Sept. 1, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:31
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| Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24 7 podcast. | |
| Thanks very much. | |
| Appreciate your accommodating me here on Russia's Golf Week. | |
| Two great days together. | |
| Yesterday was wonderful, thank you. | |
| Today we get to enjoy more of the magic. | |
| Tomorrow and Thursday, Mark Stein, and then on Friday, Walter Williams. | |
| It's a it's a joy to be part of the Limbaugh Show bench strength, and I do so appreciate it. | |
| So today, let's not waste time. | |
| Let's dive in 1-800-282-2882-1800-282-2882. | |
| Always go to RushLimbaugh.com. | |
| And I appreciate it. | |
| Mark Davis at WBAP Dallas Fort Worth. | |
| We had a big uh town hall last night in a suburb of Dallas, uh Richardson, Texas, with four big local heavy hitters in the world of uh of Republican uh well, obviously not just healthcare, but a whole lot of other Republican ideology issues from Pete Sessions to Joe Barton to Sam Johnson to Jab Henserling, and just more huge crowds, more huge crowds, more enormous passions of people looking to slay the dragon that is Obamacare. | |
| These folks will be uh back under the Capitol Dome next week, so part of what we do today can be sort of a general thematic examination of where you think this all is going. | |
| August, the August recess has been productive. | |
| The town hall meetings have been exactly what they've needed to be. | |
| Okay, 95% what they needed to be. | |
| We'll take five percent for a couple of folks that went a little wheels off, but uh, they were the tiny, tiny minority. | |
| The vast majority of town hall attendees were were thoughtful and prepared and uh and not ready to back down. | |
| And so can we keep this alive? | |
| Is this gonna work? | |
| And not just on health care, but let's talk about cap and trade. | |
| Um, and as I go to some hot fresh poll numbers, it is easy in examining poll numbers. | |
| There's a certain human nature that kicks in. | |
| We always like to see poll numbers increase for politicians that we voted for, and we always like to see the poll numbers go into the toilet for people that we did not vote for. | |
| So there's a certain uh amount of spine-tangling um uh glee to uh the Barack Obama job approval ratings dropping. | |
| Now, I'll say this 500 times if I have to. | |
| Not just because it's about him. | |
| It's not about him. | |
| It's about ideas. | |
| It is about policies. | |
| If the ideas in your head are good and your heart is set right, and what you want and what you will do is right for America, I want you to succeed and I want your poll numbers to be high. | |
| If not, I don't. | |
| Period. | |
| It's it's not about I well, you can say it's not about parties, but it generally is. | |
| I mean, isn't it? | |
| I mean, come on. | |
| I'm other than Joe Lieberman, find me the Democrat who had some courage and some clarity on the war on terror. | |
| Uh, I guess we have the blue dogs. | |
| I've got plenty of love for them on the health care issue. | |
| These are some people who I probably might not agree with on a bunch of other things. | |
| But if there are fiscal conservatives, by comparison, occupying some portions of the Democrat Party in some purple states, and they want to step forward and say no to this White House, God bless those guys. | |
| So in those cases, it's not even about party because they got D next to their name, and I'm prepared to show them love. | |
| And it's certainly not about anybody individually. | |
| Give me anybody else of any kind of background and any kind of race, thank you very much, and put these kinds of radical, damaging notions in his head and in his agenda, and I'll stand against them. | |
| Uh, you know, if if if I'm related to them or if they give me money. | |
| I mean, it's it's it's about your ideas. | |
| It's about your agenda. | |
| So, what are those poll numbers? | |
| Scott Rasmussen, whose poll measures likely voters and uh is an especially good indicator of public attitudes, now has Obama's job approval dropping to forty-six percent. | |
| On election day 2008, less than a year ago, President Obama got fifty-two percent of the vote. | |
| He is now six to seven points below that level in his job approval. | |
| Meaning that one-eighth of the Obama voter base has turned on him. | |
| Dick Morris writes How long will he cling to the wreckage of these health care proposals? | |
| Does he plan on going down with the ship all the way into the mid thirties in job approval as President Bush did with Iraq? | |
