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May 13, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:54
May 13, 2011, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24 7 Podcast.
I sit here, my friends, and sometimes you know I sit and ponder.
I ponder the evolution of my own career.
I ponder the evolution of the job, which to me is not actually a job, and I ponder the sometimes remarkable changes that have occurred in what will be 23 years on August 1st.
And today is one of those days.
In addition to the fact that it is Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
One of our all-time favorite days of the week, Open Line Friday.
This is where the unvarnished truth of just who the callers are and what they're all about surfaces.
It can also be open bomb Friday.
It doesn't happen much, but it's hilarious when it does.
We had a bomb show about three weeks ago.
Well, month, maybe six weeks ago now.
It was all of December.
It was November.
It's been that long ago that we had the bomb show.
By bomb, I mean, folks, if it had happened in my first week, I'd be history.
And it was a best of show.
If it had happened the first week, um, you wouldn't have ever heard of me.
That's how bad it was.
That's the risk that I take on open line Friday.
On Friday, we turn a c the entire content of the program, we go to the phones, is up to the callers.
It is not shepherded by me, uh supervised in any way.
Whatever people want to talk about, especially if I don't care about it.
Monday through Thursday, I have to care about it, or they don't get on the air.
But on Friday, doesn't matter.
I mean, there are a few rules.
We we're still not gonna we're not gonna promote boredom here.
Non-knowingly.
So if uh if there's something you think needs to be discussed that hasn't been, or if there's a point of view you think that hasn't been expressed that needs to be, or if you have a question or comment, then this is your day.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882, the email address Ilrushbow at EIB netcom.
As I pause and reflect.
There are massive changes that have taken place.
Just in terms of what is not only acceptable content for this program, but in fact what might be considered necessary.
Now, there's a news story today that had it happened anytime in the first 20 years of this program, if I had spent time on it, I would have received calls from various program directors carrying this program all across the like Tyler Cox at WBAP in Dallas, Laurie Cantillo at WABC New York, Robin Bertolucci at KFI in uh Los Angeles, they would have all called and said, What are you doing?
If you keep this up, we're gonna have to make a change.
And that would have been talking about anything to do with the U.S. budget.
It was deaf.
Talking about the U.S. budget was something people are 80 years old and older cared about.
And and look at today.
There's a poll out.
Marist has a poll, and they're a bunch of lefties.
This is stunning to me.
According to the latest Marist poll, Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling by more than two to one.
Okay, that's interesting in and of itself.
And when you only measure people who've actually been following the issue, the numbers are even more lopsided.
But get this.
This is what's amazing.
A majority of Americans.
57% say they are closely following the news about discussions related to the debt ceiling.
Fifty-seven I can tell you that 22 years ago that number would be less Than 5%.
Ten years ago, it would have been barely 50%.
1995 budget battle, you might have had some interest in it for a short period of time.
This is stunning to me.
It really is, in terms of what's mattering to people.
And it goes to a point that I have believed for a long time.
Just as it seems it's a violation of conventional wisdom to say that Obama is imminently beatable.
I think the majority of this country is us.
We just don't see it reflected anywhere.
But we are the majority in this country.
Tea Party conservatism, particularly, if you look at the way people live their lives.
We are categorized each and every day as the fringe, but we're not.
We are the mainstream.
The way we believe, the way we live, the uh philosophies, the morality, all of it.
We are the mainstream of this country.
And it's it's reflected in in any number of places if you want to accept it.
It's a tough thing for people to accept because they don't see it reflected anywhere.
They go to watch a movie, they don't they don't see the way they live reflected as respectable, admirable, or even normal.
They read a book, same thing.
Listen to music.
Look at who the White House invites to come read poetry.
It ain't from the majority of the country.
It's from a genuine, true, radicalized fringe.
The media, the mainstream media is not the mainstream media any longer.
The mainstream media is in the minority now.
You have to add them all up together.
And they're but even when you do that, they're nowhere near as large and penetrable as they used to be.
I mean, it would have been deaf.
I kid you it would have been deaf for me to talk about this Maris poll at all.
It would have been pointless for me to even try to convince you that it was worth knowing about.
It was that it was it was worth you being interested in.
And now here we are, 57 in a leftist poll, the mayorist 57% of the American people are following it.
