America's anchorman is away, and this is your undocumented anchorman, Mark Stein, sitting in no supporting paperwork whatsoever, but taking the first tentative step on Newt's path to legality.
I don't know.
A lot of Newt fans are annoyed with me for what I've been saying about Newt.
So I think when I come up before the first Green Card Review Board, I'm pretty much certain to be voted down.
I had enough time, by the way, under the present administration, because after Aunt Zaytouni, they decided Obama's Aunt Zaytouni had her deportation order revoked, they reassigned it to me.
But I'm staying one step ahead of the Border Patrol, so I'm okay for the moment.
But people are saying, well, you know, you don't like Newt and you don't like...
Look, it's not a question of who you like.
This is who it is.
The guys you like don't get into the...
Paul Ryan, for example, gave a terrific answer, I think it was to the American Enterprise Institute the other day, essentially, you know, supporting my thesis, which is that the debt is not the problem, but is a mere symptom of the problem.
And he was looking at the broader issues underlying it.
And I thought, wow, that was the perfect answer.
I'd love to hear some guy say something like that in the debate.
But Paul Ryan decided not to run.
And, you know, the other guys decided not to run.
This is who it is.
And the field determines, you know, Mitt had all the money.
And so the race was to be the un-Mitt, the un-Romney.
And various guys tried for the un-Romney role, including Rick Perry, who was supposed to be the big conservative glamour boy we'd all be pining for.
And he wasn't.
He wasn't.
He just shrank in the course of that first debate.
It's tough.
It's cruel.
But you're running for president of the United States.
This is my problem with Richard in Lakeland, Florida, you know, who says, oh, you compared, you made a crack comparing Herman Kaine to Wilt Chamberlain.
So what?
He's running for President of the United States.
He's running for President of the United States.
You think me making a Wilt Chamberlain crack is tough?
Wait until the Chinese Politburo come and say we'd like our $15 trillion.
You know, this is grown-up stuff.
This is grown-up stuff.
And the guys, if you get into the game, by the way, I heard Governor Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire, John Sununu, make an interesting point that he said, by the time you run for president, you have to know who you are and what your worldview is.
You can't do like Herman Kaine say, well, you know, I'm going to have smart guys and they're going to tell me what to think and I'm going to have advisors and I'm going to listen to my commanders in the field.
You've got to know what your endgame is.
If you're going to be the commander-in-chief, you've got to have a view of what you think the endgame looks like in Afghanistan.
You can't wait till it comes off the fax machine from the guy in Kandahar.
Sorry.
Sorry if you're a Herman Kane fan, but it's simply not credible.
You've got to have thought about those things.
By the time you run for president, by the time you're 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, and you're running for president of the United States, if you haven't thought about this stuff, that says something about you, and people are entitled to draw their conclusions.
So these are the guys we got.
These are the guys we got now.
And whichever one it is, I'll do my best to make sure he gets across the finish line and defeats Obama.
Because I think a second Obama term would be more disastrous for this country than a second Jimmy Carter term would have been.
Under a second Jimmy Carter term, the West would somehow have contrived to lose the Cold War, even though the Warsaw Pact was all but kaput.
But a second Jimmy Carter term would have handed them victory in that.
I think actually the stakes are even higher this time around.
I think we're talking about the future of Western civilization.
And whichever one of these guys it is is a better bet to save that than Barack Obama.
But the fact of the matter is that what is, as I always say, what's important here is to move the meter on public conversation.
Mitt Romney, whatever he really believes on any of these issues, Mitt Romney is more right-wing than he was five years ago, and more right-wing than he was 10 years ago, and more right-wing than he was 20 years ago.
And the reason for that is because the meter has been moved on public conversation.
It's the classic Milton Friedman thing.
You know, instead of waiting to elect the right people to do the right things, you force the wrong people to do the right things.
Because generally speaking, politics attracts a lot of the wrong people, whether it's whoever it is.
