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Dec. 23, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:10
December 23, 2011, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Merry Christmas, America.
Happy Hanukkah.
Have a swinging eyed, whatever's your bag.
America's anchorman is away today, and this is your undocumented anchorman sitting in, Mark Stein.
Honored to be here behind the eggnog-colored EIB microphone for the next three hours.
I'm from the foreign exchange ring of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
It's a terrific program.
Penniless foreign students like me get to come and study here.
And in return, John Boehner gets to crawl into that Canadian pipeline in Alberta until late January and pull the lid shut behind him.
Yes, indeed.
T'was the rush before Christmas, and all through the House of Representatives, not a GOP creature was stirring.
No, no, I can't do it.
It's too sad.
Boehner, the red-faced speaker.
No, no, I can't do that.
I can't do that.
Santa, Santa has a grotto.
John Boehner has a cave.
The Associated Press, House Republicans on Thursday, cave to demands by President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats.
The House has caved yet again to the President and Senate Democrats, said Representative Tim Huelskamp.
Thursday's decision by Boehner, Republican Ohio, to cave in to the we need a we need Ed, do we still have the old reverb button on the on the desk here?
You know where you get the big echo chamber effect?
We need a bit more echo on the on the word on the word cave there.
House Republicans cave to demands by President Barack Obama.
This is like the biggest cave since Tora Bora and John Boehner has dug it for himself.
There's no point pretending this hasn't been a disaster for the Republican Party.
It was a foolish and unnecessary disaster and it's gone about as badly wrong as it could be for anyone.
It was supposed to be that the Republicans were going to call Obama's bluff on the Keystone pipeline and instead he called their bluff on this pathetic little two-month payroll tax extension, which means you do the math on this two-month, which means that in about six weeks' time, around about February the 8th or whatever, we're going to be in for another one of these clenched teeth, showdown, looming deadline bits of pointless Washington kabuki theater.
What serious, by the way, what serious nation passes legislation for two months?
This is the global hyperpower.
This is the dominant economy on the planet.
This is a nation that is responsible for 25% of planetary GDP.
And in the midst of a flatline economy, it's passing laws with 60-day expiration dates, which is stupid.
Why can't John Boehner make the stupidity of that stick?
Why is he the one who winds up down at the bottom of the cave, cringing, cringing, cringing, and just saying, let's make all the bad stuff go away?
We're going to talk about that.
We're going to talk about anything else that is on your mind because it is the end of the week and you know what that means.
Yes, 1-800-282-2882.
You know how this works.
From Monday to Thursday, the show is in the hands of a highly trained broadcast specialist.
But no highly trained broadcast specialist was available to work today.
It's some kind of union thing.
When Christmas Eve falls on a Saturday, then the highly trained broadcast specialist union gets all the days off on Friday the 23rd.
So no highly trained broadcast specialist is available.
That means you have complete control of the show.
Whatever you want to talk about.
You can talk about the Republican Party's looming date with Destiny in Iowa.
1-800-282-2882.
If you're a Ron Paul fan, there's never been a better time to call up and hijack the program by telling us how Ron Paul can save the Republic.
If you're a Newt fan, if you're a Huntsman fan.
Oh, come on.
He's uptick to he's in ninth place.
He's in ninth place out of eight man.
Did Bill Clinton?
Bill Clinton is a pretty mischievous guy.
Mr. Snerdley is suggesting that Bill Clinton has endorsed Huntsman.
You know, if Bill Clinton really wanted to sabotage this whole thing, his semi-endorsement of Newt when he said he liked a lot of what Newt had to say about amnestying illegal immigrants, I thought that was, I thought, you got to hand it to the old master of the politics of personal destruction.
That was pretty cute.
No, but if you are a Huntsman fan, seriously, I know you're out there somewhere.
You're probably down at the bottom of the cave with John Boehner right now.
But if you are a Huntsman fan, call up.
I'd love to hear what you have to say.
1-800-282-2882.
