I always delude myself, I guess, into thinking if I'm enjoying myself, maybe the listeners are.
I sure hope so.
And we will have this kind of hijinks today and tomorrow.
Rush is back on Wednesday, and I thank him and everybody at EIB for letting me come hang out.
You know the drill.
You know the number, 1-800-282-2882.
We've had a lot of 2012 talk these first couple hours, but that is so multi-layered.
I mean, we're all over the place from the Bachman announcement to the so needless feud between her and Fox News.
Needless for a couple of reasons.
It's funny.
I was looking at the Twitter folks.
I mean, I never pay too much.
Well, I pay attention, obviously, or I wouldn't give you.
It's Mark Davis, all one word at Twitter.
If you want to come follow me, be my guest.
Well, many of you have, apparently for the express purpose of lighting me up like a Christmas tree because you think I'm attempting to, one of you said, clean up Chris Wallace's mess.
Guys, I think Chris Wallace cleaned up his own mess.
Just because I'm saying that Congresswoman Bachman should absolutely accept the apology for the are you a flake comment, I'm just trying, I'm trying to get this over with so that we can look at what this wonderful woman might well do in the campaign and maybe even as president of the United States.
It is Chris Wallace's fault this got started.
He had a bad moment asking the question that bluntly and unartfully.
But that having been done, there are some things that help it go away.
And Congresswoman Bachman saying, of course I accept the apology, but maybe people need to think twice about whether they doubt my seriousness from here on out.
Boom!
That way she's gracious and tough at the same time.
Why is it always mutually exclusive?
Oh, the only way she can be tough is to call Chris Wallace an SOB and tell him, you know, it's like, oh, man, is that really the way it's going to be?
Is that really what we're looking for?
Where are the lines of toughness drawn?
Where are the lines of conservatism drawn?
As we take a look at the Des Moines Register poll numbers and take a look at, oh, I guess I might as well do this.
I might as well do this as we get ready to head back to your calls.
I mentioned that it can be instructive to hear somebody, if you're hearing them for the first time, or it's been a little while since you and I last spoke, that maybe if I took a little walk, a very brief one, through the field and gave you a little word association on just about everybody,
then you'll know where I am and you can either love it or not love it and do so publicly at 1-800-282-2882.
Okay, you ready?
Here we go.
Mitt Romney, frontrunner.
Why?
Name recognition and enough campaign skills to deserve it.
He is someone of substance, and I can see people taking a look at him and saying he looks presidential and, you know, he came close in 08.
Yeah, why not?
Especially if nobody else floats your boat.
However, on just way too many issues, not conservative enough for me.
And in fact, let me pause right here because in a little bit of the exchange that we just had about Governor Perry, my own governor here in Texas, and I just already talked about Tim Polenti and climate change and Governor Romney and climate change and healthcare and God knows what else, that if there are things that make me wonder about your conservatism, I don't want to have to wonder about your conservatism after I help elect you.
I can almost hear some of you tweeting back to me, if you wish.
Yeah, Mark, how come that concerns you about a Palenti or a Romney, but you're willing to gloss over a couple of things that Perry's done?
That's a very good question.
Here is what I hope is a very good answer.
If Governor Perry were insufficiently conservative on, oh, I don't know, health care or spending or states' rights or social issues.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, we'd have a problem.
We'd have a problem.
What Governor Perry has is a couple of instances where he's done things that I wouldn't have done that I didn't think were conservative enough.
They involved a statewide transportation issue here, an initiative for a gardasil inoculation for girls there that had an easy opt-out, finally.
I'd say the most important thing on Governor Perry where I really hope he comes around is on being the kind of border warrior I want him to be.
I'm all about Mexican drug gangs and fighting all that stuff too.
Yeah, that's great.
But the millions upon millions of folks flooding across our southern border, the enormous burden on our social infrastructure and the negative effect on jobs and the bazillions of dollars that are earned here.
And instead of turning over in the American economy, which they do if you work here or if I work here and then go to the store and buy a refrigerator, and then the guy who built the refrigerator gets to go buy food and then the farmer gets to go buy fertilizer.
