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Sept. 29, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:42
September 29, 2011, Thursday, Hour #2
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Great to have you back, Rush Lindbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Our telephone number is 800-282-2882, the email address lrushbaugh at EIBNet.com.
This is fascinating.
I spoke earlier in the previous busy broadcast hour about Reagan's campaign for governor of California in 1966.
It is instructive because this battle here between American conservatives and the Republican establishment.
And believe me, they're two different things.
Now, George Will says there is no Republican establishment, and there hasn't been since, what, 1966.
But there is.
The Republican establishment, for all intents and purposes, for the sake of our discussion here, made up of what you would call rhinos.
The Republican establishment is Northeastern Republican conservatives.
The group that they're right on the fiscal side of things most of the time, but they don't want to be part of social issues.
They just, they can't stand it being part of the party platform.
They don't want to talk about it.
They have no desire to be any part of that discussion.
They think it's going to lose elections, all that kind of stuff.
Plus, they do tend to believe in Washington as the center of the universe.
Republicans win elections.
They're in charge of the money.
They like that.
They tend to believe that an energetic, powerful executive wielding financial power, spending money for the national good with conservative instincts is a good thing.
So if government grows under that rubric, then it's fine.
We, of course, as conservatives, don't see things that way, and there is the divide.
And the Republican establishment, made up of a lot of powerful people with a lot of money, and they want to win, just like we do.
And they employ whatever muscle they have to see to it that they do.
And they want their candidates to be representative of what they want, all of which is understandable.
So there is this battle going on.
What's changed, or the added intensity this time around is another point of disagreement.
That is, the Republican establishment doesn't really think the country's threatened.
They don't like Obama.
I think Obama's a disaster.
But the country's not in any danger here of real long-term damage.
I mean, this is just overblown.
All this talk about saving the country, and it's not that bad.
All we got to do is get our people in there and put us back on the responsible fiscal track and everything will be fine.
They don't see the Democrat Party the same way we do.
They don't see the Democrat Party as basically socialist liberal.
And they cringe at such talk.
And these people never really were enamored with Ronald Reagan.
They never really liked him.
He was always, they just lived on edge every day.
What's this guy going to do that's going to embarrass us?
What mistake is he going to make?
What stupid thing is he going to say?
They actually had this view.
Tip O'Neill was not the only one who thought Reagan was an amiable dunce.
There were many in the Republican establishment who thought that before Reagan ever ran for office and after he won the presidency.
And they thought that back in 1966.
After all, he was just an actor, you know, and introduced GE theater.
So from the August 2001 archives of the Claremont Institute is an extended excerpt from a Stephen Hayward book, Greatness, Reagan Churchill and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders.
Now, this thing is too long and too dense for radio, but it does have a pertinent link in it because it's a detailed description of how Reagan had to overcome the Republican elites who doubted him.
The GOP elites of the time in 1966 thought of Reagan as an extremist, as they think all conservatives are.
Now, at the time, California was three to one, Democrat to Republican, in terms of registered voters.
Reagan won by appealing to crossover voters and independents, despite his extremism.
But who are independents?
Who are these people?
Now, during Reagan's presidency, we constantly heard talk about Reagan Democrats.
These are basically Southern, hardworking, blue-collar people who wanted no part of the Jimmy Carter Democrat Party.
And they loved what Reagan was saying.
Reagan made them and everybody proud, once again, of their country.
If you weren't old enough or paying attention back in the mid-70s through 1980, this country was in as every bit a disaster as today, although we weren't on the precipice then as we are now, but the economy was just as bad.
We were led by somebody who had no clue what he was doing.
It was a disaster.
Jimmy Carter even created a term to describe his own presidency, malaise.
Jimmy Carter was a forerunner of Mayor Doomberg, telling us what our thermostat settings have to be and almost talking what we have to eat, wearing cardigan sweaters in the White House to set an example for freezing because of the energy crisis.
Gasoline prices are rising and going out through the roof.
That's why I said that Obama would be Jimmy Carter's second term.
So Reagan comes along and runs for office in those circumstances, much like the Republican nominee is going to be running for office this time.
