Yes, greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone.
It's a thrill and a delight to have you with us.
A telephone number, if you want to join us, 800-282-2882 and the email address, El Rushbaugh at EIBNet.com.
Now, let me reiterate this.
Got to briefly summarize it from the first hour.
If you're a welfare recipient and you're just getting up, just now tuning in the show, what have you, I'm not going to go through the, obviously, the entire first hour again, but today, ladies and gentlemen, as is the case most days, the drive-bys are filled with stories about all the problems the Republican Party is having.
Ah, man, this Medicare proposal of Paul Ryan's, it's killing the party.
They got to throw it overboard.
They got to get it.
They just, they can't, they got to, they got to get rid of this.
They can't, they can't really, they got to, I mean, they're just, they're fracturing, they're splitting, they're not unified, they're just losing everything.
They got to get rid of it.
And then they got to throw away this debt ceiling.
The Republican Party is just throwing away everything it had and just the exact opposite.
Well, wait a minute, no.
Republican Party may eventually throw it all away, but the exact opposite is happening.
Michael Barone has a piece today.
I forget where it's buried in the stack, but he's right about it.
The Democrats have a strategy.
One of many.
And one of their strategeries is to join the chorus now and then about spending.
You'll even hear Obama talk about spending is too high.
We got to get our deficit manageable, all this sort of.
But then when it comes time to do it, never join, never, ever come up with an idea.
Just sit back and let the Republicans do that and then rip it to shreds, rip every suggestion they make to shreds.
Doesn't matter if it's entitlement form or in a simple $10 cut somewhere.
Just rip it to shreds.
But the mood of the country is to just take a knife to the size of this government and pare it down.
It's just gotten out of hand.
It's too intrusive.
It's too obstructionist.
It's too big.
It's too unwieldy, unmanageable.
It's starting to encroach on personal and individual liberty here in ways that people never imagined.
Just got to get a handle on.
So there was an election last November, and it was a landslide victory for the people who campaigned on smaller government, essentially campaigned on conservative principles.
It was a shellacking.
It was a landslide.
Now, that's November.
Here we are in May.
We're basically seven months later.
And you know what?
The whole landscape's changed now.
In seven months, voters regret they elected Chris Christie.
They regret they elected Bob McConnell.
The voters don't want any spending cuts whatsoever.
The voters want state and public employee unions to make more and more money.
They want more campaign contributions going to the Democrat Party.
That's what we're to believe.
We're also told that Republicans, if they know what's good for them, they'll nominate somebody Obama's afraid of, that Obama says he's afraid of.
The truth of the matter here is that there is an ascension taking place in this hemisphere toward conservatism.
The elections in Canada shocked all of the so-called experts.
To describe conservatism as ascending in Canada is to undersell what happened.
It is launching.
It is a rocket ship, conservatism in Canada, as it is here, by virtue of elections.
But again, seven months after the elections, you know what?
That didn't matter.
People changed their minds.
We know this because we've got polling data which says so, say the media.
And say the Democrats.
Look at the spin they've put out.
Obama is just unbeatable.
It's senseless for the Republicans to even nominate anybody this time.
I mean, there's no question.
He just can't be beat.
The exact opposite is true.
He's easily beatable, as would anybody be with this domestic record.
Anybody would be beatable as the author of $4 a gallon gasoline, who has said, and it can be produced, that he doesn't care that it's $4.
He was only concerned about how fast it got to that level.
We've got a guy who openly wants to shut down domestic drilling.
I don't want to go through policy by policy, but we know his numbers are...
Look at the bin Laden situation to see the desperation.
Look at how desperately they're trying to spin the bin Laden death into Obama greatness.
That will tell you how precarious they know they are.
Their own internal polling on a 2012 re-elect is dismal for Obama, as it should be, folks.
I mean, anybody who wants to try to make the case that this record equals people who can't wait to get to the polls to re-elect the president, that's absurd.