| Will he take his party down with him? | |
| Will the party let itself be taken down? | |
| These are the relevant questions as Obama returns from his vacation, the massive paid media effort for health care change has not worked, and the President has some decisions to make. | |
| I'm intrigued by the Dick Morris comparison. | |
| I mean, it's numerically valid. | |
| Does President Obama plan on going down with the ship all the way to the mid-thirties in job approval as President Bush did with Iraq? | |
| Well, I will always be grateful that President Bush did not let popularity polls determine what the course of the war should be. | |
| Now, did that mean that President Bush ran the war perfectly at all times? | |
| I think even he would say no. | |
| But he could have easily taken a look at a war weary nation and said, I'm done. | |
| I'm out. | |
| This is a war that the nation does not want to fight. | |
| But I'm going to anyway. | |
| Thank God for that. | |
| Now here's where we get in some interesting definitions. | |
| This this might take flight today. | |
| I call that leadership. | |
| If all an elected representative is supposed to do, from a president to a congressman to a state legislator to a mayor, is reflect what the poll numbers say the constituents want, we don't even need human beings. | |
| Just measure those things by computer, broom bum bum, hit enter and legislate by hard drive. | |
| Every once in a while, leadership is defined by being in office, having run on a set of principles and sticking to those principles even when your voters are straying from them. | |
| Now everything's a matter of perspective, isn't it? | |
| Because in the health care debate that we're in the middle of right now, uh aren't a lot of us bludgeoning some elected representatives who are going full bore on Obamacare even when they see evidence that their constituents don't want it, so couldn't they say, hey, I'm I'm displaying leadership? | |
| You know, Claire McCaskill in Missouri is probably in a state that's not real fond of Obamacare by probably about a sixty, forty percent margin. | |
| But she's gonna go for it. | |
| So is that leadership or or or is or incredible arrogance? | |
| How dare she go against what uh what the voters want? | |
| Well, didn't President Bush go against what the voters want by continuing to fight a war that we'd grown weary with. | |
| It is a trap question. | |
| Because I've I've been around the tree on this one with some people. | |
| It's not apples and apples. | |
| Health care and the war, I believe to be very different things. | |
| The war I considered to be a moral imperative, especially once it's underway. | |
| With troops in the field and the war underway, if if it uh you know kind of goes south a little bit and you get a bad year like 06, although America's was was America was war weary well before that. | |
| Um I think it's patent insanity to take a look at that and yank the troops out and say, Oh, you know, uh I mean, you adjust, you fine-tune, you have the surge, but to pull the rug out from under them, I I just don't think that's a place you can go. | |
| So it's not as though President Bush had a choice like every politician has in health care. | |
| We can either go with big government or we can either go with more private sector solutions. | |
| Now, I obviously believe in the private sector free market solutions. | |
| And I do indeed believe that there is quite frankly, I do see it this way, that there is a moral component to our government leaving people alone. | |
| It's not just good government. | |
| I I've I've I and I I mean I know there's biblical morality, there's ethical morality, maybe there's political morality too, in which I the degree to which we are taxed and that level of of deficit that we have now, that's more than just a fiscal outrage. | |
| It's a moral outrage to me anyway. | |
| Maybe you join me in that regard. | |
| But on health care, we truly are at a crossroads, and we can go one way or the other. | |
| We can be a little more like Canada. | |
| We can be a little more like the U.K., or we can keep things largely as they have been in America and fine-tune the problems that need fine-tuning. | |
| There's one side of the scale, there's the other. | |
| It is not the same thing to take a look at a war in progress and say, okay, uh, let's either continue it or bail. | |
| I I just don't view those as as options of equal weight. | |
| So when President Bush went down into the mid-30s in job approval for sticking to his guns, quite literally, in the war, um, I believe it was an act of incredible courage. | |