Mr. Snerdley is here Monday, the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, as persons of my identity group like to call it.
But as it is known in the United States, I believe the exotic term is December the 26th.
On the exotic American holiday of December the 26th, there will be a best of rush, I believe I'm right.
And then Tuesday and Wednesday, Mark Belling will be here.
Thursday, I'll be here.
Walter Williams will be in on Friday.
And then there'll be a best of rush.
I hope you're keeping track of this, by the way.
We're going to have a test in the third hour.
And then the following Monday, January the 2nd, we've got a best of rush.
And January the 3rd, it is Iowa Caucus Day.
And Rush returns live for all the drama of Iowa Caucus.
I was talking to Karl Rove on the TV yesterday, and he was saying that this really is now the final stretch because there's 12 days till the Iowa Caucus Day.
If you eliminate all the holiday ones, he included Christmas Day, Boxing Day, which I didn't know they observed in Iowa.
But according to Karl Rove, they do observe Boxing Day in Iowa.
New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and all the rest of it.
He says that's all everything that's going to move is going to be moving pretty fast now.
Some of these fourth, fifth, sixth candidates, there's a lot of people, the Conservative vote still hasn't quite decided where to go.
If you look at Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum all kind of jostling around just Rick Santorum's upticking into double digits.
If it looks as if one of those candidates has got a better shot than any of the others, the Conservative vote is going to solidify around that.
Then you've got actually a good kind of jostling for three-way at the top right now between Romney.
I believe in the most recent polls, Romney's in the lead.
Ron Paul is second.
And Newt has fallen into third place.
If you want to talk about the Republican primary season, it may get to be a pretty sad conversation by the time we're through with it.
We can talk about that.
1-800-282-2882.
Oh, Mr. Snerdley now says, why do they call it Boxing Day?
Boxing Day is celebrated in the United Kingdom, in Canada, Australia, British West Indies.
And I believe the term originates because it was the day on which you gave boxes of gifts to your servants, Mr. Snerdley.
The idea being, you waited.
Hey, this is deferred gratitude for you.
The servants didn't get their Christmas presents on Christmas Day.
They had to wait till the day after.
You know, because no, Mr. Snirdley is going, oh, he's doing his kind of masterpiece theater voice.
Oh, yes.
Well, you know, some of us are in the 1%, and we're not shy about it.
The 1% gave the members of the 99% their boxed gifts on boxing.
So Christmas Day, they had to work because they'd be serving you your haunch of Vensen or whatever for Christmas.
And then on the day after Christmas, the 99% get a day off to enjoy their, they'd get, you know, like a half groat and a couple of pustules or whatever.
And they did get to enjoy that.
On that's why, but don't blame me on this.
Carl Rove was talking about Boxing Day.
He's calling December the 26th Boxing Day.
1-800-282-2882.
There's no point pretending that this wasn't a fiasco for the Republican Party, and it's becoming a kind of familiar one.
November 2010 seems an awful long way away.
And again, I think it gets to the heart of what this primary season was about.
The Tea Party guys during 2009-2010 chose to work within the dead zombie husk of the 2006 Republican Party on the grounds that if you climbed into the dead zombie husk of the 2006 Republican Party and you got it up on its feet staggering around again, it might actually have learned the lesson of the 2006-2008 era when it basically went along with big government statism,
lost control of any kind of fiscal discipline in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, that it might actually have learned its lesson.
That the stupid party might have actually figured out a way to get smart.
Now, we have the biggest election victory in three quarters of a century in November 2010.
And what do we have to show for it since?
We now get an issue in which we are on the right.
We have all the logic.
The President of the United States and the Democratic Party have been running this campaign on their website.
The Republicans want to take your $40 away from you.
What do you do with that $40?
And people have been putting up their responses there.
Well, $40 is what pays for my Friday night pizza night out.
$40 is what pays for our movie night at the weekend.
You know, we are a country that is $15 trillion in debt.