Nobody voted for this.
Nobody wants this.
Nobody wants a declining United States.
Nobody wants a declining U.S. economy.
Nobody wants rising food prices.
Nobody wants rising gasoline prices.
Nobody wants the price of their home to be worth less than their mortgage.
Why would we re-elect the guy who did it all?
This is so simple, it shouldn't require any time whatsoever to explain.
I'm happy to take the time.
But none of what's happening today was voted for.
You get people who voted for Obama in 2008 are voting for this.
If people were voting for this, his approvals would be in the 60s or the 70s.
Nobody voted for this.
Oh, you might have 20, 30% of the radical left in this country that enjoys it, but the people who make the country work, that's not what they want the country to be.
And they clearly didn't vote for it.
So where is the logic that says they can't wait to re-elect him?
Where's the logic that says, yeah, give us four more years of this?
Who's out there asking for four more years of this?
The only people who are asking for four more years of it are the media and the Democrats, which is all the same to me.
It kind of misses the point to call them the media.
They're all liberals.
There's just degrees of liberalism that we talk about now.
Marxist, socialist, communist, Democrat.
But they're all the same bunch.
Pure and simple.
The point of the election, if it were held tomorrow, it would not matter who the Republican nominee is.
Dirty little secret.
Wouldn't matter.
As long as his middle name is gasoline price is $4 a gallon, or as long as his middle name is unemployment 9%.
In fact, if I'm a Republican nominee, I make my officially change my name and I show the new birth certificate reflecting the new name change.
I am Mitch unemployment at 9% Daniels.
Or I am Donald.
Well, he doesn't need a middle name.
But folks, what are we talking about here?
Why even entertain for a moment, unless you're obsessed in fear, with fear, unless you're just drowning in fear?
Why even debate or you're concerned about election fraud?
I'm legitimate concern.
But there's nobody that voted for this.
And there's nobody that wants four more, not even Obama.
Obama's talking about fixing it, isn't he?
Is Obama promising you four more years of 9% unemployment?
Or is he trying to tell you he's going to fix it?
Is Obama promising you that your house is going to be less than your mortgage?
And we're going to get four more years of it.
Not even Obama's campaigning on his agenda.
He does as far as his re-elect is concerned.
He cares about what people think as far as his re-elect is concerned.
If this is what people wanted, Obama would be promising 10% unemployment in two years or 11%.
If this is what the country needs, if this is what is good for the country, why stop at 9%?
Let's go 11%.
Why did Obama get so jazzed?
Why'd the regime get so jazzed over 244,000 jobs being created?
Simple.
They know they can't win if it doesn't change.
They know they can't win at 9% unemployment.
They got to make it look like, and the truth is Obama does want four more years of this, folks.
He's only got two and a half years under his belt, and he wants four more.
That's the problem.
He does want four more of this.
And a lot of his Democrat buddies would love four more of this, but they know they can't get elected saying so.
See, that's in that little phrase is where the truth finally emerges.
And that is none of what's happened guarantees anybody re-election.
And yet that's what we're hearing.
He's so unbeatable, it's senseless to even nominate serious contenders.
Save them for 2016.
Yeah, throw your bench at him.
Throw the class AA, class AAA, throw your losers at him.
Get him out of the way.
Clear the way for the big guns in 2012.
Yeah, 2016.
Yeah, that's a ticket, right?
Because everybody wants four more years of this crap.
And again, the Washington Post story here from Crystal is on Mitch Daniels, the man who could reshape the Republican field.
So here you have an agent of the regime, state-controlled media, writing a piece that essentially says Mitch Daniels is the only guy that can save the Republican Party.
And that Mitch Daniel, the governor of Indiana, the only guy who can give the Republican Party any weight, any seriousness.
And if he decides not to run, why it's all over?
And you even have Obama quoting there talking about how formidable Daniels would be.
Yeah, he's a very serious guy.