And it's two to one.
It's two to one that people do not want this debt ceiling raised.
This kind of stuff, people ask me, well, how do you stay so optimistic?
This kind of stuff.
These hidden little jewels out there.
You're not going to see this reported and uh in traditional media outlets.
You're not going to see it heralded.
This is a problem for our quote unquote opponents or uh or enemies.
No, I'm not in the business of taking credit, Sterley.
I'll be glad to accept credit, but I'm not going to go out there and take it.
Well, it may have started when I talked about baseline budgeting and so forth, but I think the real factor here is what making this something that is relevant is life experiences.
They're people actually finally now living the disaster that for 20 years we have been predicting would be brought about by liberalism.
They're living it now.
People are a little bit more sophisticated than they're given credit for.
Why?
Well, because you can't include food or energy prices.
The price fluctuations are too volatile.
They're never stable enough.
Oh, really?
So the fact that gasoline's over four bucks a gallon and hamburger is going up by two bucks a pound, that we got to throw that out.
Yeah, yeah, you can't, you can't factor that in uh inflation.
Well, you may not, but the way it causes us to live means we cannot avoid it.
So we know there's inflation.
So a majority of the American people know they're being lied to or misrepresented, misinformed, or even better, they now know what's happening that they're not being told about.
That's been one of the key powers the mainstream media has always had.
It's not just what they reported and how they commented on it.
It's what they chose not to report.
It's What they did not consider to be news.
Even the young people of New York are catching on and moving out of the state.
And who was leading that trend?
Remember when I said to David Patterson to govern, well, I didn't say it to him specifically, but I said, look, if you do, if you guys are going to raise taxes, I will lead the exodus out of town.
And David Patterson, the then governor of New York said, Hell, if I'd have known that's all it took to get rid of limbo, I'd have raised everybody's taxes sooner.
And everybody, well, wow, that's clever.
That's funny, but in the meantime, young people under 30 are telling pollsters.
They can't hack it in New York.
They can't make in the next five years, if things don't work out for him, they're splitting the scene.
They're gonna have to go places where job opportunities are more plentiful, housing prices are more reasonable and uh and what have you.
So it all ties in here.
This this uh this notion Obama's unbeatable, that the country's lost.
It's uh it's not.
Another thing, ladies and gentlemen, I had uh an amazing, see, I told you so prediction last Friday about Mitt Romney.
By the way, uh just a little side question.
Somebody sent me an email last night wanting to know what the real name, what Mitt Romney's real name is.
You know what his real name is, Snertley.
Well, you know it's not Mitt.
The nickname.
Well, what okay.
If you thought it was Mitt, do you think it was short for something like Mitten or Mittendorf or whatever?
Well, it's a no, but it's it's not his real name.
Willard, I think.
I think his real name's Willard.
Uh no, like the hotel.
Like the Hotel in Washington, the Willard Hotel.
Are you thinking that Michael Jackson song about the rat?
Oh, yeah, that that rat movie.
No, no, no.
Don't do that.
There's a Willard the Hotel.
But that's at any r oh.
You're gonna make fun of Willard and and and Obama is a standard ordinary everyday name, huh?
Standard Muslim name.
All right.
Any rate.
Anyway, let me grab the audio sound bites.
Let's go back last Friday.
I want you to listen to this.
Mitt is the middle name, and it's not short for anything.
Willard Mitt Romney.
I had people wanted to know what I thought he was going to do vis-a-vis uh Romney care in Massachusetts and his presidential run.
Last Friday, last Friday, I made a prediction.
I offered some advice.
Let's revisit it.
One week ago, this, my friends, this is why we say, give us your ears for three hours, and you will be ours for life.
I'm not a political advisor.
I'm just a big voice on the right, driving the independence back to Obama.
But I I really think that he's gonna have to disown it at some point.
So far he won't, and I don't know.
Well, I know he says he wants to repeal Obamacare.
But if even if I were Romney, what I would do, I'm sure the guy's cell phone battery died or I'd have heard from him.
If I were Romney and this question came up, I would be tempted to say, why are you asking me for logical consistency?
I'm running against Obama.
Why don't you go ask him these?
He's the guy that's got some explaining to do.