And the genius president and the genius Democrats have somehow managed to make $40 the issue.
And the Republicans have got the blame for wanting to take that $40 away from you.
Not in perpetuity, just for a couple of months.
Because they didn't want, they wanted, somehow the message got out that the Republicans, the party that wanted to actually pass a permanent, a permanent tax measure, now were holding up some stupid, pointless little thing that applies for the next six to eight weeks that applies basically until February.
In Europe, where they have, on the continent of Europe, people don't come back from Christmas until about January the 18th.
So this whole stupid piece of legislation that's being passed today is about two weeks longer than the European Christmas vacation.
And we're somehow pretending that it's some kind of real serious legislative accomplishment.
1-800-282-2882, Open Line Friday on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
We're going to be following the payroll tax cut and lots more straight ahead.
Mark Stein in for us.
Christmas at the EIB Network, 1-800-282-2882.
Just to put this stupid two-month payroll tax extension in perspective, here's another Associated Press story by Derek Kravitz, AP real estate writer.
Americans bought slightly more new homes in November, but 2011 will likely end up as the worst year for sales in history.
The Commerce Department says new home sales rose 1.6% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 315,000.
That's fewer than half the 700,000 new homes that economists say should be sold to sustain a healthy housing market.
You got that?
In other words, we've got last year was the worst year for new home sales on record since they began keeping records on this stuff.
What do you think?
What do you think a two-month payroll tax extension is going to do for that?
You know what?
You know what?
Healthy economies have certainty.
They have an understanding that the rules are the way they are and the rules are going to stay the way they are and you're going to get some notice if the rules are going to change.
And what has happened here is that we're now kind of legislating on a month-by-month basis.
So around about February the 8th, we're going to be back to, oh, clenched teeth showdown.
We're going to be seeing pictures, dramatic pictures on CNN.
Wolf Blitzer will be sitting there while you're at gate 73 at the airport, sitting there for three hours while your plane's delayed.
You'll be looking at what Wolf Blitzer will be doing the voiceover showing John Boehner coming out of the Capitol and Harry Reid going into the Capitol and somebody shuttling back and forth to the White House as they attempt to get the next showdown for the next payroll tax cut extension for two months.
This is a complete waste of time.
It's complete shadow theater and the Republicans shouldn't be playing along with it.
Meanwhile, the reality is the flatline economy, the dead parrot economy underneath is exactly the same as it was.
But getting worse.
We've sold, economists say that to sustain a healthy housing market, this country needs to sell 700,000 new homes every year.
It was 315,000 in 2011.
Now, that 700,000 figure is not going to be reached under any conceivable circumstances because Fannie and Freddie and the subprime mortgage and all the rest of it so distorted the housing market that this country now has about twice as many large family homes as it's going to need for the foreseeable future.
So the problem here, the problem here is an immense structural one.
And the idea that giving you an extra $20 a week for another eight weeks, which is what this, if you earn $50,000 a year, you will benefit from this dramatic Christmas gift from the president, $20 a week for an extra eight weeks.
What's that?
$20,000 by eight?
That's $160.
$160.
And we are supposed to be grateful that President Obama was so serious about this $160, that he cared so much about you getting your extra $20 a week that he was willing to stay in Washington and not fly out to Hawaii for his vacation until today.
By the way, by the way, you think of all the extra $20 a week that was wasted in the cost of flying out on Air Force One, the First Lady and the daughters and all the rest of it, and the rest of the entourage ahead of time to Hawaii while the president remained in Washington.
You know, this country has serious, has existential threat in its fiscal crisis.
And the idea that doing, you know, $20 a week here for another eight weeks is any part of solving that is actually insulting.
And if you fall for it, you're a sap.
And if the Republican Party allows itself to get suckered by this in the House, then they're saps.
People are now saying, you know, John Boehner, John Boehner should quit.
This is a humiliation.
John Boehner is not going to quit.
He's wanted the job as Speaker all his life.
This is what he's wanted.