Don't agree on him with him on everything, but he'd be a formidable guy.
Well, that's another thing.
Yeah, Obama, the Democrats, they really do want us to nominate their biggest threat, right?
They really do want us to nominate the guy they think can beat them.
Fact is, they would love the nominee to be Ron Paul.
They would love the nominee to be somebody who's going to get 20% of the vote.
They don't want the nominee to be somebody can beat them.
Yet here's a story about how they love that guy.
It could be about anybody.
I'm not attacking Mitch Daniels.
I'm sitting here.
I'm reading the news and I'm analyzing it as I do, seeing the stitches on a fastball.
Should Daniels opt not to run, the unpredictability that has ruled the race would almost certainly continue unabated.
A field without Daniels would equal the end of the Republican Party.
That's what the story says.
Well, that's what Obama wants.
The end of the Republican Party is what all of Insider Washington wants.
And here's a piece about how to do it.
We're supposed to sit here and think they want us to nominate somebody they think can beat them.
Sorry, I'm not buying.
That's not how it works.
And then there's two stories.
Republicans, you better stop this Medicare overhaul if you have any hope of winning.
You better stop it.
The way to read that is they are so scared the Republicans are going to succeed here.
They're scared to death of entitlement reform.
The Democrats are.
They are scared to death.
They know it has to happen.
They want to try to kill the Republicans while they bring it about.
The trend in this hemisphere is toward conservatism.
Yeah, the election of Chris Christie, New Jersey, you know, the citizens, they're really, they're embarrassed now.
They reject it.
That's what the media would like you to believe.
Same in Virginia.
Voters in Virginia who elected Bob McConnell, gosh, they wish they could do it again.
Voters in Massachusetts who elected the Senator there, Scott, what's his name?
I wish they could do it all over again, too.
This is not what they voters last November who voted for smaller government, get spending and entitlements under control, stop this massive spending leading to uncontrollable debt.
Yeah, the voters have changed their mind.
They want new spending.
They want bigger government and they want uncontrollable debt.
That's what they're telling us.
Sorry, folks, that hasn't happened.
The way people voted in November is the way they would vote tomorrow if there were an election.
And the Libs know this.
So don't fall for all of this stuff.
It's made to order to dispirit you and panic you.
The whole purpose of media today, yesterday, 10, 20 years ago, tomorrow, the whole purpose is to convince you that conservatism loses.
In the midst of a huge conservative ascendancy of victory after victory after victory, they want you to think it's a loser.
Don't fall for it.
We'll be back.
We'll continue.
Phone calls next.
I'm going to tell you what, folks.
You know, if the media succeeds in scaring the entire Republican apparatus into buying what they report, and that has been a problem.
And you and I both know it.
One of the problems that we've faced over the years is that you and I understand what the media is trying to do.
The Republicans fall prey to it.
And if it keeps up, the whole damn apparatus is going to need to go out to San Francisco, get an anadictomy operation.
And Lord knows that's not what we hope becomes necessary.
Here's Scott in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as we start on the phone today.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you, sir.
Rush, I am not an establishment Republican.
I, too, am very optimistic about our chances in 2012 to make this a one-term president.
But I have to ask the question, and it predates this article today.
Why are you so hard on Mitch Daniels?
I think if you look at his record, there's a lot of very conservative things that this guy's done over his eight years in office.
When have I been hard on Mitch Daniels?
I'm not even being hard on him.
I'm just telling you what the Democrats in the media are saying.
And the bottom line is nothing to do with Mitch Daniels.
I'm just tired of Democrats picking our candidates.
I'm just sick and tired of the Democrat Party and the media picking our candidates.
They picked McCain.
They picked Dole.
I'm tired of it.
I don't care who the candidate is.
I'm sick because I know that they're not going to pick somebody that can win.
That's the whole point.
Well, I guess I would agree.
I don't want the media picking our candidate.
What's happening?