| Incredible courage, for which I will thank him the rest of my days. | |
| President Obama probably views uh his adherence to uh his health care wish in in similar um in similar terms. | |
| I mean, uh heavens, look at the the divine imagery, the, you know, the uh the the the religious fervor, almost literally religious fervor with which he comes after this issue. | |
| And and in so doing refers to those who uh who oppose him as bearing false witness, love the scriptural imagery of that, Mr. President. | |
| Thanks so much. | |
| Yeah, but great. | |
| The only time that Barack Obama endorses scripture is when he feels it gives him a bigger bat to wield against his enemies. | |
| So um I don't know. | |
| It's an interesting question. | |
| It's a very interesting question. | |
| How long will the pri will the president go down with the sinking ship that is his health care plan? | |
| That was some of the the uh Rasmussen numbers. | |
| Uh the Zogby poll goes into what independents are thinking. | |
| That's a fascinating voter block, man. | |
| Let's try to figure out can we let me have a couple of independents today, just so I can ask, who are you? | |
| I mean, I I know what the the word means. | |
| I mean, we talk to him all the time in talk show land. | |
| Yeah, Mark, uh I don't really vote Republican or Democrat, I vote according to the person. | |
| Great. | |
| What the heck does that mean? | |
| I I I listen, I know believe you me, believe you me, Republican does not always mean conservative. | |
| Democrat usually means liberal, but uh isn't it really a battle of worldviews? | |
| Once you learn that someone is a Republican, if you definitely learn they're conservative, if you learn that they're liberal, you you I can tell you fifteen things about you from those things. | |
| I've always been fascinated, I and I guess maybe in libertarianism, libertarians are viewed sometimes as uh fiscally conservative and socially liberal. | |
| I I don't buy that for a minute anymore. | |
| Uh in in some ways, I guess, because obviously a ton of libertarians are all about the drug legalization, don't believe uh that uh America has a place fighting wars around the world and and uh believes that abortion is between a woman and her doctor one of the most grotesque things someone can say. | |
| So I guess in in in that way I suppose that's true, but it's always struck me as kind of garbled. | |
| I mean, I want less government. | |
| I absolutely want less government. | |
| I want much less government. | |
| But on things but that doesn't mean that I'm going to punt out the door things that government rightly does, like fighting just wars, protecting the unborn. | |
| The dumbest thing I just the list uh well, the competition for dumbest thing is always fierce. | |
| But how many of you have heard this? | |
| Hey, you're conservative and you want less government. | |
| Oh how do you want government to get in or you know, interfere with uh with the abortion issue? | |
| What so these are interesting lines to draw. | |
| And the poll numbers are interesting, and let's take a look at some of those, and let's do a number of other things today. | |
| Among them, of course, taking your calls. | |
| 1-800-282-2882, 1-800-282-2882. | |
| I'm Mark Davis, fillin' in for rush. | |
| So glad to be here with you. | |
| And we'll continue in just a moment on the EIB network. | |
| It is a conga line of conversation. | |
| It is the Rush Limbaugh Show. | |
| I'm Mark Davis filling in today. | |
| Had a ball yesterday, an interesting call yesterday that got us uh delving into some things that will the the curious Juan Williams What did he say issue. | |
| And I'll let I think that was at the end of the first hour. | |
| So before this hour is done, I'll tell you what we've what we've learned about that. | |
| What did or did not Juan say on C-SPAN. | |
| Always looking to tie up the loose ends. | |
| For now, though, uh, as we go to your calls at 1-800-282-2882, Mark Davis filling in for rush. | |
| And uh I mentioned that I had some um Zogby poll numbers that involved uh independence. | |
| In the most recent poll, eight percent of Republicans and thirty seven percent of independents approve of President Obama's job performance. | |
| Both are down from six weeks ago. | |
| Uh three percent among independents, the independent number was forty. | |
| Uh now it's thirty-seven. | |
| It was a much higher figure than that, uh, among independent voters that helped President Obama get elected in the first place. | |
| So I asked the not rhetorical at all question, what the heck is in the head of the independent voter, and what does that mean anyway? | |