And if you create the conditions whereby the wrong people are forced to do the right things, that's actually more effective than just waiting for a guy who sounds like he agrees with you to come along.
So whoever wins, Mitt Newt, whoever wins in Iowa, whoever wins in New Hampshire, whoever wins the nomination, I'll do my best to drag them across the finish line because they're better than Obama.
But there's no point pretending these people are perfect.
And to get mad because, you know, nobody did any of this to Herman Kane.
Herman Kane knows his past.
Herman Kane knows what's out there.
And when this stuff comes up, you've got to have a better response than Herman Cain did when he was on TV last night.
It doesn't matter whether you're – he basically gave the same excuse that he did about Libya.
He's going to, you know, he doesn't want to say anything more about this woman until he's had until his experts have looked at all the facts and told him what to say.
It doesn't work on Libya, and it doesn't work when a woman accuses you of having a 13-year affair.
And that is the state of play in the Republican race.
So we're going to take your calls.
Newt, by the way, has made a barnstorming appearance in Charleston, South Carolina.
He said, we will rebuild the country we love.
You ain't seen nothing yet.
He's swinging through South Carolina, his first public appearance since he was endorsed by the union leader here in New Hampshire.
He challenged the audience to think critically about the future.
I'm quoting from National Review's coverage of his NationalReview.com, his coverage of their coverage of his appearance down there.
We have to come back to grips with the decision about who we are, he says.
The crowd apparently loved it.
There were hundreds of voters turned out in a relatively sleepy coastal town to hear him and to hear his message.
And he wowed the crowd, apparently.
And R.C. Hammond, Newt's spokesman, thinks that, quote, if we do well in Iowa, do well in New Hampshire and win South Carolina and win Florida, that's the first opportunity for a knockout puncher Mitt Romney, says R.C. Hammond.
Down goes Willard.
He chuckles.
Down goes Willard.
So R.C. Hammond is already salivating over the endorsement by the union leader and what it could do to change the dynamic of the race.
These are the guys we've got.
And who cares?
Look, the union leader is, I guess if you look in terms of circulation, it's about down with the equivalent of you're in Florida, Mr. Snadley.
Whatever your local paper is in West Palm Beach.
Not the Palm Beach Post, but not the Palm Beach Post, but the one in West Palm Beach.
That's apparently what the circulation of the union leader is a very influential voice in the great state of New Hampshire.
And well, well, I'll tell you, look at it, look at it this way.
You've got to look at it this way, in the way the nominating process works.
There's nothing to do for New Hampshire to protect its brand as the first primary, it has to go for someone other than Iowa.
So that if Iowa, for example, last time around, Iowa went for Mike Huckerby.
If New Hampshire had gone for Mike Huckerby, it would have been a way of saying, well, you know, Iowa's the critical one, and New Hampshire just falls in line.
So New Hampshire just has to go for something different.
Then when you look at the dynamic within New Hampshire, there's always a candidate who sucks up all the establishment endorsements, the congressmen and the senators and so forth.
That was Mitt.
It's usually the guy whose turn it is, whether it's Bob Dole or whether it's Bob Dole or George W. Bush or this time around, Mitt Romney.
Now, the union leader figures that actually there's a segment of the New Hampshire electorate that wants the non-establishment candidate that likes the scrappy insurgent.
Sometimes the scrappy insurgent is a fellow like John McCain, sometimes it's Pat Buchanan.
And this year, they figure that the scrappy insurgent that cranky, plaid-clad, stump-toothed granite staters will go for is Newt Gingrich.
I, I, you know, we'll see whether they're right on that, but that's that's that's the thing, Mr. Snowden.
It's not that anyone thinks the union leader is suddenly, you know, the wealthiest and most powerful newspaper in America and it's going to buy out the New York Times.
Although, you know, you can mock the union leader, but I'd be much happier if the union leader did buy the New York Times.
But that's the thinking.
So we've come down to Newt versus Mitt and Mitt versus Newt.