That's money turning over in the economy.
Yeah, not so much in the land of illegal immigration, where somebody does admittedly hard work.
Don't even talk to me about stuff our own people won't do.
Hey, can we put that to the test?
Can we let them try, please?
Especially in this economy?
I'll bet there are all kinds of gringos love to be tarring roofs right about now, okay?
Thank you.
So anyway, not to be stereotypical, there are all kinds of jobs to be done.
But then that money just vanishes.
It's Western Union over to Guadalajara and boom, it is gone, baby.
Gone.
So that's the kind of illegal immigration impact that I want to hear more about from Governor Perry.
And you know something?
I have a feeling I will.
So if you put all that together, is he palatable enough for me?
Absolutely.
Absootly.
So.
All right, moving on down.
Sarah Palin, lover.
Her heart, her courage, her character, the, God, just the energy that just ignites the minute she walks into a room.
There's no equivalent for it in this field or any field I can think of for a while.
Does that mean she's the best candidate in 2012?
I don't know.
Is she even running?
I bet not.
So maybe we'll be spared this whole thing.
And I kind of hope we are.
Because if I could wave a wand right now, it would be to have Governor Palin and her wonderful family and that sound heart and that beautiful mind and that ceaseless energy devoted toward the causes that mean everything to her.
Socially, fiscally, everything.
And let her be queen of the anointers.
Let a nod of approval from her really mean something because it would to me and it should to you if you're conservative.
And let her write books and do TV shows and do movies and be on Fox News and field dress a moose, whatever in the world she wants to do, because I just love this woman.
I don't think she's running and I'm okay with that.
Herman Kane, covered him a little bit.
Love him.
If there might be.
Uh-oh.
But as the saying goes, there's a big but.
There's always a big butt.
Well, not always, but there may be a category that we're starting to define here called people, not in Governor Palin's case, because could she get the nomination?
Boy, I bet she could.
Could she beat Obama?
I don't know.
And it's because of what I talked about last hour.
Our nominee is real.
Listen, I know this presidency seems like it's on the ropes.
I know it seems like America doesn't just like most of what he's trying to do.
I know, I know, I know, I know.
But don't you think for a minute that we can drop off our A game?
We've got to offer up somebody who is going to draw like moths to a flame people who have never voted Republican before in their lives.
Governor Palin's appeal to me is beyond doubt.
My love for her knows no bounds.
But I don't know if she brings that kind of appeal to the table.
Independents, crossover voters, whatever you want to call them.
I don't know.
Maybe she'll run, be the nominee, beat Obama by five, and I'll go, well, I guess I know now.
Maybe not.
The category of people I'm looking at, and Herman Kane might start it, is called really good guys with really sound hearts and sound minds and wonderful ideas who probably have no chance whatsoever of getting the nomination.
Who's in that club?
I don't know.
And maybe, and maybe that's not the exact club because there are a lot of people who I don't think are going to get the nomination.
Ron Paul's one of them, but it's not for the same reasons.
I love Congressman Paul.
He's down here too.
Is everybody from Texas?
One way or the other.
One degree of separation.
Congressman Paul, I want, you know, it's kind of funny.
I've talked about our nominee and put together, I guess I probably shouldn't use Frankenstein's monster as the analogy, as a hybrid of, no, let's leave that one totally alone.
I want things grafted from certain people.
I want a weird place to start, Donald Trump's comfort in his own skin.
Trump's ideas, too many of them, were just wacky for a Republican.
Give me a break.
What was that about?
But he's so comfortable in his own skin and he doesn't mind aggressively going after the Obama agenda and absolutely talking tough about China and things like that.
I want our nominee to do that.
Can we graft that from Donald Trump and put it into whoever our nominee is?
Chris Christie, see him on Meet the Press yesterday?
What I want grafted from, well, it's probably an anatomical reference I shouldn't make, but I think you know where I'm going.
I want those on our nominee.
Well, there's a visual.
And sometimes little things tell you a lot.
David Gregory was talking to Chris Christie about an answer he had given to a woman.