| Is it just a sort of a general term of folks who view themselves as a bit of an ideological mixed bag? | |
| Is it libertarians in a way who might have a certain fiscal conservatism but a certain social loosey goosey uh uh thing going there? | |
| I don't know. | |
| I could speculate all day, but why do that? | |
| When they've called the show. | |
| Let us head to Salisbury, Maryland. | |
| John, self-identified independent, here to answer at least for himself what the word means. | |
| Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show, John. | |
| Mark Davis, how are you? | |
| Hi, Mark. | |
| I'm good. | |
| Nice to have you. | |
| Thank you. | |
| So what's this independent? | |
| What's the independent thing about? | |
| What makes you call yourself that? | |
| Well, I call myself an independent because I guess I'm uh not so much of a joiner. | |
| I'm pretty dissatisfied with a lot of the party politics on both sides. | |
| I do lean towards the libertarian bent, although I'm not a social liberal. | |
| I'm I'm a fiscal hawk. | |
| I'm uh uh military hawk on world affairs and Wow, so what are you what where is so w give me a libertarian view that you are proud to hold. | |
| Well, I think that uh we should not put nonviolent offenders in jail, for example. | |
| I think our we're letting people walk that do horrible things to other people because we have mandatory sentencing for various types of drug possession. | |
| I'm not hardcore on the side of legalizing drugs. | |
| Right. | |
| But I don't think that they need to fill our jails when we let violent offenders work. | |
| Right. | |
| If we get violent offenders walking the streets while a guy who had a bag of dope in his pickup truck is in prison, that strikes you as a disconnect. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| You know, I uh you have a lot of company in that regard. | |
| Um I I think I'm among them. | |
| Uh I I I'm I totally oppose drug legalization, but I do wonder what people need to be in jail for and what they don't. | |
| And so I wonder if that's so uniquely libertarian. | |
| I don't know. | |
| But anyway, ki but but keep going. | |
| So i if I'm hearing you so far, your you're cleaving to an independent label is because there's enough the matter with the Democrat and Republican parties that you just don't want to sign on with either one. | |
| Do I have that sort of right? | |
| You do have it right. | |
| I think that on both sides of the aisle, the I read the other day, I don't know what article it was, but it said that uh every Congressman has two goals, that's to get elected and stay elected. | |
| I want the government to build the roads and bridges, provide an army, and get out of my life. | |
| All right. | |
| What is uh I think um all right, what is it that prevents you? | |
| I think I well, all right, I have the Republican answer there. | |
| Is there anything that prevents you from identifying yourself as a conservative? | |
| Well, I am an uber conservative, actually. | |
| If I had to if if I need to find a label that that puts it somewhere that people can process. | |
| Okay. | |
| Well then let me ask, because I asked this of everybody, because believe you me, there are tons of people for whom the nature of their conservatism makes them recoil at some of the recent behavior of the Republican Party. | |
| Whether it is a Bush administration that exploded the size uh of government, uh, whether it is uh Republicans who don't seem to have the spine to fight certain things in certain ways, certain Supreme Court nominees, even though we did pretty okay on that. | |
| Um so is is your uh distaste with Republicanism because they don't have uh they they're not as conservative as you are? | |
| That is correct. | |
| I don't think they're as beholden to the real values of our Constitution and limiting the federal government. | |
| They talk out both sides of their mouth. | |
| Gotcha. | |
| So your identity so your identification. | |
| So your self identification as an independent is not due to moderation or middle of the road squishiness. | |
| It is just you don't want to y you mean independent in the literal dictionary definition of the word. | |
| I'm gonna vote forever I vote for. | |
| Uh you know, the Republicans are probably closer to you than Democrats, but not close enough to to where you I self identify as a Republican. | |
| That's true. | |
| I've never voted for a Democrat. | |
| I have skipped some elections, but I've always voted for president. | |
| I voted for Republicans back to uh I did vote for Ross Perot. | |
| How'd that work out for you? | |
| I got a scoot. | |
