All Episodes
Previous Next
Dec. 27, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:43
December 27, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 podcast.
I still don't think that's enough fanfare.
Way more than enough.
Before we begin today's program, we need to spend 60 seconds on a story breaking today.
We need to spend this 60 seconds at the top of the brush limb bar program because it's otherwise going to get lost in the shuffle, and it probably is a lost in the shuffle story.
The Obama administration will ask Congress to raise the nation's borrowing limit by 1.2 trillion dollars this week, marking the third and final increase from a deal negotiated over the summer.
Now true, this is authorized under that deal that they cut in the summer in which they agreed to the fake spending cuts that Obama would be able to raise the debt ceiling three times.
Congress does have the right to object.
So the story is going to be lost in the shuffle.
The Congress does have the ability to act by January 14th to try to stop the debt ceiling from being increased.
They probably won't.
Who knows when they're even going to be back in session?
Still, one point two trillion dollar increase in the debt.
One point two trillion dollar increase in the debt ceiling.
Some of you go to Las Vegas.
I go to Las Vegas upon occasion.
We've all seen these sad souls.
They're sitting there at one of the tables and they ask for a marker, and they send in the marker and then they lose.
And they ask and sign on the marker, and they lost then lose.
I need another marker, and they and they lose.
And then they're out of markers.
And you see them go over to the casino cage and they sign something where they get more money.
And then four hours later they're over at the ATM plugging in a card, and two hours later they take a different card, and then they take another card, and then they kick another card, and then they take another card.
And you just look, oh my goodness.
This person right in front of us is wiping himself out.
That's a person who's out of control.
Isn't that what these constant increases in the debt ceiling remind you of?
Under this president, we've added what how many trillions of dollars has he added to the debt?
What was it when he came in, like 10 and a half or something?
This is going to raise it to 16 point four.
And admittedly, the deal was already done.
This was authorized as part of the negoti, you know, the compromise that was struck back in August.
Still, when the United States of America can raise its overall debt by over one trillion dollars, and the story is just lost in the shuffle, there's a problem there.
Now we move on to the actual program today.
And yes, as you just heard, I'm Mark Billing.
I'm from Milwaukee and I'm sitting in for Rush for the next couple of days.
Rush is taking, like most Americans, a vacation in this week between Christmas and New Year's.
He's going to be back next week.
This is the week, as I said, with the story on the debt ceiling, that lots of things get lost in the shuffle, but this year it's a weird week because the lost in the shuffle week, the week in which many Americans are off of work and many are traveling and people are hanging out with their friends and not paying attention to the news.
That's the week before the Iowa caucuses.
And we're sitting here sizing up this Republican field.
I can only speak for myself.
I'm not speaking for any of the other guest hosts, I'm not speaking for Rush.
But look at what we have here.
I'm a conservative.
Some of you are more conservative than me, others of you are less conservative than me.
But I think I put myself pretty much with my positions in the mainstream of where we Americans who call ourselves conservatives are.
There are a lot of people like me.
In fact, we are the majority of the voters in the Republican Party.
You can go back decades.
Go way back to about 1978 to right now.
Who has been the most reliable core of the Republican Party?
Conservatives.
We're the ones that are always there for the party.
Conservatives are the by and large the majority of those who write out the checks for the campaign contributions.
They're the people who go out and man the phone banks, the people who put the yard signs in their front yards for the races in their own states and congressional districts, conservatives do that.
You go to a party convention, the majority are conservatives.
When they pass these resolutions that nobody ever pays any attention to, those are conservative resolutions.
And on most issues, These conservatives are in agreement.
There are always going to be on the margins some disagreements about foreign policy and taxes and so on.
But by and large, you can take most people who are in the Republican Party, throw out ten issues, and they're going to come up with pretty much the same answers on all of them.
You take a look at who the governors are in the United States.
Most of the Republicans who run for governor are conservative.