Obama's the guy, he's got some job creation, how's that working out?
Hope and change, how's that working out?
Saving the housing market?
How's that working out?
Energy independence, how's that working out?
Obama's the guy that's intellectually inconsistent.
So Romney could say that.
And he has said he wants to repeal Obamacare, but the Republicans are gonna take him on first in the primaries if he says that he fully supports repealing Obamacare.
One of his Republican opponents is saying, Well, you ought to support repealing your care, too.
So far, he has not chosen a path that would distance himself from it, nor throw it under the bus.
I don't know what he's going to do.
Right now, I thought it's almost like a uh wild guess here, folks.
It's almost like the strategy is that showing a commitment to himself because policies by not being bullied off of his own piece of legislation.
Did I call that?
That's one week ago.
Did I call that or did I call it?
Right down the middle, I said you're gonna have to disown it at some point because your Republican opponents are gonna take you on.
But he also said that one of the reasons why he's not going to change is he he doesn't want to further uh this this reputation he's got that he is a flip-flopper.
So he he basically said he's he wasn't going to be bullied off of his own piece of legislation.
So he's committed to it now.
For whatever reasons.
And here is Romney yesterday afternoon in Ann Arbor.
He is at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center.
And he spoke about health care policy as a portion of what he said.
I respect the views of those who think uh that we took the wrong course and who think we should have taken a different course.
I also recognize that a lot of pundits around the nation are saying that I should just stand up and say this whole thing was a mistake.
It was just a bone-headed idea, and I should just admit it.
It was a mistake and walk away from it.
And I presume that a lot of folks would conclude that if I did that, that'd be good for me politically.
But there's only one problem with that.
It wouldn't be honest.
I in fact did what I believed was right for the people of my state.
And I'm gonna describe for you now what I think would be right for the people of the United States, which is quite a different plan.
So he's wedded to it.
I I it it's well.
Home run.
In terms of the prediction, I shudder to think what this means for him.
It's a big roll of the dice.
It's uh well yeah, you could say it is gutsy.
You could uh you you you could you could say guts.
And you know what, folks?
I was almost right about Romney being named after a hotel, not a rat, snurtly.
As you said, it uh it wasn't the historic Willard Hotel in Washington, but Romney was named after J. Willard Marriott.
The famed hotel magnate.
That was his father's best friend.
Jay Willard Marriott was George Romney's best friend.
All right, a quick timeout.
We'll be back.
Open line Friday, all day.
Well, at least until pre-Eastern.
Never enough, though, for people.
Open line Friday, and the sun never sets on the EIB network.
Our audience is global, including podcasts.
People are listening in the daytime all over the world.
In all four corners of the world.
The sun never sets.
Great to have you back.
All right, uh, equal time.
We talked about Romney.
Now time to bring up Mitch Daniels.
As you know, Mitch Daniels appeared last night, Indianapolis, well, somewhere in Indiana was the state.
Where was it?
Uh yep, Indianapolis.
With 1,100 people chanting, run Mitch Run, Governor Mitch Daniels took the stage on Thursday night and did something he's never done before.
He introduced his wife Sherry.
And then he turned the microphone over to her to address the sold-out crowd.
It was Sherry Daniels' first ever speech at a big political event in all the years that she has been the first lady of Indiana.
And with the speculation over whether her husband will enter the presidential race now at a fever pitch, her mere presence at the podium for the annual state Republican dinner had everyone searching for clues and hidden meanings.
Now the reason for this is people at Indiana are very much aware that she does not like politics.
She just doesn't like it.
And she has said publicly that she has no desire to be first lady or to do any Of the things that that job requires.
And so that's why people were paying attention last night.
In fact, I'll tell you a little secret.
I've I uh in the past six months I have met with two or three Republican presidential candidates.
Some who had not announced at the time, some who had.
And I asked them all about Mitch Daniels, all of them.
And I'm talking maybe three or four.
And without exception, they're not going to run.
Wife hates it.
His wife hates politics.
We're not worried about all this talk about Daniels is that at the end of it, Rush, Daniels isn't running.
Wife won't let him, wife doesn't like it, doesn't like politics, doesn't like the campaign trail, doesn't want any part of it.
I said, are you sure?
Why is he acting like he's acting?