He's doing the job he's wanted.
He's doing the job he planned for years that he would do.
He is not going to go anywhere.
But the reality is that this is nothing to do to be defeated for nothing, to be defeated for a two-month payroll tax cut extension, to have a Republican cave-in happen the day before Christmas,
which means in effect the day before the countdown to the Iowa caucus, which means in effect that the Republican brand is the media have thrown a bugged a slop over the Republican brand barely a week before the Iowa caucus.
This is not a competent performance by the Republican House leadership.
And they should be and they should be held to account to it.
They were right on the facts.
All they had going for them was that they did not manage to impose their narrative on the media.
We're going to talk about that 1-800-282-2882.
We'll also talk about the developments in the presidential campaign.
I'm taking a lot of heat at the moment from Gingrich fans, Romney fans, Ron Paul fans.
I don't think I'm taking a lot of heat from Rick Perry or John Huntsman fans.
So if you want to call up and give me some heat for that.
Well, there is.
No, no, no, Mr. Serley.
John Huntsman is apparently, I think he's in third place in New Hampshire.
He's going to be the surprise winner.
Yeah, New Hampshire.
Well, New Hampshire total population.
Iowa is going to go for Rod Paul.
Huntsman will sweep New Hampshire and the entire Republican primary season will be transformed.
Take that.
I've written it down.
You can take that to the bank.
Yeah, no, no, not half the population of New Hampshire.
I forget how many people there are in New Hampshire, but it's one big electorate compared to these caucuses in Iowa.
I think we had a quarter of a million people voting in the Republican primary last time around.
We may top that this time, this time around.
But I'll tell you this, by the way, these debates, all these debates every two days have wrecked the New Hampshire primary.
I've seen fewer signs on outside on the roadside, sticking in the banks on the edge of the road and sticking up in people's front yards than I have in any other primary season I can remember.
So the reason why Newt is ahead is because he's done no on-the-ground camp.
He hasn't done any pancake flips.
He hasn't been at the Littleton Diner.
He hasn't been at the Elks Lodge.
He's just stuck to the debates and he put himself in the lead in the debates.
And there's actually been no on-the-ground primary to all intents and purposes in the state of New Hampshire.
It's been a very depressing scene from the point of view of retail politics.
We will talk about that and take all your calls.
1-800-282-2882.
Yes, there are all manner of guest hosts named Mark on The Rush Limbaugh Show, but only one of them has a 70s disco cover version of It's a Marshmallow World, available right now on CD and MP3 download.
That's me with my pal Jessica Barton, who's a big stage and TV star over in the United Kingdom.
And that's our disco version of Marshmallow World.
Astonished to see that no one had ever done a disco version of Marshmallow World.
There's a punk version of Marshmallow World out there where they go, it's a Marshmallow World in the riddle.
But no one had ever done a disco version of Marshmallow World.
So that's my contribution to the season and joy.
Well, I love Donna Summer disco records, actually, Mr. Serdley.
If you notice, Jessica, when she does that, ooh, yeah, it's Last Dance for Love.
And I said, we're actually, we begin by doing a little bit of In the Bleak Midwinter, the great poem by Christina Rossetti.
And I said, oh, do it, do it, do it, just like Donna Summer does.
And Jessica did it great.
And she also said, it's In the Bleak Midwinter, Frosty Windmade Moan, Earth Stood Hard as Iron.
Earth stood hard as iron.
And I told her to sing it as I yearn in the way that, you know, Donna, Donna Submar.
Oh, by the way, Mr. Serdley, since you're such a big Donna Summer fan, the end of my disco version of Marshmallow World is a total ripoff of Donna Subber, Barbara Streis, and Enough is Enough is Enough is Enough is Enough.
So it's like there's not an original idea in the whole thing.
It's Overline Friday, 1-800-2.
Everything, everything is, you know what?
There are no new ideas out there.
You could go pleading, begging.