So why is it in a party that is overwhelmingly conservative that we can't get a conservative nominee for president of the United States?
Why is that?
Look at this field.
If you are a conservative, who are you supposed to support?
It's not easy.
And if you're wondering why these polls have flopped around all over the place, I mean the needle on this thing's been out of control.
They changed from day to day.
It wasn't that it wasn't that long ago that Rick Perry was winning.
It wasn't that long ago that Michelle Bachman was duking it out for first place.
That was only a few months ago.
They now appear headed for oblivion.
Why of the it was only like a month ago.
Herman Cain was winning.
He's not even in the race anymore.
This shows you how fluid this is.
And I know why public opinion is so fluid.
People can't make up their minds because they don't much like any of them.
Look at where we are right now.
You've got Mitt Romney, who's everybody's fallback.
He's pretty much hung where he's been hanging in the polls all along.
And then you have all these other candidates.
The I'm not Mitt Romney, wing of the party.
That some people are embracing and others aren't.
By and large, those candidates are embarrassing.
Newt Gingrich is not very conservative.
And again, I'm speaking only for myself.
He has taught conservative the last few months in an attempt to impress Republican voters who are conservative.
Cap and trade, he was kind of for it.
Man-made global warming.
Wrote a book and said it was a major problem.
Did a TV commercial sitting next to Nancy Pelosi?
Freddie Mack.
He's taking money from Freddie Mack.
In fact, take a look at who the Republican challengers are.
The top three Republicans right now.
You've got the guy who invented government health care, Mitt.
You've got a guy who was on the payroll of Freddie Mack when it was backing the subprime loans that helped kill the economy.
And then you've got Ron Paul who's running around with newsletters in the 90s that he disavows, and who only a few years ago was open to the notion that 911 was an inside job put on by the Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service.
That's what we have.
I don't mean this to be as gloomy as it's coming off.
But if you're a conservative, but if you're a conservative, and therefore in this two-party system that we're in, you're left obviously with the Republican Party, because the other party is now a socialist party.
If you are the majority of the party, shouldn't you have a choice of three or four or five or six or seven good, strong conservatives?
Instead, we have Mitt, who's got the problem with the health care, but is otherwise, I suppose, okay, although you don't get the sense that he's got it in his heart and his gut like many of us do.
Then you've got Newt, Newt, by the way, Wall Street Journal, page one.
Gingrich applauded Romney's health plan.
The Wall Street Journal has been pouring through Every possible Newt Gingrich writing and saying, and I gotta tell you, that is a lot of material.
Can you imagine going through the documented words of Newt Gingrich?
I mean, they could fill the library of Congress.
They found this from 2006 in one of his newsletters put out by his consulting company, the Center for Health Transformation.
And by the way, you knew that that would be new.
Center for Health Transformation.
Who would set up a group with that name other than Newt Gingrich?
Here's what he wrote.
The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to affect major change in the American health system.
We agree entirely with Governor Romney and Massachusetts legislators that our goal should be 100% insurance coverage for all Americans.
Now, Newt has been on the campaign trail pounding on Romney care.
That's the one way that he's trying to establish his conservative bona fides, pounding on Romney care and pounding on the fact that Romney will not disifow the program that he put in place in the state of Massachusetts.
Yet we find out now, in this thing that was dug up by the Wall Street Journal that when Romney care was being imposed in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich was cheerleading for it.
So his criticisms now of Romney care are entirely disingenuous.
Then you've got Paul, Ron Paul.
I know that there are many of you out there who like Ron Paul.
On economic issues, I by and large agree with Ron Paul.
I think he's ahead of the curve on some of this stuff.
His commentary on the Federal Reserve, which a lot of people reject, I think has been fairly prescient.
He's absolutely correct that we have way too much government intervention in our economy.
But once you get past that, I'm sure you're looking at a wing nut.
He is not in the mainstream of conservatism.
He does not believe we face any kind of threat from Islamic terrorism.