Now, I feel sorry for that.
I mean, I would have liked a bit more of a choice.
As I said, I like.
Yeah, what's it?
Yes.
Oh, now, Mr. Serdley, Mr. Sadley is riving the light of why should because New Hampshire, Mr. Snowdy points out that New Hampshire is like 99.999% white.
And it's an untypical state.
It doesn't celebrate diversity.
It's 99% white.
It's 98% plaid-wearing.
It's 97% cranky.
It's 96% flinty.
And that this is not a typical state.
It doesn't have a lot of union workers and all the rest of it.
Why do we let New Hampshire have a disproportionate say in who becomes president of the United States?
And the thing is, normally it works is because this is, you need a small state to do retail politics in.
You couldn't do that if you're in Florida.
You can do it if you're in California.
This time around, actually, none of that's come into play because it's been the debates that have made most of the running, I would argue.
And it hasn't been about flipping pancakes at the pancake breakfast and like John Kerry and Teresa Hines, they have to go to the Littleton diner, and Teresa Hines has to pretend that she's familiar with ketchup.
Or the time they went to, where was it?
They went to Wendy's.
And Teresa Hines asked what chili was.
And it was explained to her that it's a popular meat-based dish that is widely consumed in the United States of America.
And she nodded her head thoughtfully.
And I used to love, that's what I used to love about the U.S. political process, that it was all about the Elk's Lodge.
It was all about the county fair and all the rest of it.
And Newt would have been terrible at that.
I wouldn't want to see Newt flipping pancakes.
But instead, it came down to debates.
And Newt did well in the debates.
And that's the way it goes.
Something has happened.
Something has changed.
It's been a very weird process.
We're going to take your calls on Newt versus Mitt, Mitt versus Newt, where the process goes from here.
1-800-282-2882-Mark Stein in for rush.
Mark Stein in for rush on the EIB network.
And I just got an email saying, well, I wouldn't expect you to like any of these candidates.
You're a foreigner.
Yeah, that's true.
That's why the car engine is running, and I'm actually heading to Toronto straight after the show.
I'm going to be there, I think, whatever it is, giving a speech there Thursday.
So if you're listening to our Toronto affiliate, which is non-existent because this show, of course, would qualify as a hate crime in the Dominion of Canada, then do come along.
But the day there is a Toronto affiliate for the Rush Limbaugh show, you'll know that Russia's had to flee the country and will be having to beam himself in like pirate radio from beyond the borders.
Let's go to Dan in Waldo, Wisconsin.
Dan, you're live on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Thanks for waiting.
Great to have you with us.
Hey, Mark.
I was waiting so long that I kind of changed my opinion on a couple that are not my opinion, but my topic.
What's with the principles is, I guess, what it boils down to.
It seems like none of the candidates, except for maybe one, has any principles left.
And I think that's what the American people need to look for.
Herman Kane, yeah, I mean, he's very uneducated, and it seems like he's taken a presidential politics for dummies course or something.
And Mitt Romney doesn't have any principles because he changes his mind on everything.
Newt Gingrich, I mean, you want principles.
I mean, he took money from Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.
We want a president that is going to downsize and get rid of them companies because they're not going to be able to do it.
Well, there shouldn't be a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
Exactly.
By the 2008 crash, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had a piece of over 50% of the mortgages in the United States, and they came close to taking out the entire global financial system.
And the U.S. property market still hasn't recovered from that.
If you look at, I mentioned Canada a couple of moments ago, just because I'm fleeing there after the show.
But one advantage Canada has is that it doesn't have a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
It doesn't have a subprime mortgage.
In other words, the government didn't gerrymander both the banking system and the property market to the extent that it did down here.
So I would like a candidate who wants to abolish Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and a guy who's taken a big bunch of money from it isn't exactly what I'm looking for.
Just to go back, though, to your original point, before you said you'd kind of changed your view on things, what do you want to talk about originally?