You know, I gather the Tea Party movement was spotted in Santa's grotto, sitting on Santa's knee saying they'd like a new Republican House leadership for Christmas.
It isn't going to happen.
You know, let's face it, everything's been done.
It's all derivative.
Let's go to Brian in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Brian, you're live on Open Line Friday, which was the rush before Christmas.
Brian, great to have you with us on the show.
Hey, Mark, thank you for taking my call.
Ah, my pleasure.
What's on your mind?
Mark, I think it is a tragedy that we're ignoring the one conservative candidate who could beat Barack Obama handily, and that's John Huntsman.
Wait, wait, hold up there.
Hold up there.
We have the Huntsman fan has called in.
Now, you're in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Yes.
Are you the Huntsman fan in Charlottesville or the Huntsman fan in Virginia or the Huntsman fan in the mid-Atlantic states?
Which is it?
There are at least three of us in Virginia, I'll have you know, Mark.
Oh, wow.
I'm not the only Huntsman fan.
Now, tell me what you like about him, and then I'll tell you my thoughts on him.
Okay, two things about John Huntsman.
Number one, he would crush Barack Obama.
He was re-elected in Utah with 80% of the vote.
He won 90% of Independence while still keeping 90% of Republican.
But the second main thing, and this is what I'm very frustrated that people aren't recognizing, is that he's a real conservative and not in the David Frum, Andrew Sullivan sense of the word.
He's a small government guy who's been consistently pro-light.
He's the only candidate who supports the Ryan plan unequivocally.
He wants to get our debt crisis under control.
His tax plan is phenomenal, eliminating every loophole, every piece of corporate welfare while dramatically lowering rates.
But most importantly, Mark, he could win.
We don't have to have four more years of Obama.
And I fear if we nominate someone like Newt or Mitt, we will.
Well, let's step back a bit, Brian, because you made an interesting point that he is that as you see it, he's conservative.
Well, we can argue about that, but I'll give you this.
John Huntsman is actually to the right of Mitt Romney, and he has had a more, as you point out, on matters like abortion, he's got a far more consistent record than Mitt Romney.
The question then is, and yet, and yet, here's what happened when he got into the race.
He chose to run to position himself as the non-conservative in the race.
He chose to run basically as Nelson Rockefeller.
chose to position himself and aim himself at the kind of rhino squish market and presumably because he figured that Mitt had the middle sewn up and that Rick Perry and Michelle Bachman and all the rest of them were fighting over the conservative vote so he decided he was going to be Nelson Rockefeller of this campaign.
Why did he do that, Brian?
I agree.
I think it was a poor tactical move and it made me mad as well.
I didn't like his snarky tweets mocking Republicans as an anti-science party.
But the question is, Mark, are we going to allow ourselves to be so offended by that that we nominate someone else who is both more liberal than him, as you said about Mitt Romney, and who is more likely to lose to Obama?
I agree.
I wish he hadn't done that.
But in the grand scheme of things, I'm willing to put those feelings aside to nominate the conservative candidate who can win.
Yeah, but this is what is surprising to me.
I looked at him.
For a start, he's a diplomat.
So he comes across as one of these striped pants guys with seven different names.
I was astonished to discover he's not John Peregrine Huntsman IV because he has that manner.
He has that manner about him.
And he's standing there doing the it's not just that he was Barack Obama's ambassador over in China, but that he comes across with a kind of State Department manner to him.
And so I initially, I think the last time Mr. Slurley and I worked together here was after the Vegas debate when I said John Huntsman famously boycotted the Vegas debate and I said, oh, what an amazing performance.
John Huntsman turned in his best debate performance yet.
We were just doing like, you know, that was the Huntsman gang.
There's no constituency for Huntsman.
He's Nelson Rockefeller in a party that left Nelson Rockefeller behind in those rather embarrassing final moments in whatever room that was back in the 1970s and that party is gone.
Then when you look at him and you discover and you go, whoa, like this is the rock-ribbed Mormon in the race.