| I got a scoot, but thank you. | |
| Lesson learned. | |
| You'll get no spanking from me. | |
| There's a lesson in this gentleman's call for the Republican Party. | |
| Do you know what it is? | |
| Do you know what it is? | |
| Are they listening? | |
| If they're not, I'll describe that lesson next. | |
| Mark Davis, in for Rush on the EIB network. | |
| It is Tuesday, the first day of September on the Rush Limbo Show. | |
| Mark Davis filling in. | |
| In our last gentleman, and it's kind of interesting, I think we learned if just as we have learned that Republican does not necessarily mean conservative, uh independent certainly does not always mean moderate. | |
| And I suppose I was thinking of the the moderate voter, the fence sitter. | |
| I remember there was a time I was filling in in the home stretch of the election uh here for Rush, and we were talking about how in the world in the the m October or whenever it was. | |
| How can someone not know who they're going to vote for yet? | |
| I guess, well, when the Republican nominee is John McCain, I guess that is a it's a complicating factor, I suppose. | |
| But if um if you really do have an actual conservative and an actual liberal running against each other, what does the voter look like and sound like who's who a week before the election is bum-fuzzled? | |
| Oh, what should I do? | |
| What should I do? | |
| Uh I I've always I know that not everybody is a complete 100% down-the-line conservative or a complete 100% down the line liberal. | |
| Some are pretty darn close, and you know, maybe some do achieve that uh new numerical Olympic ten. | |
| But uh uh most are some degree of uh not in the middle, 50-50, but you know, uh a 95 in one way or the other, or something like that. | |
| Now, um from the last gentleman, though, we learned that there's no moderation in him. | |
| Uh he is more conservative than the Republican Party and thus leads himself to identify as an independent, not because of any fence straddling, but because the Republican Party has been too gutless at times. | |
| The Republican Party has failed to live up to the conservatism that is its main engine. | |
| Now, whenever it's I'm Rush is kind enough to let me hang out around here, uh one thing I say a lot, and one thing he says a lot, obviously, and a number of people who do what I do for a living say is that when the Republican Party rediscovers its conservative heart and satisfies its conservative base, good things happen. | |
| We too often make the mistake of doing what other people think we should do. | |
| I love when the left delivers delicious postcard suggestions in in the suggestion box, you well, what you gotta do is uh, you know, come in more toward the middle and and be more moderate. | |
| Oh, really? | |
| How did that work out for John McCain? | |
| You know, so um I believe that a a fearless and unapologetic and upbeat conservatism sworn to lower taxes, to reduce the size of government, to give free market and private sector solutions rather than government solutions to our problems when that is the choice. | |
| To engage in just wars and win them. | |
| To stand up for personal responsibility. | |
| Those things would have an energizing effect, and whoever comes closest to sounding like that in 2011, is gonna pave a nice road to wherever they hold the Republican convention in 2012. | |
| Now, um, let me go to Houston, because Thad has a point about uh definitions of leadership. | |
| When is it leadership and when is it arrogance uh to go against what uh what your constituents say? | |
| Thad Mark Davison for Rush Limbaugh, how are you? | |
| I'm good. | |
| How are you doing, Mark? | |
| Very good. | |
| Thanks. | |
| Go ahead. | |
| you made a comment earlier about uh President Bush showing leadership during the war and kind of asked the question of these uh the liberal town hall leaders, are they showing leadership? | |
| And I guess my answer would be, yeah, they they're showing leadership. | |
| Uh that's the problem, is they're showing leadership down a path that destructive to the United States. | |
| And you know, leadership is only as good as long as you have people following you, and uh it's time for independence and the swing voters out there to realize that you know these it's not a facility of in ineptitude on their part. | |
| They are leading us down a path that we just do not want to go. | |
| Well, that's that is that is the vote them out. | |
| That is the you that seems to that is the political passion of the moment, and I wonder what's going to happen to some some folks in 2010 who thought themselves secure and may now think themselves otherwise. | |