Dan.
I've been more and more into politics this year than I've ever been.
And I go around, I've been joining some tea party groups and stuff, and I talk to people, and they, yeah, we need to cut everything.
We need to reform Social Security.
We need to cut all these welfare programs.
We need to get rid of some of the things like you mentioned before, all these ridiculous grants for things.
But then the minute you mention anything about military cutting, they run away from you and look at you like you're Obama.
But they spent $390 million putting up cell phone towers in Afghanistan last year.
These are things we need to cut, too.
Well, you're right on that.
I like to think I'm as right-wing as I get.
I'm hawkish as they can get.
I'm a national security conservative.
But the United States is responsible for 43% of global military spending.
It outspends China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Australia, India, Israel, a whole bunch of them combined.
Exactly.
And you don't get the sense that we've got a lot to show for it.
I mean, nobody, you mentioned the cell phone towers we're putting up in Afghanistan.
Nobody thinks the problem in Afghanistan is that the Pentagon hasn't spent enough money.
The problem in Afghanistan is that so much of the money has been wasted.
And I entirely accept the premise that when you're spending $4 trillion but only raising $2 trillion, everything's got to take a cut.
Everything's got to be cut.
And that gets back to the point, Dan, about, you know, what matters in Afghanistan is not how much money you're spending.
You can spend all the money.
You can have all the best equipment.
You can have everything.
You can have the best equipped military that has ever existed in human history.
And if you don't have strategic clarity or strategic will, then that money is all just going to be thrown down a big hole in the ground.
It's not about the budget.
It's about making sure that money is spent in the right way, Dan.
Well, what about people over-complexify everything?
If you were living in Charles Bronsonland or dirty hairy land where you're worried about people killing and taking over your house, would you be better served spreading your guns and ammunition out at all your neighbors' houses?
Or should you keep all your weaponry at home and build up your own arsenal to protect yourself when you do get attacked?
Well, you well, you're getting in slightly Ron Paul territory for my taste there, Dan.
But I'll put it this: I'll put it this way: that I think you can do a lot more in Afghanistan with a lot less.
And in fact, having unlimited resources, which the Pentagon does, which the United States military does, can get in the way.
And that's, by the way, again, not to keep hammering on Herman Kane, but that's why strategic clarity is important.
You've got to know, you've got to know what the mission is.
You are the commander-in-chief.
You have to identify the mission.
You have to have an end game in Afghanistan.
It's not a question of some guy in Kandahar or Boast or Laskar calling up and saying, you know, well, we could use a couple dozen more Humvees and you saying, oh, sure, fine.
I'm listening to my commanders in the field.
That's why, and again, to go back to what you were talking about, principles.
What matters here, events, as the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan always used to say, you know, events.
What did he fear most in the year ahead?
And he said, events, dear boy, events.
And that's true.
Events throw you off course.
There's an uprising in Libya.
You didn't expect it.
There's something's going on in China.
You didn't expect it.
Events happen.
But a serious candidate understands that whatever the world throws at him, he has a coherent worldview to interpret those events.
That's why it's not about, as Herman Kane sneers, knowing the name of the deputy trade minister of Tajikistan or whatever his joke was, but it's about having a coherent worldview that when something goofy happens on the other side of the world, you understand it fits into a coherent political philosophy.
You understand what the United States national interest as a nation state is and have a clear-eyed view of what you want to do about it.
And this idea that it's just some sort of wonky type thing to be expected to know anything about stuff, I think is pathetic, frankly, and there's no point taking it seriously.
Mark Stein for Rush, lots more straight ahead.
Yes, great to be with you live from Newt Crazed, New Hampshire, where Newt Fever is rampaging across the granite state from the Indian Stream Republic hard up against the Quebec border down to the seacoast at Portsmouth.
Newt fans are delirious with orgasmic anticipation at Newt's surge in the New Hampshire polls.