Here's a talk show topic.
Let's start this one right now.
If you are a governor and you send your kids to private school, do you have the right to suggest a cut in public school funding?
Of course you do.
What kind of moron says you don't?
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be unkind to Gail, who was the actual questioner there.
I think that was her name.
Yeah, Governor Christie, your kids go to a private school, so is that like fair for you to like cut the public school funding?
You know what that's a close cousin to?
A very close cousin.
I get this.
I'm guessing Rush gets this.
I'm guessing people who, I mean, Reagan was in the military there for a little bit, but you know where I'm going here.
How can we be expected to respect your view on the military when you haven't served?
Really?
Really?
So the only people who can weigh in on military issues are actually people who have served.
90-some percent of everybody never has, and they are to remain mute on military issues.
Let me tell you something about military service.
I love it in my candidates.
I love it.
It's a fantastic thing to have.
It will make me think well of you at first as I begin to see what your actual thoughts are.
But I have not a speck of it.
Vietnam ended when I was 15.
Sorry.
Neither does Rush.
Got any problem with Rush's military views?
Got any problem with mine?
You know, you want some people who are in the military?
I'll give you some people that were in the military.
Jimmy Carter, Wesley Clark, and Tim McVay.
Not attempting to draw any parallel there.
Just essentially trying to tell you the uniform doesn't make you right.
What's important in a presidential candidate is not necessarily whether he or she has served, but whether or not he or she will serve those who have.
Serve them with the right mind and the right heart on military issues.
So anyway, Chris Christie told this woman when she, you know, said, What are you doing cutting public school funding when your kids are in private school?
He told her flat out, none of your business.
God bless Chris Christie, our name.
I tell you, if he tells me for the 734th time that he ain't running, I guess I'm probably starting to believe him.
And I guess I feel this way about everybody whom I admire.
I wish he would.
Get in there, man.
Give us the big, give us so much choice.
Old Joe Jackson song, It's All Too Much.
They say that choice is freedom.
I'm so free, it's driving me insane.
Give me Chris Christie.
Give me Rick Perry.
Bobby Jindal.
Come on, man.
Let's go.
More the merrier.
Let the people and listen.
And God bless Iowa and New Hampshire.
And I'm looking forward to being up there with those good people.
Can we have some states that actually have people in them make some decisions?
And I mean that with all good Christian love.
I mean population density.
I mean, it's Iowa.
It's New Hampshire.
Sometimes I think I'd like to have four.
I do not want one big national primary.
No, no, no.
I love how campaigns bob and weave and adjust and say, ooh, that didn't work well.
Let's try this.
Oh, we got our clocks clean there.
Let's do this.
A campaign is a living, breathing, organic kind of thing.
I almost wish we had four regional ones: northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast.
Boom.
There you go.
Maybe that would be good.
Does that work well for you?
So anyway, but the more truly, the more the merrier.
Truly.
Let real people make real decisions with their real votes and let's see who we really, really want.
Who's with me?
Well, let's see who's with me on the phone and we'll do it next.
Mark Davis in for Rush on the EIB Network.
It is the Monday Rush Limbaugh Show, followed by the Tuesday Rush Limbaugh Show, which you and I are together for as well.
And then for the Wednesday Rush Limbaugh show, you get Rush Limbaugh.
So hang loose.
Your long national nightmare is almost at an end.
The fill-in guys here today and tomorrow, and Rush returns on Wednesday.
It's been a joy.
I hope you're having an okay time too.
As we get ready to go back to some of your calls, boy, I got to tell you, there's been a lot of tension today, lots going on.
Nation has a lot of problems.
World has a lot of problems.
Big exhale.
You ready?
I am thoroughly relieved.
Thoroughly, not well spoken, but thoroughly relieved.
The whole Muammar Gaddafi thing, think we got it.
Everybody chill.
I think we got it.
The International Criminal Court has ordered his arrest.
Phew.
Man, I will sleep better tonight.