Back in the 80s, during his presidency, we had the Reagan Democrats.
These were Democrats that defected for the Democrat Party.
Now, I contend that the term independent has been created by the Democrat Party and the media.
So they don't have to use Democrats in the description of people voting for Republicans.
They don't like the notion that there are defections from their party.
So we have in our political parlance today this term independence.
And the general theory is that in every presidential election, 40% of the votes automatically going to go to the Democrat, 40% automatically going to go to the Republican.
So in the primaries, the candidates focus on the base to get the nomination.
But then when they seek the big prize of the White House, they've actually got to convince those independents.
20%, the great undecided.
And the political consultants have come along and told every candidate, I'm the guy who can get those voters for you.
I know who those independents are, and I know how to get them to vote for us.
And so they write speeches for the candidates and they put thoughts in their minds.
And basically, that's where this whole notion, don't criticize Obama, you know, don't be extreme, don't be partisan.
The independents don't like that.
They want everybody to get along.
They want bipartisanship.
They want compromise.
If you don't make it sound like you're capable of that, you're going to send them running right back to the Democrats.
This whole faux, fake, phony interpretation of who actually elects the president has been around for decades.
I contend to you that moderates are simply liberals who don't want to admit it.
Independents are, at least in the past, have been disaffected Democrats who vote for Republican, but the mainstream media doesn't like, they didn't like the term Reagan Democrat.
They don't Democrat to vote for Reagan.
He's a stupid, idiot, amiable dunce.
So the term independent was created to give these people superpower status in terms of their brain power.
And so every election's fought over these 20%.
So this takes us back to 1966.
Reagan running for governor, three to one voter majority, Democrat over Republican in terms of voter registration.
And Reagan won against a beloved incumbent, Pat the giant Killer Brown.
And Stephen Hayward says he did it by appealing to the crossover voters, the independents.
But yet, how was he able to do that?
Because the Republican establishment of the day thought that Reagan was an extremist.
How in the world does an extremist appeal to moderates?
How does an extremist get votes from independents?
And there's a very telling passage in Hayward's book.
And it is this.
And it is applicable to today.
Reagan understood that with a Democrat voting edge of three to one in California, a Republican could only win by appealing to crossover voters.
This required a united Republican Party more than a centrist campaign.
Again, Reagan's campaign knew that to win crossover voters required a united Republican Party, not a centrist campaign.
That is the polar opposite of the way the GOP elite think today.
It's the polar opposite of the way the Republican establishment thinks today.
The Republican establishment thinks today that you win independence and moderates by talking compromise and by talking bipartisanship.
Basically, you water yourself down.
You get rid of your ideological impulses and you hide them.
And instead, you talk a bunch of mush, mealy-mouthed mush.
But what was foremost important was a united Republican Party.
When you're facing a voter registration disadvantage of three to one, you need every Republican vote there is, and you also need the Republican Party totally behind you.
Now, we're not faced with that kind of voter registration disadvantage.
the Democrats don't outnumber us three to one nationwide.
And in fact, in polls of people asking what their ideological orientation is, there are twice as many people who identify themselves as conservatives in this country as there are people who identify themselves as liberals.
And I've always thought that ideology is as much, is as important a factor in campaigns as party is.
Now, the Republican establishment totally disagrees with that.
The Republican establishment thinks you go getting all ideological on people, and that's the end of your campaign.
You're just going to drive these independents away.
They don't like ideology.
And that's dead wrong.
I mean, ideology is used to be anyway, the way parties were defined and should be again.
Anyway, Pat Brown was so sure that he could beat Reagan, he worked behind the scenes to help him win the GOP nomination.
They thought Reagan would be a pushover.
And a large number of the Democrat voters who crossed over for Reagan included as much as 30% of labor union members.
Reagan did especially well in several working-class communities with heavy Democrat registration.
And the Republicans also did well down the ticket.
They got five state Senate seats, five state assembly seats, three seats in Congress, despite being outnumbered voter registration-wise.
There are a lot of lessons to learn here.
And Reagan teaches so many of them.