| Um using your your standard of i that part of leadership that to have leadership, you gotta have people following you. | |
| Uh couldn't it be argued that uh that President Bush, Lord knows he didn't have people following him as the w uh uh the in the couple of years prior to the surge, he didn't have most of the country following him after the successful surge. | |
| So and I still view that as leadership. | |
| He knew the moral clarity of what he had to do. | |
| Now, is that just objectively true, or is it just my politics admiring the war? | |
| Because you know every single uh health care, Obamacare uh advocate is gonna throw down the same kind of credentials. | |
| Well, my constituents might not have wanted it, but I viewed it as a moral imperative ju uh uh just as President Bush probably viewed the war as one. | |
| I think that that brings up the the the second value to our leaders is his character. | |
| Uh his leadership set the tone, set the pace, and everyone was behind him, and that leadership was there. | |
| The the problem was that uh his character uh continued down the path that uh that needed to happen, I believe. | |
| And uh again, just a lot of uh American people uh, you know, for one reason or another, a lot of the the bad press that was going around about it. | |
| Uh negative aspect from the the uh the ever so liberal media was uh constantly causing people to uh okay, I'm tired of this, uh, what's next? | |
| And you know, his leadership uh on the war was incredible. | |
| His commitment and his character and following through uh was also just uh an incredible uh display against uh against the uh the odds he still stood for what right. | |
| That that's an aspect of leadership beyond, you know, flipping in the wind uh what is the right thing to do. | |
| Thad, thank you very much. | |
| My best to everybody down the road in Houston. | |
| And and Thad's logic took me to another sentence. | |
| Let me run this up the flagpole, see if this works. | |
| Uh it'll sound partisan, but I I I don't mean it to be, uh and uh and I don't believe it is. | |
| I I think that some of it is is uh is self-evident. | |
| People grew tired of the war because they didn't sufficiently understand or appreciate it. | |
| People are going south on Obamacar, uh Obamacare, Obamacar, people are going south on Obamacare because they do understand it. | |
| Uh I I think that there are people I knew who were uh lackadaisical about the war and and I don't know, and talked to people who had fought it, or in some cases people who actually got to go to the war zone and come back and say, wow, I get it now. | |
| I don't mean universally. | |
| It's not like they slap their heads and everyone, ooh, and now I get it. | |
| But I have a feeling that that oppos uh the the average war opponent and I don't mean to be insulting to say you don't get the war, but you don't for whatever reason don't appreciate the nobility of establishing democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest of the part of the world that hates us. | |
| And I guess if you're not on board for that, you're obviously not going to uh to to admire the war effort. | |
| So it's just a a disconnect from what the war even is, holding it at arm's length. | |
| Ugh, don't like that war. | |
| Not because out of out of distaste for all war, but just uh just not being on board for this one. | |
| The people who oppose Obamacare know it, have looked at it, have examined it, have immersed themselves in it, bathed in it, and found it wanting. | |
| That's one of my favorite bits of analysis, is when the White House steps out and says, Well, we've just got to do a better job of getting our message across. | |
| Oh, would that that were true. | |
| Sorry, guys. | |
| You have gotten your message across with consummate skill. | |
| The public understands precisely what Obamacare is and is saying with thunderous volume, no thank you. | |
| Let's see here, stepping into um well, let's take a pause and then uh we're gonna have a gentleman down uh from the Gulf Coast of Florida stepping into the uh I'm an independent interrogation box. | |
| No enhanced techniques, I promise. | |
| And uh and a number of other what the interesting sort of philosophical where do we go kind of round table going on here. | |
| I spoke uh here's a name drop. | |
| Talk to Tom Ridge this morning, and I'll either share some highlights of that, I might even have some audio by the time we get to the third hour. | |
| It is on the occasion of the publication of his somewhat controversial book. | |