Why is Mitt posing as the why is Mitt pretending to be the rock-ribbed Mormon when this guy, this other Mormon, this insert name of other Mormon here candidate, has actually got a much more conservative track record?
But then again, you come back to the question, why is he keeping that a secret?
I know.
The question is, as conservatives, are we going to value style and someone who panders to us like Mitt Romney does more than substance?
Substantively, Huntsman has always been conservative.
I saw one of his first...
Well, now, wait a minute, Brian.
There is a great...
There's a great exception to what you say about him.
And it's true on certain issues.
And it's true on fiscal spending.
And I actually liked it.
The bit I liked was when he was at that debate in Iowa the other day and he said something.
He was doing his kind of usual striped paddings diplomat foggy bottom type routine and he suddenly said, if we don't fix this spending thing, we're screwed.
And actually s screwed, which you would have thought coming out of Herman Kaine's mouth, you wouldn't have paid any attention to, coming out of Rick Perry's mouth, you wouldn't have paid any attention to.
The fact that this sort of this ephete pampered foggy bottom ninny said the word screwed paradoxically gave it far more force.
But the exception, Brian, is this.
He drank the global warming Kool-Aid, and he still does.
Mitt, I can't remember what Mitt's current position on it is.
I can't remember what Newt's current position on it is.
But I believe John Huntsman is the only guy in the field who's still drinking the global warming Kool-Aid.
No, Mark, but that's a mistake.
He acknowledges, or at least he says that global warming is happening.
But what matters is he also says he'll have no sort of cap and trade, and basically he won't act on it at all.
So what difference does it make to me whether he believes in it as long as he doesn't change policy at all?
He's come out strongly against cap and trade.
So he's basically in the same position as Mitt Romney.
So you're basically saying, and you, yeah, and as far as you're concerned, by the way, let's just get this clear.
Newt, when Newt was sitting next to Nancy Pelosi on that sofa, he was basically arguing for the same big government punitive liberalism, drive what's left of the global economy off a cliff in order to possibly reduce global temperature by half a degree Celsius over the next quarter millennium.
Newt, when he sat next to Nancy Pelosi, was signing on to all that.
John Huntsman basically says, well, global warming's happening, but I ain't going to do anything about it.
Exactly.
And practically speaking, Mark, I actually like that position because that might appeal to independence, but it's still not going to impact my energy bill or anything with policy.
So this is like the new whatever it is, Russia's virtual Prius ad where you get the electric frisson of still being able to be an environmental poser, but it doesn't actually cripple you in the pocketbook.
That's what Huntsman's offering.
Now, here's where you've got to look at it, though, Brian.
I mean, we have an environmental protection agency that, even when Congress does not want to legislate on certain subjects, simply passes regulations to regulate more and more aspects of life.
Is a President Huntsman going to stand up to that?
I don't know.
Probably not as much as I want him to, Mark.
But as conservatives, we have to deal with our candidates as they are.
In the words of Don Rumsfeld, you know, you go to war with the candidates you have, and I think Huntsman would deal with it as much as Mitt Romney would, and he'd certainly deal with it more than Barack Obama would in his next term.
And that's really our other choice.
Okay, okay.
Well, thank you for that, Brian.
We have had a first on national radio.
We have identified the Huntsman voter in Charlottesville, Virginia.
We thought it was statistically unmeasurable, but we have now this program.
By the way, if you're thinking of advertising on this program, we lock up 100% of the Huntsman supporting demographic in Charlottesville, Virginia.
So call EIB now.
We're the one-stop shop.
If you're wanting to reach potential clients among the Huntsman demographic in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Rush Limbaugh Show reaches 100% of them.
So thank you to Brian.
We have identified the Huntsman voter in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Let us go.
By the way, while we're talking candidates, we'll come back in a minute and we'll talk about some more of your favorite candidates.
That's next on the EIB Network.
Frosty the Snowman.
Very funky Frosty.
Is that Mannheim Steamroller?