And even to this day, the Republican establishment, well, who was it that came up with the whole theory that the era of Reagan is over?
If it weren't for the Republican establishment, that's who came up with that notion.
And you remember all of the people who signed on to it.
Newt signed onto it for a while, then he recanted.
A lot of the inside the Beltway conservative intelligentsia signed onto it.
The era of Reagan is over because it always embarrassed them.
And it always frustrated him because the era of Reagan was conservatism.
Anyway, I got to take a time out here, folks.
We'll do that.
Come back and we'll start in with your phone calls right after this.
Okay, those of you on hold, you stay there.
I've got a couple other points I want to make here before we go to the phones, but we are going to go to the phones in just a second.
In this book that I have been reading from the Stephen Hayward book that's archived at the Claremont Institute, it's from 2001.
Here we are in the late show again.
This is how Ronald Reagan Defied Expectations and Beat Pat Brown is the chapter of the book.
The same book quotes Reagan as saying this.
Listen carefully to this.
We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended.
He's talking about the Goldwater campaign of two years past.
This is 66.
Goldwater campaign is 64.
Reagan said, we don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended.
We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals of our opposition and who seek our support for it.
Turning the party over to so-called moderates wouldn't make any sense at all.
And the traitors he was referring to were the rhinos of his day who had undermined the Goldwater conservatives during the 1964 campaign.
And Reagan was saying, over my dead body is the Republican Party going to be turned over to those people.
We are only going to go place if we conservatives run this party, if we take it over and if we are unified.
What?
This is 1966.
Well, it's close to ideological purity.
What he was just, he didn't like moderates.
He knew that moderates were, in fact, Reagan knew that he could unite more people with a strong platform rather than a moderate one.
You go back just last week, the New York Times admitted in an article about how Obama needs to become more partisan last week.
Remember, we told you about this.
There's an effort going on in the Democrat Party.
They think Obama is getting too moderate for him.
They don't think he's going to win.
That's why he's reacting by going back to this class warfare stuff.
He's trying to keep everybody happy by joyously being who he is, this class warfare warrior, setting groups of people against each other.
And he's gone full-tilt liberal on every full-tilt socialist, because the New York Times and the Congressional Black Caucasians are both telling him, buddy, you better be who you are because that's who we are, and you're not going to win not being who you are.
Well, Reagan was saying the same thing to the Republicans back in 1966.
Now, let me ask you this.
Let's pretend it's 1976.
Let's pretend it's 1976 and Gerald Ford is president and Reagan decides to take on Gerald Ford in the Republican primary.
Who do you think that the Republican establishment would back?
Gerald Ford.
They did.
It was Gerald Ford.
They backed Gerald Ford and they would do it again.
And what do you think they would have been saying to us?
They would be saying Reagan can't win.
And they did say that.
They'd be blaming Reagan for harming Ford's reelection possibilities by even running against him for the nomination, which they said.
They'd be saying Reagan is unelectable in the general election, which they said.
And that's what they're saying today.
Why do you think these same people are writing pieces at late at night, desperately begging Chris Christie to get in, desperately begging others to get in?
It's because they want to shut down anybody on the conservative side that might get this nomination.
It's clear as a bell that that's what's going on.
Now, I think that these people who are demanding new candidates in this race are undermining the cause.
There are plenty enough candidates running.
We've got all kinds of different backgrounds.
And there are uniquely different positions from candidate to candidate to candidate.
You keep feeding the liberal media with this nonsense that our field is weak or that the field can't win.
The voters are not saying that, by the way.
Voters are not saying that.
Scott Rasmussen, the polls, I'm not running into voters who are turned off by the weak field.
I mean, you got some, but it's not a majority.
It's, again, the Republican establishment is worried that these people can't.
They don't think conservatives are ever going to win anything.
And they don't want them to.
So they write these late-night pieces begging Christie to get in, save the party, whatever.
It really undermines.
Christie wants to get in.
Get in.
Come on in.
Anybody else?
Sarah Palin, get in if you want to get in.
But contributing to the liberal mantra that our candidates are weak and bad and can't beat Obama is not only wrong, it's self-defeating.