Out of The Hague, international judges ordered the arrest of Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafi for murdering civilians as NATO warplanes pounded his Tripoli compound and world leaders stepped up calls for him to end his four-decade rule.
Really?
World leaders are stepping up their calls for him to step aside?
Right.
How's that exactly working so far?
I will tell you, if you want to do some Libya talk in our remaining 34 minutes or tomorrow, we do have tomorrow, I am intrigued by the Libya dichotomy, shall we call it?
I try to approach things, we all should, with some level of consistency.
I believe the War Powers Act is stone cold unconstitutional.
That means if George W. Bush, who was commander-in-chief, wanted to put us in Iraq and stay there as long as he wanted, the way you change that is change commanders-in-chief.
As it so happened, he did.
Is it always better to get congressional approval?
Of course it is.
And it is Congress that declares war, but there are all kinds of things you can do short of actually declaring war.
We're not declaring war on Libya necessarily.
And in the war on terror, we're not declaring war on another nation.
It's a war on terror and the nebulous fog that that can be.
It's a whole nother kind of war.
But we always see this through the lens of who's the commander-in-chief, and are you glad or not glad that President X is commander-in-chief?
A president whom you admire and whom you voted for, being commander-in-chief and able to deploy whomever, whenever, oh, no problem.
But make it Barack Obama, and oh, my heavens, suddenly I'm not sleeping so well at night.
Where is he going to deploy stuff?
And for what empty political purpose, and how ineptly will it be done?
Fair questions all, but you know what?
You don't like it?
Change commanders-in-chief, which I pray we're going to do in about a year and a half.
But until we do, he's the commander-in-chief.
And if he wants to put us in Libya or Luxembourg for every day that he's commander-in-chief, he gets to do that.
And we can either like it or not like it.
Now, one thing we can do, there are two ways to show I don't like it.
One is vote him out, but that takes some time.
The other is defund it.
That's always kind of sticky.
Defunding the operation in progress is always a little dicey.
That's why the president holds all the cards because he is commander-in-chief.
And you know what that means?
You know what that should tell you?
It means we should think dog-on long and dog-on hard about whom we install as commander-in-chief.
Maybe it's not just about hope and change and being post-racial and post-this and post-that and being cool and making history.
Yeah, how's that working out for everybody?
Maybe it's about putting somebody who has a serious enough mind and a stout enough heart to command the army of the greatest superpower the world has ever known.
Can we maybe have our head right with that this coming election?
Because last time, I don't think enough of us did.
Mark Davis in for us.
More phone calls next.
And we are in the home stretch of today's experience together, our final half hour.
I'm Mark Davis from WBAP Dallas-Fort Worth.
Great to be with you.
And it'll be very nice to be with you tomorrow and doubly, triply nice when Russia returns on Wednesday, making everybody happy.
All right, let's see what everybody's pleasure is topically speaking as we head to Houston.
Eric, hey, Mark Davis, how are you?
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Hey, Mark.
I get a chance to travel to Dallas very often for work.
And let me say it's a pleasure to have a chance to listen to you when I'm in the DFW area.
Thanks.
Great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Okay, so having said that, dude, you have been drinking too late.
The kindness, the kindness is but the lure for what follows.
Okay, so let me give everybody who does live outside of Texas the real 401 on Rick Perry, known better as the 39%, because in 2006 he couldn't beat a field of four, but just by 39%, which included a weak Democratic congressman by the name of Chris Bell, a grandmother, and a comedian, and all they could do was get 39%.
But what folks need to note is the governorship of Texas is one of the weakest governorships, one of the weakest seats in the United States.
So this great fortune that we are enjoying here in Texas, very little of it can be attributed to any of the work of Governor Perry.
Now, all this balancing that he's trying to do that's making up for his previous indiscretions towards liberalism or moderation is simply because he wants to position himself for a presidential run.
What would be, maybe you're about to do it, but let me ask you, since you're doing a little mind reading here, tell me what issue that you are so certain that his position on is a fabrication or opportunism that you don't particularly believe.
Well, the Sanctuary Cities bill.