Why flirt with this if it's so feta complete?
I don't know, Russley's not running.
I've I've heard this from three or four.
Republican hopefuls.
So now she's making speeches in Indianapolis, breaking new ice, new ground, having done that.
And seems like that conventional wisdom is about to be blown up, too.
No, I'm not going to tell you who told me.
If I start dropping names like that, these people will stop talking to me.
I'm just going to tell you it's three or four Republican presidential candidates.
Some had announced and some hadn't at the time.
And we're going back six weeks or two months and without fail.
They all said there's no way that Mitch Daniels is going to run his wife won't let him.
Or his wife hates politics.
His wife doesn't want to be first late.
They were not concerned at all.
I said, well, that doesn't make sense, because Mitch Daniels clearly wants people to think that it's better than 50-50.
He's going to.
He's positioning himself to run.
No, he's not going to run.
He's not going to run.
My wife can't stand it.
So we moved to last night.
1,100 people chanting run, Mitch Run.
Sherry Daniels makes her first ever speech.
And CBS News was there, Jan Crawford, and as a sign of how important Daniels' wife is to the decision.
Sources tell CBS News that even former First Lady Laura Bush has called Sherry Daniels personally to encourage her to support the effort of her husband and offer advice on how to define what her role on the campaign and potentially in the White House would be.
Now, if what does that tell you?
If Laura Bush has called Sherry Daniels, then Mitch is in.
And if Laura Bush has called Sherry Daniels, it means that Mitch Daniels is who the Bush people, the political team hopes gets the nomination.
That's what it means.
So the full court press is being applied to Sherry Daniels, Laura Bush calling her up.
Hey, you can do this.
Here's how you do this.
I did it.
I didn't really want to do it either, but here's how you make it work.
So it's clear the Bush political team wants Daniels.
And for her part, Sherry Daniels did not rule it out.
She did stand up, make a speech, and she left it a lot of people with the impression that she's going to sign off on it.
Mitch Daniels left people with the impression that he doesn't care how she defines the role.
If she wants to be first lady a couple days, he didn't say it this way, but my interpretation is that if she don't want to go on a campaign trail on Friday or Saturday or Monday or Tuesday, Wednesday, she doesn't have to.
If she wants to be first lady two days a week, fine.
She's all she has to do.
There's no rules.
Whatever she wants, she can do.
That's how I interpreted what Mitch said.
Now, you people, I'm sure all of you in Indianapolis were there last night.
And I'll hear from you today on Open Mind Friday, tell me where I'm wrong about my interpretation.
You're welcome to.
I'm not being critical.
And in fact, have you noticed?
Have you noticed how the media is desperately trying to manufacture some kind of scandal out of Mitch Daniels and his wife having divorced and then remarried.
They got divorced, I forget the years.
I think it was 1994 they divorced, and she married an old high school boyfriend, and it didn't work out, and they found each other again.
And uh and everything's uh hunky dory now.
Now, these reporters are pretending to be concerned about Sherry Daniels' concerns for privacy.
That's one of her big problems here, and that's understandable.
She won't have any.
And the reporters are pretending to be concerned about that.
But of course, what the reporters are really doing is threatening the Daniels that they're gonna rip them to shreds if it's at all possible.
One thing, Mitch is no different than any other Republican candidate in the sense that if he is the nominee, he's gonna get a media anal like he's never had before, and so will his wife, and so will that divorce and remarriage.
And the drive-by's are signaling that.
And if it's at all possible, they will rip them to shreds over.
Because it it just doesn't seem conventional.
But I'm just saying with Laura Bush calling Sherry Daniels that what is that?
I mean, it's pretty fate of conflict, is it not?
It's at the very least, it tells us that the Bush political team wants Mitch Daniels, that that's their guy.
And to the extent the Bush political team are kingmakers, we'll see.
Now let's move to the Washington Post.
Ruth Marcus.
She's a uh a columnist at the Washington Post.
And her piece ran yesterday.
And I'm just gonna read the open here verbatim.
I hope Mitch Daniels runs for president.
Now remember, Ruth Marcus will vote for Obama.
Ruth Marcus, the Democrat.
Ruth Marcus will never ever vote for a Republican.