And same people talking about a big tent seek to shove most of the people in the tent back outside in the rain.
Okay, now we go to the phones.
Number again, 800-282-2882.
Email address, lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
It's Emmy in Loveland, Colorado.
Great to have you on EIB Network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
It's great to talk to you.
Thank you very much.
Hey, I'm just, I'm no fan of the establishment.
They irritate me most of the time.
What if they want Christie to run for the same reason I want him to run, because he's the best at articulating conservatism?
I mean, besides you and maybe Marco Rubio, but I mean, there's no one else out there that...
Well, no, that's an interesting question.
Let me ask you, why do you think they're not begging Rubio to run?
Rubio has been just as adamant as Christie that he doesn't want to run.
Rubio is, in a contest of doctrinaire conservatism, Rubio wins versus Christie.
So why are they not asking Rubio to run?
You know, I don't know.
Maybe it's part of it is, I think, that they genuinely believe that whoever the other nominees are can't win.
And that's another thing that frosts me.
I think Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd could beat Obama in this election coming up.
Because I think this is going to largely be about Obama.
It's going to be a referendum on his outright destruction of the wealth-creating genius of this country.
I think Elmer Fudd could win, but I'm more concerned than that.
I don't want to just get rid of Obama.
I want to take advantage of the opportunity we have to finally get a genuine, full-fledged, unapologetic conservative, because this is going to be a major task.
Emmy, rolling this stuff back.
It's going to take more than one election, and it's going to take somebody fearless.
And we're not going to roll this stuff back having compromise and bipartisanship as our primary objectives.
So I think as far as the establishment's concerned, there are two things.
They don't want a conservative to win for that reason, plus they do want to win.
And I think they probably think Christie has a better chance than anybody else up there of beating Obama.
That's my guess.
But I think whoever wins, what will happen is this.
Whoever gets a nomination, if it is somebody outside the approval of the establishment, what then will happen is that all these establishment types will then start trying to buddy up to the winner, want to be part of his administration, and then spend the rest of their lives saying they were there at the right hand of this great, terrific president who that's what happened to Reagan.
Half the people that opposed Reagan did end up, especially in the second term, doing things in his administration, and they made their rest of their life career on it.
To this day, some of these people still guessed on television shows as Ronald Reagan's ex or Ronald Reagan's Y, even during the era of Reagan is over, period, which Mitch Daniels also uttered, I should say.
Even when they were saying the era of Reagan was over, still some of these marginal characters in the Reagan administration's second term still out there claiming they were there.
They were in the inner circle.
They were making all of these decisions.
Why aren't, I know it's a serious question, Snurdy.
Why aren't people telling Rubio it's not up to him?
You got Chris Christie saying, that's got to be in me, and it isn't in me.
Well, it's not up to you.
Why aren't they saying that to Rubio?
Because Rubio would win in a walkover.
Rubio would win in a landslide over Obama.
No, I hope not.
I'm hearing Bob McDonnell, Virginia, is the preferred VEP candidate.
I wouldn't waste that on Rubio.
I also don't think, Emmy, by the way, thanks for the call.
Folks, I don't think that it's not true that other conservatives are not well articulating our beliefs.
What's happening is that they're all competing with each other for time during these debates.
That's a crowded stage up there.
And they are having to actually face each other and contrast and compare themselves to each other.
Christie doesn't have to do this.
And this could be a well-planned strategy.
Look at it this way.
You've got the people who've announced, and they're on the stage of these debates, and they get 30 seconds here, a minute there.
But some of them get an unfair amount of time.
Some of them don't get very many questions asked of them.
Some of the questions that are asked are gotcha type stuff.
They don't have clearly an unfettered opportunity to explain themselves on such a crowded stage.
Actually, having to face each other, contrast and compare themselves to each other.
But Governor Christie isn't having to do any of that.
He can go give a speech at the Reagan Library or release a YouTube video, and there's no challenge on the issues, and there's nobody out there disagreeing or contrasting or harping on it.
You know, he can say what he says about global warming or gun control, immigration, what have you.