| And in Tom Ridge, I find someone who brings some things to the table I can admire and brings some things to the table that drive me a little nutty, and we talked about all that, so I'll share some of that with you. | |
| Um gotta do some wildfire talk when today's show, Good Morning America, everything is just imagery of you know, Southern California uh just combusting. | |
| I mean, I I I'm in Texas. | |
| Maybe you're in, you know, New York, Massachusetts, Florida, Iowa. | |
| I I think it it may well be that unless you are actually in Southern California, you can't imagine what this is like. | |
| I will stipulate that I have no idea what it's like d to have uh bazillions of acres on fire around me. | |
| But there's a theme I'll explore. | |
| This is what nature does. | |
| The th the things that are catching on fire are the things that catch on fire. | |
| I mean, not all of these is some uh, you know, uh idiot camper throwing a cigarette. | |
| You know, this uh just and pardon the way this sounds, but uh I've got a a column from a guy down in New Orleans about how New Orleans still needs you. | |
| Well, no, it doesn't. | |
| May if maybe New Orleans does need me. | |
| It needs me to move there and start a business. | |
| And if I wanted to, I would. | |
| But this notion that more billions of taxpayer dollars are needed to quote unquote rebuild New Orleans, and God bless and I've got listeners down there, and I know it, and I love you, and I love the town, but no. | |
| And we can talk about that if you want to. | |
| And what does that have to do with LA? | |
| Sometimes God tells you where to live and where not to. | |
| And maybe two of the answers is below sea level and the other one is near a highly combustible forest. | |
| All righty. | |
| That's great. | |
| Let's get those LA and New Orleans affiliates to the to the front of the lines. | |
| It's the Rush Limbaugh Show. | |
| Mark Davis filling in, one-eight hundred-two eight-two two eight eight two of the EIB network. | |
| We will continue. | |
| It is the Tuesday Rush Limbaugh Show, September first, two thousand nine. | |
| Mark Davis filling in. | |
| Let's get uh a few more calls on before the end of this hour, and then sort of change our directional bit in the next and maybe take a look at Wildfires in LA, the column from the guy who wants us to spend a bunch more on New Orleans and and where resources ought to go with uh with all that. | |
| And then and continuing, of course, every main narrative in uh in today's news. | |
| We busted out with some poll numbers looking at uh why the independent voters have shrunk so markedly for uh President Obama and um and then that started our bit of a round table here on what the heck is an independent anyway, and some folks seeking to give that m multi-layered definition. | |
| Apparently they're all in Florida. | |
| Let's let us go to Miami and uh Tom, hi. | |
| Mark Davis in for Rush. | |
| Pleasure to have you. | |
| Hey Mark, how are you doing? | |
| I'm doing good. | |
| Um I'm an independent and I used to be a Republican. | |
| I just want to tell you that a few of the things that turned me away from them. | |
| Uh this so-called fair trade, where, you know, American workers such as myself got hurt, jobs got sent overseas. | |
| Uh we lost good jobs. | |
| Uh they bought illegal immigrants in Bush did to take our construction jobs at much lower. | |
| Brought ill well, allowed them in, surely, with weak border policies. | |
| I don't think they think brought them in. | |
| You know, the uh the NAR and the big corporations. | |
| Why would you need why would you need to bring them in when the uh when a tidal wave of them is coming in? | |
| Well, he just left the gate open and whatnot. | |
| And he claimed it was on humanitarian grounds at the same time. | |
| He's saying uh he needed uh clamp Down on our freedoms for our own safety, but he went and closed our own border for our own safety. | |
| So it's totally hypocritical. | |
| And uh, but since if by if your testimony stand up for eminent domain, you know? | |
| If if your testimony is that the you left the Republican Party because of softness on the border, where exactly can you go? | |
| Uh Lord knows the Democrats have no home for you, but I guess that's why that's where the independent status comes from. | |
| People like myself who are really conservative, true conservatives have no home in the Republican Party at all. | |
| Might be working on that. | |
| The Republican Party is more liberal than they are conservative. | |
| I mean, at times, boy, I'd I'd be right there with you. | |
| But I tell you, there may be something in this health care debate. | |