But I guess the first question you asked was, when have you been hard on him?
And like most of your listeners, I have a job, so sometimes I can't catch all the show, but I hear enough over the last two to three weeks that you slip a comment in about the social issue truth, truce comment that Governor Daniels made.
And I'm somebody who cares deeply about how in the world, how in the world is that being hard on Mitch Daniels when I'm simply telling people what he said?
Because I believe that that comment's being dropped, and sometimes it's not even attributed to Governor Daniels.
I believe that comment's being dropped because it is aimed certainly at not flattering him, and I think that you're going to jump on this, but I believe it's out of context with the record that Governor Daniels has put together over seven years.
I mean, this is a guy that decertified the public unions his first day in office.
I mean, stack that up relative to the rest of the field.
I mean, we've got some people that are thinking about running that couldn't even complete one term in office.
Have I chosen any of them?
No, sir, you haven't.
Okay, then.
Where are we here?
Well, I guess what I, as I listened to that CPAC speech, which, and there was a comment out of there that you, or there was a quote out of there that you pulled today, or at least a paraphrase, that Rush.
What was it?
It was something about we can't burn the house down.
We have to actually have victory, something like that.
We actually have to get things enacted.
Here's what he said.
It's actually Alex Castellanos who said it, which is who I quoted.
It's not Mitch Daniels.
Castellanos, a Republican media consultant.
Daniels is the adult in the room saying the party's over, time to clean house.
No, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute.
Hit the finish.
That contrast immaturity is how Republican beats Obama.
Daniels did say at CPAC, purity in martyrdom is for suicide bombers.
Yeah.
Purity and martyrdom.
Right.
And I guess.
Which he means, I know what he means.
He means that if all you are is conservative, you're going to lose.
We've got to be moderate.
We've got to go get the moderates, which we've done, by the way.
Well, Russia.
By having not even opened our mouths.
Well, you know, and here's where Rush, Lord knows, and I've always been afraid what I call that it would be an issue about where we might disagree, and then I'm going to get accused of being a seminar caller with you.
I think you are, but I'm having fun anyway.
What's that?
I think you are.
Do you?
Yeah, well, but I'm having fun anyway.
I mean, I like some of our callers.
I would take any investigation you want to heap on me, and I will tell you one Democrat my entire life.
It's okay.
We don't do investigations here.
We rely solely on my instinct.
Anyway, your question about the intellectual purity is, you know, Reagan, and I completely understand about negotiating, okay?
I totally get that.
But at some point, you have to get things enacted.
And even Reagan, Rush, Reagan didn't get everything that he wanted every time.
We're talking about two different things.
I didn't start out this program being critical of Mitch Daniels.
I'm just telling you, it's amazing here what's actually happened.
I'm telling you what's in the Washington Post, and you're mad at me for reporting it.
All I'm doing is tell you what's in this story, and you are mad at me for saying it.
I have not attacked Mitch Daniels.
He has gone after me, but I have not attacked him.
Okay, our last caller, and judging by the emails, the vast majority of those of you who wrote me in the last 10 minutes think that he was a seminar caller.
No matter to me.
Sometimes seminar callers are fun.
But the one thing that the seminar caller said that I want to react to here is sometimes rush.
You got to go along with the other side's what he meant to get things done.
All right, fine.
Well, we're talking about a campaign now, and I don't remember Ronaldus Magnus telling social Republicans to shut up or saying that we need to have a truce so that what they believe is not a factor.
I remember Reagan embracing conservatives.
He didn't care social, fiscal, what have you.
It's interesting.
The last time there was this amount of panic with phone callers, and Snerdley tells me that ever since my first hour today, the droves of people call here angry at me for savaging Mitch Daniels have been numerous.
And the first time this kind of reaction on the phones happened was with Trump.
So I'm sitting here, okay, what is this?
I have, let's just review this.
I'm going to see, I live in Rielville, and I have a purely logical mind combined with an insatiable curiosity.