And he's not getting dirty in the process.
Nobody's opposing him.
Nobody is disagreeing with what he's saying.
He has a free ride, so to speak.
Perry, same thing.
Perry had a free ride before he jumped in.
Look what happened to Perry when he got in.
He announces, he gets in, automatically jumps to the top of the list, becomes the target of everybody on stage.
He's not an accomplished debater and wasn't prepped for it.
Look what's happened to Perry.
Christie is not running that risk.
Could be a good strategy.
Perry's out there.
Christie's out there making these speeches and YouTube videos, and they stand all alone.
No disagreement, no challenging to any of it.
Perry jumped in.
Very little was said about the specifics of his record.
I'm not attacking his record.
I'm just saying it was not as carefully scrutinized.
Christie would go through that too if he got in.
So there is a, as far as Christie's concerned, there's an understandably good strategy in not getting in now.
At some point, he's going to have to.
But he gets a free ride all the way down the road where he's not in.
Once he gets in, everything changes.
You got everybody on that stage will be gumming for him.
And things about his record that some of you may not know will surface.
And then you'll be scratching your heads going, gee, what can't we all get along?
Why are we tearing each other up?
Nature of the beast.
Rubio.
Rubio would win in a walkover.
He's conservative.
He's articulate.
He's great looking.
He's Hispanic and sounds very strong.
How could he possibly lose?
If this were the Democrat Party, the party father would probably tell Obama to step aside and let Rubio run if Rubio were a Democrat.
There are more Hispanic voters now than there are blacks.
And Rubio's got more experience than Obama had when he decided to run.
I don't know how many times Rubio's voted present versus Obama.
Here's Richard El Segundo, California.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Great speaking with you this morning.
A longtime listener, first-time caller.
Great to have you here, sir.
That's not my fault.
Your theme this morning has been Republican enthusiasm.
Of course, that equates to the voter turnout.
I understand that one of the major factors in us losing in 08 was that Republicans were, quote, mad at Bush in a many-stayed home.
To me, that's ridiculous and childish.
We can't afford another four years of anything close to this socialist agenda.
Well, that happened in 06, by the way, too.
I'm sure it's a lot of people.
Republicans stay at home because they were mad at Republicans in Congress spending all the money.
Well, yeah, I don't recall an election in my lifetime where it wasn't a choice of the lesser of the evils.
We've got to make some intelligent choices here, and it's absolutely essential that we must turn out in droves in order to overcome this idea.
Frankly, it's still 14 months out, but I don't think that's a problem here.
Well, I hope you're correct.
We'll do whatever we can to gin up the enthusiasm level and get these people to the polls.
They've got to understand what's at stake.
I think they do.
You'd be surprised.
I think you're going to be stunned.
The voter enthusiast, this Gallup poll that's out today, 27 percentage point lead in voter enthusiasm, Republican over Democrat.
Well, I know.
I'm not, frankly, I'm not hearing people say if it's X, they're not going to vote.
And if I start hearing that, I'll talk to them about it.
I'll fix it.
And I'm not going to put up with that this time.
I'm not going to put up with that.
If it's X, I'm not going to vote.
Who?
No.
No, shoot him at me.
If you've got some people who say if Romney's a nominee, they're not voting.
Shoot him at me.
Not as you say that.
Yeah, I haven't actually heard that specifically.
It doesn't surprise me.
Some people think that.
I do know that there's a lot of passion for the proposition that Romney can't win.
That if he does, it's not enough to actually start rolling back what's going on.
Anyway, look, the reason why they're not pushing Rubio, I'm going to answer my own question.
That's what I do.
I ask myself the best questions I'm ever asked, and therefore I give the best answers.
They're not pushing Rubio because while they praise him, they don't think he has had enough experience yet.
And Rubio is, sorry to say this, folks, but Rubio is another example of the rhinos being wrong.
In case you have forgotten, Rubio was not initially supported by the Republican establishment.
Charlie Crist was.
I have not forgotten this.
He was supported by the Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republican millionaires and billionaires.
He was supported by McCain and Graham and on and on.