Most conservatives do.
He doesn't seem worried at all about Iran getting a nuclear bomb.
Most conservatives are concerned about that.
He wants to legalize drugs.
He has all these libertarian positions that are out there.
And again, that's fine.
But it's not what most conservatives believe.
So we're out here searching for the holy grail candidate.
It shouldn't have to be this way.
As for Ron Paul himself, you see him in the national polls kind of plateauing at a certain point.
But in these state polls of potential participants in the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary, he's doing much better than that.
I know why that is.
Those caucuses and that primary allow non-Republicans to participate.
Think about this for a minute.
If you were a liberal and you were going to vote in the Iowa caucuses or vote in the New Hampshire primary, if you're a liberal, who would you support?
Who'd be the person closest to you?
You'd support Paul.
More on all of that as we move forward.
Again, my name is Mark Belling.
The telephone number here on the Rush Limbaugh program is.
I thought I had this memorized, and I don't.
1-800-282-288-2.
Do we have Byron ready?
Byron York, Washington Examiner has written a provocative piece on this whole who really is backing Ron Paul.
We're going to be talking about him in a moment.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush on EIB.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush.
Great website, Washington Examiner.
In fact, it's one of the links on my own website, which I won't shill for here because this isn't my program.
This is Russia's program.
The Washington Examiner is a great website, however, a lot of political coverage.
It has some local Washington, D.C. coverage.
One of its political correspondents is Byron York.
Byron, thanks for joining us today.
Hi, Mark.
You've written an interesting piece on why Ron Paul is doing well in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire.
And your conclusion is that it isn't necessarily because he's soaring among Republicans.
What is the cause?
You know, it's not Republicans at all.
I got started on this by I was in Iowa maybe a week and a half or so ago.
And if you go to somebody's event, let's say you go to a Rick Perry event, you ask a lot of people, have you decided on a candidate yet?
Well, there'd be some people with Perry, some Gingrich, some Romney, a lot of undecided.
But I I never ran into very many Ron Paul people.
Um at the same time, Scott.
So you were in you were in Iowa, though.
Oh, sure, this is in Iowa.
Just traveling around Iowa with various candidates.
And any time I'm in an event, I make it a point to just ask as many people I can if as I can, have you decided on somebody yet?
And you know, why do you like them?
And believe me, a lot of people are still undecided.
Um but about the same time, Scott Rasmussen the Polster released uh a new poll, and he wrote, Romney leads with Gingrich in second among those who consider themselves Republicans.
Ron Paul has a wide lead among non-Republicans who are likely to participate in the caucus.
So um at the so I I talked to Scott, asked him more about this.
He said fifty-one percent of Ron Paul's supporters in Iowa consider themselves Republicans.
So that means half of them are just are not Republicans, and that is where the bulk of that I mean, that's where I mean if he didn't have that half, he wouldn't be in the lead or anywhere close to it.
Are you finding the same thing in New Hampshire?
Yeah.
The the University of New Hampshire just released a new poll.
Andrew Smith posted there, told me that fifty-six percent of Paul supporters consider themselves Republicans.
If you look at this re recent poll that that uh New Hampshire uh university released, um it has Romney in the lead.
It was thirty-nine percent.
But if you just look at Republicans, Romney is in the lead with forty-six percent of Republicans.
Ron Paul has just thirteen percent.
So Romney has a 33-point lead on Ron Paul in among Republicans.
But look at Democrats, and they're it's they can hope they can vote in this primary.
Ron Paul is in the lead among Democrats with 26 percent among independents with 36 percent.
Yeah, every state has different rules on voting in primaries.
In some states, you have to literally register as a member of a party in order to participate in that primary.
In other states, all you have to do is show up and you can vote in what whatever primary you feel like without regard to w how you voted in the past or even what your ideology is.
Since President Obama is unopposed this year, there's no need for any Democrat to vote for him.
So if you want to take part, you can do that.