So I've got this piece here from Chris Saliza in the Washington Post, headline, Mitch Daniels, the man who could reshape the Republican field.
Okay, I think Chris Saliza wants Obama to be re-elected.
I know, Chris, he works at the Washington Post.
Chris Salizza is like everybody else in the mainstream media, doesn't want a conservative to be elected.
So here we get a piece in the Washington Post telling us that the only chance we really have as Republicans is if Daniels is a nominee.
Sorry, folks, it's the messenger here that is alerting my antenna.
And in this piece is a quasi-endorsement of Mitch Daniels from none other than Obama.
Okay, well, I know Obama does not want Mitch Daniels elected president.
So why the hell is he endorsing him?
Or quasi-endorsing him?
I know what I saw in the debate Thursday night.
I saw robust, energetic, proud, aggressive conservatism, and this piece rips it to shreds.
I know what I saw.
What I saw Thursday night of the debate does not lead to our defeat.
This story tells me it does.
This story tells me that that will cause us to lose, and therefore somebody who would not have sounded that way Thursday night is the only one who can win.
And in today's case, it happens to be Mitch Daniels.
I mean, tomorrow it could be Huckabee.
Who knows?
But I don't have the Huckabee story to react to yet.
But I do have this.
Now, we've been there, done that with this business of we got to cross the aisle and work with the other side.
We had that.
We've been there.
We've done that.
We've had candidates who tell us that conservatism is not enough.
We've had candidates who've told us conservatism is an albatross.
Sorry, it's the way of the future.
From the Solissa piece, a Daniel's candidacy probably would be taken as a sign that the games are over for the Republican Party.
Time to buckle down.
Organize now to beat President Obama.
It's time to get serious now.
Well, given the source, I read that as a giant slam.
That's an insult.
That is a profound insult.
And I consider this, where is it coming from?
And you couple that with my belief, that is not a belief, it's a fact.
They'll always tell us who they fear.
So you end up here with one giant cloud of suspicion on the part of your host.
The all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling, all-concerned, Maha-Rushi.
And if Daniels should opt not to run, the unpredictability that has ruled the Republican race would continue unabated, and that would be bad.
A field without Daniels would mean a race that remained in considerable flux as candidates considered sideshows, dominated headlines, and complicate Republican efforts to convince the public the party can present a credible alternative.
So only Daniels.
The Washington Post is telling me today that only Mitch Daniels is a credible alternative.
And I'm surprised you want me to believe that, folks.
I would be, if you people really wanted me to think that, then I don't know why you would listen to me ever again.
Can you imagine if, let's say there was no Chris Saliza story here, and I just happened to come on the microphone today and say, folks, guess what?
I thought about this long and hard.
The only credible alternative to Barack Obama is Mitch Daniels.
Where would I be in your minds and hearts today?
What would you think had happened to me over the weekend?
Who would you, okay, who bought Rush off?
Or how many, you know, what happened?
Rush of an accident?
Bang his head?
What happened?
If I were to tell you that.
But we've got a Washington Post piece saying it, and I tell you about it, and I El Rushbone the problem today.
Well, just so all of you know, we aren't as confused as I might be making it sound here.
We know what's going on here at the EIB network.
We know why the seminar callers ramp up as they have today and as they did during Trump.
We know why it is.
And I'm going to tell you, it'll infuriate you because a lot of people don't like it when I'm right, which is most of the time, 99.6% of the time almost, latest audit.
You believe it's the kiss of death if I oppose your candidate.
That's what you're afraid of.
So if your candidate is Mitch Daniels and I oppose him, you think that I can do almost permanent harm.
Well, I don't know if they're right or not.
I'm just telling them that I think that's what they think.
I'll tell you what I'll do, folks.
I will give up the social issues when the Democrats do.
When the Democrats announce that they no longer care about killing babies in the womb, I'll go public and say I don't either.