Rubio was the Tea Party candidate.
Rubio was the conservative candidate, the candidate supported by Conservative Talk Radio.
Rubio was the outsider.
But look what's happened.
Now that Rubio's won, oh, yeah, everybody was in on the campaign.
Everybody had a role in electing Rubio, but you people have forgotten.
Charlie Crist was the guy.
And then Rubio kept coming on and on and on.
And a conservative energy behind him and his conservatism triumphed.
And Christ started talking to Democrats about a role in the party.
Rhinos had nothing to do with Rubio triumphing.
The rhinos, they weren't even on his camp to start with.
Another reason why they're not pushing Rubio is he's too conservative for them.
And with Obama on any ballot, this whole notion of lesser of two evils, I don't think exists.
Nobody's in that camp on our side.
There is no almost an Obama on our side.
Even Romney.
I think this lesser of two evils business gets thrown out too.
There's a whole lot of conventional wisdom here that's going to be stood on its head before this is all over.
Don't doubt me.
You know, the Rubio-Christ election is almost a great microcosm of what we are talking about.
The Republican establishment versus an insurgent conservative Tea Party.
If you go back and try to remember that, Rubio came from nowhere.
He was seen as unelectable, way too extreme, too much of a risk.
Charlie Crist, he's the elected governor.
He's the sure bet.
Charlie Crist will give us a majority in the Senate.
Charlie Christ is the way we need to go.
Who cares that Christ may as well have been a Democrat?
We need another R. Somebody who got an R beside their name.
We don't care what they really, we just need the numbers here because we want to be in charge of the money.
We want the committee chairmanships.
You remember who the first prominent politician to support Rubio was?
It was Jim DeMint, South Carolina senator.
Jim DeMint was the first prominent politician to come out and support Rubio.
Rubio, the outsider fighting his way in.
Now, after he wins, the rhinos, the establishment come to his side after Charlie Crist imploded and they talk him up for vice president now.
But let's, you know, don't forget, there wouldn't be any Marco Rubio in the Senate today, but for the conservative movement and the Tea Party movement and a conservative effort to beat back the establishment.
Rubio, I'm not saying he had no role.
Don't misunderstand.
He was, of course, key, but he had the Republican establishment against him.
It's almost, as I say, a microcosm of what we are talking about and facing today as we choose a nominee.
Who's next?
John of Winchester, Virginia.
Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Thank you, Russia, old friend.
And with some apprehension, I think the professor may have made a mistake about ABC.
I think that they might be trying actually to destroy Obama to get him not to run so Hillary can run because she'd have a much better chance of winning.
There are people who have that opinion that there is a concerted effort to get Hillary back in there.
May I offer you a new ditto expression?
Sure.
This came to me many years ago, and I've been trying to get into you when the Clintons were in, actually.
And, you know, this mega ditto, giga ditto stuff is far too objective.
We need something more subjective, all-inclusive, you know, a little more estrogenic.
I think pan-dittos would be a better expression.
Pan-dittos.
As in Pan-Americana, pan-dittos.
Exactly, exactly.
All-inclusive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dittos from everywhere and everybody.
Everywhere.
Universal ditto.
You know, there's something else that we have to consider here with ABC.
So far, we have two theories.
Your theory is that ABC is going hot and heavy on this cylinder solar business because they really want Obama out.
They want Hillary in.
Right.
I have proffered the idea that ABC and the Congressional Black Caucasians are simply putting pressure on Obama to make sure he doesn't moderate, go to the center.
You make sure you stay that socialist that we are and we know you are.
There's a third option out there, John, and everybody else.
And it could just be a coincidence.
ABC might have just committed a random act of journalism.
It happens now and then.
Okay, that's it.
Another exciting hour of broadcast excellence in the can.
It is.
It could just well have been a random act of journalism.
It happens.
They do it every now and then.
It could be they're looking around.
They're looking at all these right-wing blogs, dig up all this information, and maybe, you know, this is really, it's out there.
It looks pretty bad.
We can't be accused of covering this stuff.
Who knows?
Could be the number of explanations with the random act of journalism.
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