Let's say that's a very funky Frosty.
Mark Stein, in for Rush on the EIB network.
Let's go to Carol in Frankfurt, Illinois.
Carol, you just heard the case for Huntsman coming to us direct from Virginia.
What do you make of that?
It's great to have you with us on the show.
I kind of have no interest in the other ones because I'm totally for Rick Perry.
I believe in him.
I've watched him enough.
I've listened to him at town hall meetings with no teleprompters where he just talks and he's comfortable with the people.
And I don't think anyone else is compared to him.
I don't think they can have his record that he does.
He's been governor so many times because his people vote him back in one of the biggest states.
He's always balanced the budget for that big state.
He has no baggage.
He's a family man.
He's not an insider politician, which all these other ones are.
Well, here's the thing.
You're right.
He's got executive experience.
He's governed Texas.
If Texas was a country, it'd be the 12th biggest economy on the planet.
I think it's way up bigger than, I think it's just like below the size of the Spanish economy.
It would be a pretty significant country.
So it's like actually governing a nation.
He's done that.
But you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
And that's wrong.
That's just wrong because they've all screwed up when you listen to the debates, and they've all screwed up.
And what I admire about him so much, he speaks honestly.
He just doesn't say what he thinks that he's supposed to be saying that we're waiting to hear.
He will tell it honestly.
And I cannot say that about any of the other ones there.
They're just politicians, is all they are.
Well, now, here's the thing.
This time four years ago, the conservative vote in Iowa in the last few days crystallized around Mike Huckabee and went for Huckabee, and Huckabee won.
This time around, it's basically split three ways between Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman, and Rick Santorum.
Two of those people have to basically, what's left of their vote has to collapse, and one of these other guys has to take it.
So in effect, Rick Perry has to knock off Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachman just to stay in the game in Iowa.
Do you think he's going to do that?
I sure hope we'll give him a chance to do that because he's far above those two, or he's far above the other ones.
And I would like to say this too, with Obama.
Anybody in my circle, my friends, anybody that's honest will say he was only elected because of the other choice we had.
We had McCain and Palin, and nobody wanted those two.
So that's how he got in.
He got in with no experience.
No, here's the thing, Carol.
It was a very perfect storm in terms of the situation he faced.
People were exhausted by eight years of an unpopular Republican president.
We had a candidate who conceded, who wouldn't go on the offensive.
We had a useless candidate, in fact, who gave the impression from the moment he got the nomination that he was happy to be a dignified loser.
Because nobody, he gave the impression that the whole point of his campaign was to be up there on election night making the graceful concession speech.
And if you want a guy, a dignified old stiff, who knows how to give a graceful concession speech, then the Republican Party does that better than anybody.
Bob Dole, John McCain, these are your guys.
If you want a fellow who can win, you've got to start looking elsewhere.
So you're right on that, Carol.
Mark Stein in for Rush.
More to come.
Mark Stein in for Rush on the EIB network.
Have you seen this new American Crossroads ad that is just out?
A terrific ad.
It takes up this business of Obama comparing himself, ranking himself as the fourth greatest president in American history after Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln.
And it's hilariously done.
They've got some kind of snotty guy with a masterpiece theater type voice to do it.
It may even be me.
I can't remember.
I do so much casual voiceover work.
I may have actually voiced that out.
But it actually sounds way better.
It starts by saying, George Washington was the father of our country.
And then came Ronald Reagan.
He won the Cold War.
But these people were also rads compared to, and then it shows the clip of Barack Obama comparing himself to the fourth greatest president in American history.
And it's interesting, though, just to see how he compares himself.
He mentions Johnson, he mentions FDR, and he mentions Lincoln as the old guy, just for form's sake.
But basically, if you look at Franklin Roosevelt as the first giant expansion of the entitlement state, then as Johnson as the second mammoth expansion of the entitlement state, now comes Obama with the third great expansion of the unsustainable, unaffordable entitlement state.
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