But as long as they're for it, I'm not going to give it up.
Sorry.
Now, where do we go next?
Back to Indiana.
Hmm.
And Henry in Indianapolis.
Hi, Henry.
Welcome to the program.
Great to have you here.
Hey, Rush, Mega Dittos from a Transplanted Floridian living in Hoosierville.
Thank you, sir.
Long, long time listener, very first caller.
All I can tell you is that I've lived under Mitch Daniels.
My taxes are lower than when I got here.
And I actually agree with you.
He's not the last great hope of the Republican Party.
But I do hope that the other 56 states get to see what we've been enjoying up here for the last few years.
He's a great conservative.
I think it's a question of message over substance in that I don't think he's willing to cede abortion or any other social issue to the Democrats.
But I do agree with him that in order to get the mandate that we need to basically cut the federal government in half, that we do need to attract people that don't listen to your show, unfortunately.
And unfortunately, I think the only thing that most people know about Mitch is the Weekly Standard article, Perhaps, and the CPAC speech.
So I do hope that he runs.
He has some problems because, let's face it, he's vertically challenged and bald, but he's a wonderful candidate.
He ran a brilliant campaign up here, and I just hope that he runs.
Let me go back to this.
I want to get your understanding of something.
You said it was unfortunate you agree with him.
But in order to get the mandate that we need to cut the federal government in half, we need to attract people that don't listen to my show.
And I think he also said Hannity's.
He did.
He did.
Okay, now, what does that mean to you?
I mean, in this context?
Apparently, there's some people out there who don't listen to me, and there's a reason why they don't.
And we've got to go out there and we've got to convince them that what?
The party is not Rush Limbaugh, that the.
No, no, it's not that at all.
Let's face it, Indiana is a state that is conservative by culture, but it's also Democrat by culture.
And Mitch Daniels at one point, I don't know what his current approval rating was, but it was 70-some percent.
Is that Mitch Daniels changing his message to fit the people or the people being brought along by his message?
And I think it's the latter.
Well, see, that gets to my question.
Do people not listen to me because they disagree with me?
No, not necessarily.
I think they're.
Well, then why do we need those people?
No, you touched on it a couple days last week when you said that some people get turned off by your shtick thinking that you're arrogant and all that.
And I have some of those in my family who are conservatives, but they don't listen to you because they don't get it.
And the first line of one of your first books was Lighten Up or something like that.
People don't listen to you for lots of reasons, Rush.
Other people listen to you for lots of reasons, people who agree and disagree.
Mitch Daniels is a conservative as somebody who is a social and a physical conservative.
I've lived in this state under Mitch Daniels' rule for the last, say, seven years.
And it's indicative of his weakness right now from a recognition standpoint that there's a debate on whether or not he's conservative or not.
Because if you look at his record, he is a conservative socially and physically.
I think the comments in the CPAC speech were such just saying by message, we're not going to change who we are as conservatives, but we have to approach people where they are as opposed to where we are.
Meaning we've got to compromise with them.
Not at all.
It's not a question of changing your future.
Well, but you are.
You're saying we have to accommodate their premise in order to perhaps convince them or persuade them.
Well, Rush, let's look back at Mitch's campaign.
You know, the idea that all Republicans are rich white males who don't care about poor people.
Well, Mitch Daniels campaigned in an RV.
He went to...
You see, this is my point.
I'm sorry.
I think accepting that premise is insulting.
I agree.
And by the way, along the same lines, why do we need a mandate to cut the deficit in half?
Obama's already promised to do that, and he's not doing it, and he's unbeatable.
Why do we need a mandate?
I mean, that's what they're telling us.
I'm jumping back to something you said previously.
Not fair.
I'm taking you back to something I'm sure you thought we were finished discussing, and I've got to take a timeout here because of the constraints of the programming format.
But you see, Mitch Daniels, what are you using here to convince me?
He's a good guy.