1-800-282-2882, we've been talking about, as I said, I liked, you know, I owe Michelle Backman, actually.
When my book came out, it was the time of the Iowa Straw Poll.
And she quoted my book on Meet the Press, which was the kind of publicity that's very helpful in the week you got a book launch.
And she had wonders with it.
She won the Iowa Straw Poll, and she was quoting my book everywhere, and then it didn't kind of work out for her.
Maybe she'd be better off playing tracks from my Christmas CD because it's that time of year.
I always like to have a little Christmas CD that's out there on iTunes and everything.
And this time around, we've got 1970s disco fever.
Here it comes.
It's a marshmallow world in the winter.
When the snow comes to come again.
Yeah, that's me, my.
Let's face it, it's the Jimmy Carter era again.
It's malaise.
It's the collapse.
It's the collapse of the free world.
You might as well bring back disco.
We are metaphorically back in the flared pads era.
And if we're heading for a second Jimmy Carter era, we might as well have the music to go with it.
But I liked it.
A newt fan.
Oh, it's okay, Mr. Snerley.
It's available.
It's available at iTunes and Amazon.com.
And HR wants to know whether there's a video.
Yes, it is, but it's like one of those Donna Summer Love to Love You ones.
It's all hot and heavy breathing and it's not suitable for family broadcasting.
Yeah, I did.
I did save my bell buttons and I've got my 1970s afro on for the for that performance of Marshmallow.
Well, I actually snagged my afro on the glitter ball one night in 1976 was terrible and it was.
If Obamacare had been around then I would have been fully covered for it, but in fact it was a tragedy.
But Gerald Baldwin, who's a Newt fan uh says, uh that I he thinks I'm all wrong on Newt Gingrich.
He goes.
I think Newt Gingrich is the marshmallow man and it's a marshmallow world at the moment.
It is true that Newt Gingrich looks uh, looks like the marshmallow man.
So if uh if, he needs a campaign song, then I'm willing to license him.
My version of it's a marshmallow world, but that's my uh, that's my uh new Christmas CD uh, with my friend Jessica Martin from the British television, and it's uh and it's available.
Uh, it's called what's it called?
Making Spirits bright is available.
As Mr. Snerdy says, tell them where it's available.
It's available at ITunes and Amazon.com and all those, all those, and I think you could actually listen if you listen uh at uh, what it, what?
What's that thing?
That that uh, that came in, that was before ITunes and uh, that where.
That was where you could first do all the downloading.
There's something where you can just listen out Napster, Napster.
If you listen on Napster, I believe I get a royalty of something like 0.07 of a cent.
So, if like 200 people of 200 listeners were just to listen to my Christmas song on Napster, I would have, what would that be?
I would have about 4.5 cents.
So, that'd be good.
I'd be sitting pretty for when the dollar collapses.
I'd have four and a half real live American pennies.
So, that's that.
Anyway, a lot of people say, General Baldwin says Newt is the marshmallow man and it's a marshmallow world.
Let's go to Paul in West Palm, Florida, West Palm Beach, Florida.
Great to have you on the show, Paul.
I'm doing good.
How are you?
Great.
Hey, let me just say that.
If Newt's path to legality bought us more undocumented aliens with your caliber of wit and intelligence, then I'd sign up for that.
I'm all for that.
So it's really fun listening to you.
Okay, well, we'll try and put in a special request for a path to legality for potential guest hosts for the Rush Limbaugh Show.
That could be a whole visa program all by itself.
What else is on your bideball?
Yeah, let me make my point.
My point, first, let me set this up.
I'm a conservative, Republican, 20-year active duty guy.
My first presidential election was 1980 with Reagan.
So that's where I come from.
I'm at the point looking at the Newt Mitt Obama choice where, in a very counterintuitive way, I'm starting to think that the best thing to bring America back to the United States is if Obama's re-elected.
And I say that because I really think it's going to take four more years of his policies and his consequences to incubate the kind of person that a conservative Republican is really looking for, a Thatcher or a Reagan.