Just like Chris Selizza at the Washington Post, well, he's gonna vote Obama.
And so is Ruth Marcus.
So here you have state controlled media.
I hope Mitch Daniels runs for president.
Let's go further.
Let me go further.
I hope Mitch Daniels wins the Republican nomination.
I can't imagine voting for him.
But Daniels' presence would improve the 2012 campaign.
He would make Barack Obama a better candidate.
The current Republican field runs the gamut from flawed to laughable.
The least flawed is former Minnesota Governor Tim Polenty.
But just being the guy who's left after all the other candidates are crossed off for one reason or another is not the strongest claim to lead your party.
Daniels, the current governor of Indiana, is the un-Romney, unlike Romney, whose only core conviction seems to be the ought to be president.
Daniels has a set and stable worldview.
He is the un-Trump, indeed, the unnewed.
Bluster and bravado are not words that come to mind when you meet Daniels, short and balding.
He has the air of an accountant at a mid-sized manufacturing firm.
This woman, Ruth Marcus, goes on to tell us she wants Daniels to be the nominee because that will make it a more interesting campaign.
She will be more entertained.
And at the end, it will improve Obama as a candidate, and he might even win with a bigger electoral majority and end up being a better president.
Now, if you're in the Daniels camp, I don't know how you interpret this.
You've got this is a second time now the Washington Post has run a story urging your nomination.
The Washington Post, which everybody knows is going to vote for Obama, was going to do everything he can to reelect Obama.
Now I'm sorry, folks, but I can't help it.
I live in Realville, Literalville.
Small population, small town.
Logic and common sense are the prominent characteristics of residents of Liberalville.
And if I got Ruth Marcus here writing about how she wants Mitch Daniels to run for president, win the Republican nomination, but wants Obama to win.
Then something tells me that she believes that Mitch Daniels would pose not that big a challenge.
Turn it around.
Let's say that.
Let's say we're all supporters of Ronald Reagan.
He's coming up on his second term.
And the Democrats tell us that they're going to nominate either Mario Cuomo or Walter Mondel.
And we say, well, you know what?
We really want to we want a good campaign.
We want to be entertained here.
We think we think Mondale, Mondale, Mondale, that's the guy.
Mondell be the he'd give Reagan the best run for his money and make the most.
Who would believe us?
If we did something akin to this, started trying to pick their nominee, they would accuse us of trying to pick somebody who's going to lose.
Here they are, at least the Washington Post, trying to pick our nominee on the basis that it'd be boring to have anybody but Mitch be the nominee.
And only Mitch stands a chance of winning.
Does that make sense to you?
You want your guy to win, but you want him opposed by somebody who might beat him?
Does it make sense?
So what kind of fools do we think that well, I don't even know, I understand the thinking because I understand liberals, but I don't understand it at the same time.
What in the world?
Why write this?
Who is she trying to impress?
I guarantee you it's other writers.
I hope Mitch Daniels runs for president.
Let me go further.
I hope he wins the nomination.
I can't imagine voting for him.
But you want him to win because it'll be a more entertaining campaign and a better challenge.
Make your guy a better candidate.
You care about your guy being a better candidate, or you care about him winning.
Sit tight.
We're coming back.
We'll get to phone calls next.
We try to get to calls in the first hour on Open Line Friday, and we'll do it now, right after this.
Ruth Marcus, simply put, Ruth Marcus is saying Mitch Daniels will make Obama look good.
Is that is that the perspective that you view all of this in?
Pick a nominee that'll make the incumbent look good?
That's what Ruth Marcus is saying.
Here, a couple more quick lines from her piece.
The real appeal of a Daniels candidacy is that I believe he's serious about reducing the debt and realistic about what it'll take to achieve that.
And then she cites what she thinks that is.
Raising taxes.
In a rigid GOP world of no new tax ideologues, Daniels actually proposed a temporary tax increase to help close Indiana's budget gap.
So what Ruth is saying here is give us Mitch, because that gets rid of these far right wingers who are talking tax cuts and austerity.
Give us one of us.
Give us a tax increaser.
So that it's kind of like what Pelosi said.
Can we go back to the days where it didn't matter who won elections when there wasn't that big a difference?
It really didn't matter.
The differences weren't that stark or draconian.