He drives an RV.
He's not a rich, fat cat who doesn't care about people.
Well, is that not accepting the premise of all of liberalism, and that's who we all are?
So Mitch Daniels is driving an RV in a campaign to prove that he's not what they say.
Well, I wouldn't drive an RB that proved anything to anybody.
I'd drive an RB only if I liked it.
I wouldn't get in an RV just to have somebody think something of me.
I'm very proud of what I believe.
I'm happy to stand up for who I am and what I am and what I believe every day of the week.
And I'm happy to try to persuade as many people along the way as possible.
And there's not, you know, social issues.
Let's have a truce.
Let's put them aside.
I know what that means.
Ronald Reagan won two landslides with them.
And I don't know where, well, I do know.
I do know where this notion comes from.
We can't win on social issues.
It comes from liberal Republicans with nag wives.
Back after this.
Hammerback, Rush Limbaugh serving humanity.
The big voice on the right.
In 2009, in February, at the White House, Barack Obama convened a meeting of congressional leaders, Republicans and Democrats.
And at that meeting, President Barack Obama, liberal socialist, Marxist, whatever you want to call him, said to John Boehner and the Republicans, you can't listen to Rush Limbaugh anymore.
That's not how things get done.
Barack Obama, 2009.
Here's Mitch Daniels this February at CPAC.
We must be the vanguard of recovery, but we cannot do it alone.
We have learned in Indiana, big change requires big majorities.
We will need people who never tune in to Rush or Glenn or Laura or Sean, who surf past C-SPAN to get to Sports Center, who, if they ever heard of CPAC, would assume it was a cruise ship accessory.
Okay, so Barack Obama, you can't listen to Rush.
That's not how things get done here.
Mitch Daniels, you're going to need more people.
You can't, it's going to cut it.
We need people more than Rush and Laura Sean, whatever.
By the way, Ronald Reagan, and I know nobody will disagree with me on this.
Ronald Reagan campaigned on uniting social and fiscal conservatives.
Ronald Reagan never said, by the way, if you're an ex-conservative, I don't want you.
You're an ex-conservative.
We need to call a truce.
We need to make you irrelevant for this campaign.
Ronald Reagan never said to ex-conservative, you're the problem in this race.
Somehow we've got to make sure nobody hears from you.
Reagan never said that.
Here's one more Mitch Daniels bite.
Again, this from CPAC, February 12th in Washington.
Should distinguish carefully skepticism about big government from contempt for all government.
After all, it is a new government we hope to form.
I urge a similar thoughtfulness about the rhetoric we deploy in the great debate ahead.
I suspect everyone here regrets and laments the sad, crude coarsening of our popular culture.
President Reagan would admonish us: remember, we have no enemies, only opponents.
Good advice.
Then and now.
I submit that as we ask Americans to join us on such a boldly different course, it would help if they liked us just a bit.
Now, it would help if they liked us.
You're going to need people who never tuned into Rush or Glenn or Laura or Sean.
We need people would help if they like us.
Well, why don't they like us?
There's another premise.
They don't like us, they hate us.
Why?
If we're so hated, how come we want a landslide in November?
You know, it's one thing to tailor a message to those who don't know you or have the wrong idea.
I can understand that, folks.
But it's another thing to want to reach those people by distancing yourself from or criticizing or trashing those who might support you or who do support you.
I mean, it's one thing to go out and tailor a message to people who don't know you and say, look, I'm this, but you don't do that by saying, and by the way, these other people like me, screw them.
I don't care about them.
We're not unifying here when you do that.
Okay, I got to take another boy, the time is zipping by here.
It really is.
And I've got very little of it left here, so we got to go.
Now, look, folks, don't misunderstand.
I know that Mitch Daniels is not saying that people should not listen to me.
I know he's not saying that.
I just, my question is: why is it that it's always us who have to change and accommodate the real extremists out there?
Why is it they never have to change, make us like them?