| There may be something in this that really empowers Republicans and shows them what happens when they really stick uh to to conservative standards. | |
| Because that's what this whole health care thing is. | |
| It's about fighting off radical, socialist-tinged liberalism in favor of conservative free market approaches. | |
| And if we take that logic to a few other issues, immigration and trade and various other things, there there and I don't want to, you know, lay out a pipe dream here, but there may be future successes ahead. | |
| Let me get one no one other guy in before I got a break. | |
| Tom, thank you. | |
| And he imagine this. | |
| He's in Florida in the Tampa Bay area. | |
| Lee, hello, Mark Davis, you are on the Rosh Limbaugh Show. | |
| Hi. | |
| Hey, good afternoon, Mark. | |
| Hey. | |
| This is the part where you start talking. | |
| Go ahead. | |
| All right, man. | |
| Hey, thanks for having me on. | |
| Sure. | |
| You know what makes me an independent. | |
| You know, former former Republican uh left the party some time ago, past election, uh, you know, reluctantly voted for McCain. | |
| It was kind of the same scenario as always. | |
| The worst of two evils is is what I went after. | |
| Where the Republican Party has lost me is in their spending. | |
| Um, there's supposedly a group of physical conservatives under the Bush administration, increase the uh spending on prescription drugs out of control, the debts out of control, the amount of money that we spend abroad in welfare for other nations, welfare for other people. | |
| Well, all right, there's an there's a narrative forming. | |
| There's a definite narrative forming. | |
| And Lee, let me thank you and sort of tie a bow around this, but let me go to one I'll keep this brief, guys. | |
| In Fayetteville, North Fayetteville, North Carolina, here is Jay. | |
| And I if if I'm reading the screen correctly, here Jay, you're hearing all these folks saying that while he's well, he let me tell you what Jay would have said if I'm reading the subject line correctly. | |
| His point was that you you you don't get more you can't you don't really serve conservatism by going uh by going independent. | |
| And this is the age-old debate. | |
| If the Republican Party is not conservative enough for you, and boy, are there millions who feel that's true, do you help things by bailing and saying uh a pox on you until you're conservative enough for me to rejoin you, or do you try to reform it from within? | |
| Uh boy, that's that's the the question of the ages. | |
| Obviously, uh Brother Steele at the RNC and uh a lot of the candidates who are looking at running in 2010 and 2012 want you to stay with the party and and and maybe that maybe the health care chapter in our history helps that because folks are showing up and that the Tea Party thing is is happening, and uh I think there are a lot of folks who are saying, you know what? | |
| Maybe there is enough of a a public engine, use that metaphor again, of passion to to just deliver to the Republican Party the little affectionate boot in the head that's needed to say, hey guys, rediscover your rudder. | |
| Point yourself in ways that will bring some of these disaffected conservatives back. | |
| Maybe we're seeing a little bit of that. | |
| Am I dreaming? | |
| 1800, 282-2882 Mark Davison for Rush, back in a moment. | |
| Well, with a minute and a fraction uh left in this hour, tell you what let's do. | |
| During the uh the 08 campaign, uh I I actually logged in to some of the Obama websites so that I would get their stuff. | |
| It has provided an endless supply of talk show material. | |
| I have the uh the latest thing from organizing for America. | |
| Could you have a title that's more vague? | |
| Uh about uh if it it starts out, Mark. | |
| Opponents of health insurance reform have power. | |
| Some reap huge profits from the status quo. | |
| You get the tone. | |
| So it's just uh just an interesting Look behind uh behind enemy lines, whatever you want to call it. | |
| Uh Cash for Clunkers uh post-mortem. | |
| I remember saying several times, uh uh right here in North Texas in my community of uh broadcasting to all these dealers taking those deals. | |
| You may grow very old waiting for that money from the government. | |
| And we'll take a look at an update on that. | |
| Also, there's uh is this the beginning of a long fall of swine flu issues? | |
| Is this a scare? | |
| Is it real? | |
| There's a school that won't let the kids touch each other. | |
| Mark Davis, lots more to come. | |
| Filling in for Rush. |
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