It has specifically to do with the DREAM Act, Lieutenant Governor David Dewher, Susan Combs, the Safe Controller.
Don't brutalize the nation with inside Texas politics.
Just as a favor to me and to them.
So go ahead.
You think that if he's coming around on Sanctuary Cities, that he's not really coming around on the kind of illegal immigration that most of the people.
No, no, no.
And how do you magically know that?
Okay, well, let's look at the TSA legislation that should be passing today on the Texas Congress, the anti-groping bill.
Can I help the country out?
Because that is very interesting.
And let me give the country 60 seconds on that, and then I'll give it right back to you.
On a day in which America is hearing about some 90-some-year-old woman, 45 minutes of ridiculous searching, the TSA is a laughingstock in a lot of America.
We're doing something here in Texas that people either love or they don't.
We're thinking about making it a crime.
We've all heard about how some of those TSA examinations can get a little too personal, if you get my drift.
We are thinking of making it a crime to handle up on your privates in a TSA examination without probable cause.
That has caused a lot of people to go, yeah, about time somebody stood up for flyers' rights.
However, it also is almost certainly unworkable to suggest that a state can have sway over what is a thoroughly federal enclave of authority, the airport screening process.
Now everybody knows?
Go, take the ball, run with it.
Okay, no.
So Rick Perry goes to New Orleans.
He turns the place out with his speech.
On video, immediately following the speech, he poo-poos the TSA bill.
They shut down his switchboards to the governor's office two days in a row.
He decides to put it on the call in the special session.
Absolute flip-flop.
Okay, now look, on the inoculation.
Hang on.
Hang on a minute.
We'll cover each one because believe you me, if Michelle Bachman or Tim Polanyi ever brings this arcane stuff up in New Hampshire, everybody's going to hear about it.
If he scoffed at the anti-groping bill, and it kind of deserves to be scoffed at, but then all of a sudden says, oh, for crying out loud, if everybody is this hopped up about it, okay, I'll put it on the special session and they can either pass it or not.
Tell me what's the matter with that.
Because when you speak to the people of the nation about Governor Perry, it appears that his conservatism and anti-Washington attitude is genuine.
It is not.
It's simply a political position.
Based on what?
Give me a Washington skepticism that he has displayed that you somehow magically know to be phony.
It's the flip-flops, it's the changing of positions that you articulated last hour when you talked about the Trans-Texas corridor and now the imminent domain bill.
When you talked about the DREAM Act and the Sanctuary Cities bill, so the genuineness of Governor Perry has to be put into question on the inoculation issue that you brought up in the last hour.
It has been well documented and published in Texas Monthly Magazine by Paul Burka.
The reason he put it out there was because Mike Toomey, the dark knight of Texas lobbyists, was being paid by Merck, and Merck dumped all kinds of money into his campaign.
And so you magically know, you and God bless Paul Burka, who, for America's sake, is a very storied, statewide writer for Texas Monthly and a good guy, but not a fan of Governor Perry.
That if a pharmaceutical company contributes to you, something, some initiative that you have that involves a pharmaceutical must magically be corruption.
You absolutely amazing Crescent can read minds and know that that must have been the motivation for that.
Really?
Can you tell me who's going to win the Super Bowl next year?
Because I'd really like to see that.
When the only producer of the vaccine is Merck, I think so.
Now, when you also brought up about that suspicion, in fairness, you are entitled to that.
Go ahead.
And then I've got an overall observation.
Go ahead.
Voting for Governor Perry and him defeating Kay Bailey Hutchinson.
Right.
It's because it was Kay Bailey Hutchinson out of Washington.
We had to hold our noses to vote for Rick Perry.
I mean, think about the fact that she voted for the TARP.
She announced in her campaign speech that it was best for Texans to moderate.
How are you going to win a Texas primary, GOP primary, when you announce I'm going to moderate?
And there was a lady.
The rest of the country may be center-right, but Texas is right.
Right.
Eric, I love you, man.
This is the most valuable.
This is a very valuable call because the objections and skepticism that I characterized and kind of marginalized, this is what it sounds like.
And Eric's not a nut.