People just aren't the electorate, just not at the point yet where they're demanding this person.
And by not demanding this person yet, we're getting who we get.
Well, you know, there's a problem here.
I mean, for a start, I think conservatives should generally be skeptical of the Leninist view that it is necessary for things to get worse before the proletariat will, you know, see how things really stand.
I think there's a problem with that view.
And the question then arises is: you're talking about Reagan and Thatcher.
You're going back to 1979, 1980.
And the question is, why aren't people at that stage yet?
Last year suggested that the Tea Party, the Tea Party results in 2010 suggested that people were at that stage.
I just think that people are more numb today and less informed than they were in 1980.
It only took four years of Carter to get the 1976 to 1980 caliber of people to that point.
And I agree with you, that Leninist view it's got to get worse to get better.
I don't like thinking that, but I have the supreme faith in the people here that it won't get that bad, but it will take more to get them to the point of showing the world, hey, we're ready for someone like Reagan or Thatcher.
I think you're right to this extent, Paul, that sometimes you can, I mean, if you look at, for example, the program that Ankela Merkel ran on in Germany a couple of years ago and the way she's actually governed, the problem is not that Ankela Merkel didn't have a whole bunch of great ideas.
The problem was that the German people were not ready for it, were not ready for serious conservative government.
And maybe they might think a little differently on that today, but we don't know.
And Want a leader like Reagan or Thatcher who actually people say, oh, you know, you need a candidate who moves toward the middle.
That's not true.
Successful, transformative people, like Reagan and Thatcher, move the middle toward them.
They move a few steps toward the right and they basically ask the electorate to come to move in their direction.
And that's what successful conservative leaders do.
They don't always get everything they want.
Reagan didn't, and Mrs. Thatcher certainly didn't.
But they move the middle toward them.
They don't move toward the middle.
And if you're right, then the United States is in a whole heap of trouble because the idea of having another Obama term.
Now, you think of everything that we've disliked about the first Obama term.
You think of the stimulus.
You think of the multi-trillion increase in the debt.
You think of Obamacare.
You think of the profound assault on liberty represented by Obamacare, where in effect, the state assumes jurisdiction over your body.
The state tells you that you are obliged to make healthcare arrangements that meet its approval.
You imagine if that stands up, if that's still living and breathing in 2016.
As I said, then you go back to what the IMF says, that China will become the world's dominant economy in 2016.
You look at the way China's flexing its muscles now.
There was a story on Sunday in which China criticized the United States for not getting serious about its debt problem.
That headline in a Reuters story would have been incomprehensible to any American.
You were talking about 1980.
Any American from 1980 would look at that headline and say, what alternative universe has this come from?
The People's Republic of China, a communist polit bureau, is telling the government of the United States that it has to be more fiscally responsible.
Have I landed?
Did I go to sleep and get put in a space capsule and wake up with Charlton Heston on Planet of the Apes?
What alternative reality does that come from?
But it's happened.
It's happened.
And the idea of another, where I fear for America is that another four years of this, another four years of this, and we will have slipped past the point of no return.
We will be on our way, not to anything so benign as and genteel as European decline.
We will be in the same situation as Latin America, where you'll have a huge, you'll have an elite corrupt governing class, the Barack Obama's and Co.
This is what, by the way, Barney Frank was saying.
Barney Frank was regretting that the people get all riled up and they prevent him from doing such a great job on the inside, as he put it.
And this is why Barney Frank says he's stepping down.
Because a guy like Barney Frank, he's a smart guy and he knows what's best for you.
And the trouble is in a republic like this, that he's got all these great ideas and he's got all these great schemes and he's got all these great things that he'd like to do.
And then people come and vote and he's not on his committee anymore and someone else is on the committee and he doesn't make the running anymore.
And so he doesn't get just to impose what he wants and what he knows is best for you on the people.
I think in another four years of this, we would be seriously advanced down that road.