Now, if Michelle Obama calls Sherry Daniels and urges her to get in, like Laura Bush did, then I don't know if we would ever hear that or hear about that.
All right, to the phones we go.
This is Joe in St. Louis as we kick off.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hi.
Rush, it's Jeff.
Megadiddo.
Thank you, sir.
Uh, quick question.
How do you see the pending demographic shift in this country working for the GOP with this with the shift to more and more Hispanic voters who are traditionally Democrat leaning?
How do I see that affecting Republicans, did you say?
yeah in the future it i think you know that what that with the demographic shift going to more and more hispanic toward a dish traditionally Democrat, how do you see the GOP fighting that and molding their message to gain some of that demographic vote?
Very simply.
And I know that this is you talk about unconventional wisdom.
This is it.
In fact, I was in a conversation not long ago with a high-ranking Republican and high-ranking Democrat, and they were talking about re-elect 2012 and what each party was going to have to do with this group and that group and this group and how they're going to have to do what they had to do to get the votes in this group.
And I I held up my hands and said, you know what?
I don't understand you guys, I can't relate to you.
I asked why I couldn't be in politics.
Because I don't look at people this way.
I think human beings are human beings.
And I would go after the Hispanic vote the same way I go after the white vote.
I'd go after the Hispanic vote the same way I go after the female vote.
What I would not do is take a group, okay.
What do you guys want?
Oh, you want, okay, fine, I'll give you that.
Here's my speech for you.
And next go over to the women.
What do you women want?
Well, we want, okay, here's my speech for you.
And I hope the other guys don't hear it.
I I do not I I I could never do it the way these guys could I I couldn't I couldn't categorize the country, the Hispanics, they have a tendency to vote democratic because of what?
Okay, what do we have to do therefore to get those B Democrat light?
Sir, I couldn't do it.
That's why I will stay here and be on the radio.
And I told these two guys, these uh ranking Republicans and Democrats, uh, who were basically asking me similar opinions to your question.
I said, I can't answer it that way because I don't look at the country this way.
I I I don't look at this country as group A, Group B, Group C. I think a message of individual liberty, freedom, individual rugged individualism, uh basic conservatism, the message of the founding of this country will appeal to every human being who hears it.
If the message is presented with no excuses, if it's if with confidence and energy, uh and and leadership, so I I don't I'm sorry, I'm sure I'm letting you down with your question, but I really don't have an answer.
Because I I I would not pander.
I would not say okay with the Hispanics, whatever somebody's gonna tell me they want.
Well, Mr. Limbo, this is why you will never win elected because the Hispanics want amnity uh for every Spanish-speaking person.
No, they don't.
I don't believe that's true.
If every Spanish speaking person in this country wants amnesty for illegals, I'll eat my hat.
I just don't believe that.
And if that's what they want, there's no hope the Republicans can ever get them, because if the Republicans offer that, they lose their base.
And I think all these questions, I actually think they're traps, and I think I gave you people little insight not long ago about how I think and I gotta be very careful here, consultants in the broadcast business can do harm, particularly in television.
And I think political consultants can do the same kind of harm because what they'll uh uh apparently do quite readily is decide that candidate A can't be himself on issue A. Go ahead and be yourself on issue B, that's an issue C. No, we gotta come up with something else for you to say.
You can't and it's this is why there is so much timidity in candidates, why there is such a reluctance to be forthright and honest because somebody's told him if you say that, you're gonna anger that group over there, you can't do that.
I as one who does not look at people as victims, and I do not look at people as member of groups, and I do not like when I did this radio program, I daring damn tea you, I have never once okay, uh how do I attract uh the 18-year-old crowd?
To the chagrin of program directors all over the country.
I have never once what do I need to do to attract women?
I do that naturally.
What do I do to attract I I don't look at it that way.
I believe people are people.
I think there's some universal messages.
I think good radio is good radio.
Smart, honest politics is smart, honest politics.
And if you have the right message for people who live in this country, want to be Americans, I don't think you need to categorize it.
On a cutting edge of societal evolution, Rush Limbaugh, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Great to have you here, folks.
Open line Friday.
Whatever you wish to talk about, fair game.
It's the greatest career risk ever taken by prominent media figure in America.
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