These are things, these are burrs in his saddle.
And let me just tell you what, in our remaining 20 minutes or tomorrow, if you are in Poughkeepsie or Panama City or Casper or Carlsbad or Sacramento or Santa Fe, entertaining few minutes, right?
Hope so.
Did any of that make a lick of difference to you?
I mean, I mean, seriously, I guarantee, I mean, find me the next Reagan, which, of course, we're never going to do.
But let's say we sort of kind of find me Reagan himself.
Reagan gave us Simpson Mazzoli.
The government did not get small enough under Reagan.
I revere the ground that Ronald Reagan ever walked on.
Every footfall.
I can find you three or four things where Reagan was not perfect to me.
I can find a couple.
You can find a couple with anybody.
Anybody.
These are some very, very inside Texas baseball things, man.
And I'm not poo-pooing them, especially don't on the local show.
I'd best not.
And I think, and I actually am on sort of the same side as this last gentleman on at least a couple of them.
I don't think the Gardasil initiative was a good thing.
And I was not a fan of the Trans-Texas corridor.
And I'm waiting to see Rick Perry become the kind of border warrior that I want him to be.
But on the big stuff, man, states' rights, fighting the Obama agenda, fighting Obamacare, cutting spending, cutting taxes, pro-business philosophies.
He's golden.
He's golden.
All right.
1-800-282-2882, Mark Davis filling in for Rush on the EIB network.
It is the Rush Limbaugh show for Monday, June 27th, closing quarter hour-ish here.
I'm Mark Davis filling in from WBAP, Dallas-Fort Worth.
Just a joy today.
We're about done.
We've got a few more folks we'll put on the radio before we part company.
And hey, any unfinished business?
And I got 312 things we never got to today.
Which is either good news or bad news if you know me.
But I'll bet there'll be hot, fresh headlines tomorrow, and we'll get back together and do the show together tomorrow.
So thanks, Rush, for two straight days.
Holy cow.
And then Rush is back on Wednesday.
For right now, though, we head up to lovely New England.
I got to tell you, I have a huge New England envy because it's about 147 degrees in Texas these days.
So in South Portland, Maine, where I'm guessing it's a touch cooler, Bill is here.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show, sir.
How are you?
Very good, but I can barely hear you.
I'll try to be louder.
How are you?
Well, you're doing well.
Look, I disagree fully with you about having the states with the population density making decisions because, see, New York just signed gay marriage into law.
California just passed every nutburger law they can.
They've got population density, Mark, but they're all libs.
Well, so the people know that people know what I was talking about.
So the people know what we're talking about is the primaries.
And I'm partially tongue-in-cheek.
Iowa and New Hampshire.
No, no, no, no, bell, bill, bell, please, please.
Very, very important.
Bill, we'll both finish sentences.
It'll be great.
Give it a try.
Iowa and New Hampshire are fantastic places.
They're so sparsely populated that for Iowa and New Hampshire to, with that kind of per capita power, determine our nominee, it freaks me out a little bit.
And we can maybe pick them.
And I thought maybe a northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast, the southeastern primary would work out pretty well, wouldn't it?
No.
Florida's about the only dicey state we got in the southeast.
No, New England.
And they just elected Marco Rubio.
I'm talking about New York and California.
I don't want them having that much power in the primaries.
I don't want them determining our nominee because we will lose to Obama.
I want a conservative, constitutionalist, small government individual who respects our Constitution, and you won't get it from when you said population density, every state with population density.
But I'm not looking for mega-maxed out population density alongside like California, New York.
Certainly not.
That's what you would get.
Well, but here's a state with some population density.
Mine, Texas.
We have a lot of people, and we're going to give you the kind of conservative you want.
Maybe, listen, my observation about population was really just a loving.
Well, collect your own noun.
I love Iowa.
I love New Hampshire.
I wish maybe some states with some more people, more Republicans.
I mean, it's going to be a Republican primary no matter what, right?
Even do you distrust Republicans in New York and California?
Do you want rhinos or conservatives?
I mean, you don't want Illinois making decisions.