In other words, we would have expanded the dependent class, 47% of people, 48.5%, I believe, just to be up to the minute accurate, receive some form of federal benefit.
When that upticks a couple more points, three, four, five more points, basically the cart, there isn't enough horse to pull the cart, and we are in serious trouble at that point.
So I want to win in November.
I want to win in November because I think if we wait till November 2016, it will be too late for the United States.
Mark Stein in for Rush, thanks for your call, Paul.
More of your calls straight ahead.
Hey, Mark Stein, Infra Rush on the EIB Network.
Let's go to Gene in Highland Branch, Colorado.
Gene, you're live on the Rush Limbaugh show.
Great to have you with us.
Thank you, Mark.
It's good to talk to you.
Always like listening to you.
I am really concerned about how much you're slamming Newt Gingrich.
And my main reason is, is that maybe I don't agree with everything that he does.
I'm very, very, very conservative.
But, you know, I voted for John McCain because I didn't want Barack Obama.
And I'm really concerned more about Romney as far as our nominee.
If he is the one that's really, you know, everybody's got him vetted and he's the one that's going to be it.
He needs to have somebody challenging him.
And I think that Newt, if he is going to be the one, Newt's going to pull him to the right.
But you seem to have so much against Newt that you are just, I mean, you are in Romney's bandwagon.
I'm not in Romney's bandwagon.
That's absolutely I haven't expressed anything other than the most tepid indifference to Mitt Romney.
You know, Mitt Romney is one of those classic finger-in-the-wind politicians.
You know, 20 years ago when he was running in Massachusetts, he was hot for gay rights and pro-abortion and all the rest of it.
And then he decided he was going to run for president of the United States.
And now all his positions and all those things are modified.
I know exactly who Mitt Romney is.
Mitt is one of those guys.
Even when you ask him a question about climate change, he peddles last decade's conventional wisdom.
So I accept that and not, you know, Mitt Newt, Newt, on the other hand, has got his own issues with that.
In fact, the idea, by the way, Gene, that you could think that somehow Newt is some sort of principal conservative shows what has happened to conservative politics in this country.
Newt has many talents, but the idea of a coherent principle conservatism, 20 minutes ago, he was sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi saying we needed a big old big government solution to climate change.
Nothing says big government like the climate change Kool-Aid.
That's the biggest government of all because it says, no, no, I'm not just in favor of more government in the town or the county or the state or the nation.
I'm in favor of big government for the whole planet because we have to save the planet.
And that's why we need a big super mega planetary cap and trade regime for this thing.
I'm not a believer in litmus tests, but when a guy is hot for cap and trade and climate change, he's got the old climate change fever.
The idea that he's some kind of principal conservative strikes me as pretty wacky, Gene.
Saying he's a principal conservative.
What I am saying is that Newt actually admits, you know, that was a big mistake.
And at least he admits that it was a big mistake.
And I think that, you know, if you have somebody in place that is an anti-Romney conservative, then you ought to be out there touting that person really, really strong instead of blowing Newt out of the saddle, who is far to the right of, in my opinion, far to the right of Romney.
Okay, so Newt is to the right of Mitt.
That's great to know.
I mean, that is not exactly an achievement.
That's like the best gay bar in Riyadh Award.
It's not a competitive, you know, being to the right of Mitt Romney is not difficult.
Look, either of these guys, one of these guys is going to be the candidate now.
One of these guys is going to be the candidate.
And as I said, I will do my best to ensure he's president.
But these are serious times.
The Republican Party had a great two years in 2009, 2010 for all the reasons the mainstream media said it was finished.
They said it was finished because it was rudderless.
And when it was rudderless, it did better than it's doing right now.
More to come.
That's it from Mark Stein on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I believe Newt's campaign has just announced that it wants to put me on a path to illegality.
So I've got to get out of here.
Border Patrol are banging at the door.
It's been great fun, and we will rumble on again in the future.