We have people who at once claim to hold the mantle of these greats, and yet they also claim that there's mantle to hold is not worth holding, so we got to redefine it.
Because the era is over.
If you believe that liberty, national security, free enterprise, faith, and the Constitution are dead, then what are you saying?
On what do you base your definition of conservatism?
If we don't properly diagnose the problem, we aren't going to be able to fix this.
There's more, but I gotta take a break.
By the way, the opening monologue transcript is posted now.
If you want to read along, it's at Rush Limbaugh.com.
We're going to replay that uh the whole segment to open the program in the upcoming uh opening of the next hour.
If you want to read along and follow along in the monologue on the website, it's posted now.
Here's uh this is Ray in Jackson, Michigan.
Uh glad you called Ray.
Welcome to the program.
Honor to speak with you.
Um I'll get right to the point here.
Uh here in Jackson, Michigan, and Michigan in general, um, I'm a little confused about our primary and how it is I should vote.
And what I mean by that is on one hand, I think that pretty much since Hillary's got it in the bag, with the exception of uh right in a Democrat Republican voting for somebody else.
I see another way this possibly could go, and that is for them to vote for the weaker Republican.
Which in my situation makes me feel that no matter who I vote for.
I don't have an opinion or a voice in this matter.
Yeah, uh this is something I just addressed, and it is crucial.
The Democrat primary in Michigan is irrelevant.
Hillary's the only one on the ballot, and there are no delegates attached to it because Michigan went against the party and scheduled their primary before the party wanted it to happen.
The Republican primary, uh, same thing, but they're only going to be penalized with half the delegates.
So there are delegates at stake.
The Democrat poopas in Michigan are urging Democrats to go vote uncommitted, so that Hillary does not run away with it in Michigan.
But of course, there are a couple Republicans that are urging Democrats and independence, the jellos in Michigan to cross the line and vote for them.
This look at this what happened in New Hampshire.
And you're, you know, you talk about disenfranchised.
You know, Mrs. Clinton's running around saying that people in in in Nevada are going to be disenfranchised because of the caucus rules out there.
Uh, and this is, and this is not already setting the stage here for what might be, you know, a disappointing performance.
Uh and and the the Republicans, uh this is what I'm trying to tell you.
This is why, you know, Ray, you can feel like your vote doesn't count, but but I'm this is why Romney and these guys are gonna stay in this until we get to genuine primaries where only Republicans vote and where most of the Republicans in these states are conservative.
Romney's got the money to stay in.
I think Thompson's gonna stay in until we actually get to conservative Republicans voting in a primary.
And just keep in mind that uh McCain, I think to a lesser extent, Huckabee, but but uh seeking actively the votes of these Democrats and these uh and independents.
I gotta run.
Quick timeout, be right back and wrap up the hour here after this.
Okay, by popular demand, also getting requests to repeat what I just did.
I can't.
It'll be on the website, folks.
And if it's a theme I'm gonna continue carrying throughout the years, so sit tight.
We are gonna replay the opening show monologue.
We come back here from the break at the top of the hour.
If you missed it, you're gonna hear it.
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