Look what they gave us, Obama.
Well, the Republicans didn't.
I mean, the Republicans gave us John McCain, who couldn't beat Obama in 08.
I mean, we well, didn't John McCain won the New Hampshire primary?
All right, but the point is, what we've got to do is start.
I don't know how to do this, but I am a Tea Party activist.
And I don't know how to get across to people.
I mean, we have got, we don't have a chance if we don't win this election.
I know.
I'm so with you, Bill.
And listen, how to, and maybe, maybe ultimately we're just fine.
And let me thank you for your call because here's the thing.
As weird as it is, if you're an alien landing from space and they ask you, how do you guys choose your candidates?
And we say, well, we have elections in two of our most sparsely populated states, and the results from those elections are so enormous that in most years, the voters in those states pretty well determine who the nominee is.
Really?
The alien would say.
Really?
In whatever language he brings from his home planet.
But you know, maybe this year we're not in the mood to do that.
And again, with all proper love to Iowa and New Hampshire, there may be somebody who wins Iowa.
There may be somebody else who wins New Hampshire.
And yet here comes South Carolina.
And here come Republicans in Florida.
And here come other states who may just say, oh, yeah, guess what?
Maybe not.
We may have four or five different winners in the first four or five primaries.
Gosh, wouldn't that be sweet?
And then as it rolls out inexorably over the ensuing days and weeks, you know, more people, even eventually California and New York, those Republicans get to weigh in as well.
Maybe in so many, so many ways, maybe this year will be different.
I mean, last time sure was for the Democrats.
I mean, that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama thing, we took that to the convention just about, didn't we?
They didn't, they chose not to settle that.
Chose not to settle.
I mean, Obama won the Iowa caucuses.
Hillary won New Hampshire.
And from then on, it was boom, boom.
Mano amano.
I envied them that.
I really did.
As a Republican, I thought, wow, voters with actual choices all the way through the primary season.
Oh, what's that feel like?
Because by the time it got to Texas, McCain was it.
That's it.
We're done.
Okay.
Every state really wants their votes to mean something.
They'd love for it not to be wrapped up by the time it gets to them.
But tends to be kind of a marketplace thing, and the marketplace is what it is, isn't it?
All righty.
Speaking of the marketplace, it requires a brief pause right here, so let's do that.
Mark Davis in for rush from EIB Network.
On a show in which we've paid a lot of attention to the Republican race of 2012, let's go back to the first Republican.
That would be Lincoln, and it seems like a good idea to go to a town named after him.
Nope, not Nebraska, even though that's a great one.
Not even Missouri, but they have a Lincoln in Kansas, and Keith is there.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show, sir.
Mark Davis filling in.
How are you?
Mark, I love your stuff.
I've talked to you before.
I think that Herman Kane will probably come out in South Carolina.
He'll finish well in Iowa, New Hampshire.
But what I want to talk about is I want to see these guys bring out their policies and go after each other, like Romney, for example.
Obamacare was modeled after Massachusetts care.
He has been pro-choice.
He has been climate change.
And on Bachman, she used to be big on earmarks and even at climate change at one time.
Ed Bradley, she has come out with a taping of her supporting Ed Bradley, who says that Muslims are a lot better at putting to death homosexuals than the United States with the Christians are.
And on Palenti, he missed the boat when he didn't go after Romney.
And also, he missed the boat on climate change.
He wants ethanol subsidies.
Huntsman, he came right out in a debate in 2007 and says, hey, healthcare is a right.
Herman Kane, the thing, I do support Herman Kane.
I love him like you do.
I want to see him vote against raising the debt limit, put a priority on Social Security, Medicare, military pay.
I want to see him come out with energy independence.
I want to see that pipeline built from Canada, Alberta.
You know what it's like?
Keith, thank you enormously.
A great final call.
You know what it's like?
It's like a job interview.
The first thing you do is not look for reasons too higher, but look for disqualifiers.
Look for deal breakers.
If you don't find any, then you make another special pile and go from there.
Well, let's go from here into the rest of this day.