Now, what are the rules in Iowa?
Can anyone participate in the Iowa caucuses, or do they have to register as a Republican member in order to do so?
Here's the deal.
It's run by the Republican Party.
They require that you be a registered Republican to participate, but all you have to do is show up at the caucus place on the night of the caucus, signed there.
And you mean you could go right back and be a Democrat after that?
So Democrats have the ability to fully participate in both of these.
That is correct.
And in New Hampshire, uh you can declare yourself an undeclared.
And some of those are really Republicans, some of them are really Democrats, some are actually are undecided, but all the undeclared can vote in the Republican primary.
There's no doubt that there is some mischief voting, I think, among Democrats who would like to uh see Republicans nominate the most uh ideologically extreme.
So then, of course, they can denounce Republicans as extreme.
In addition to the mischief voting, though, there are also just listen the th the sincere voters who are Republicans but are going to participate because this is the only game in town.
In 2008, we had no incumbent running for president.
And you had Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and even for a while John Edwards running for for the nomination over there, so you didn't have that many people going back and forth because both races were contested.
This time around, if you're sitting there in Iowa and you want to take part, you listen to the candidates.
There are probably some people for whom Ron Paul's ideology appeals, and they're going to show up and sincerely vote for him, but they're not people who I think you could call Republicans.
You're you're absolutely right.
And the the the interesting thing about Paul uh I I've gotten a reaction uh today from my article.
People have said, well, gee, if he's pulling an independence, if he's pulling in Democrats, he's he's expanding the party.
Isn't that really good?
Well, the problem is he's losing a lot of Republicans.
And when you ask uh Republicans, is there a candidate out there that you wouldn't vote on vote for under any circumstances?
Uh Ron Paul wins that category.
So he divides uh the Republican Party, loses a lot of Republican support at the same time that he does win some independent support, and there are these Democrats who are doing it for whatever reasons they're doing it right now.
I want to ask I want to ask you a couple of other follow-up questions about what's going to happen as we move into other states and what the impact of Paul potentially winning Iowa would be.
I also want to get to some callers here and talk about where where the Republican field is and why you why conservatives seem to have such a hard time dominating the race.com and he's suggesting that Ron Paul's move in Iowa New Hampshire's polls are is coming almost entirely from people who aren't really Republicans.
*music*
Byron York has an interesting piece out in which he's suggesting that the reason that Ron Paul has moved up on the Iowa and New Hampshire uh primary polls is not because the Republican Party is embracing whatever form of Republicanism he's running on, but because a bunch of people who aren't Republicans are backing him.
Byron after Iowa and after New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, a lot of other states come up toward the end of January and so on.
Does the Paul phenomenon have the ability to last as they move to other states or eventually will there be stricter voting laws that limit participation to truer Republicans.
What's your feel about how long you can play this out it it doesn't look like it keeps going.
First of all, we know that the results of Iowa have been sometimes been kind of idiosyncratic and the uh the winner there, Mike Huckabee the last time does not go on to be the uh Republican nominee, much less the president.
But Paul is about twenty, twenty-two points behind Romney in New Hampshire in the re most recent poll, but when he gets to South Carolina, South Carolina is not Ron Paul territory.
He's about twenty-eight points behind uh Mitt Rom uh behind Newt Gingrich right now, because Gingrich is doing pretty darn well in uh in South Carolina.
And uh Paul's kind of uh brand of of conservatism just does not play very well in South Carolina and I should say it's not because of the primary rules because the South Carolina primary is an open primary but uh I do not look for Paul to do really well there.
Do you think he's going to win Iowa?
It could happen.
The problem with Iowa has always been the fact that conservatives and especially social conservatives have never been able to agree on a candidate.
They tried that they want to support uh Rick Santorum they like him a lot they like Michelle Bachman a lot uh many of them hope had high hopes for Rick Perry and he disappointed them with his debate performances.
But they've never been able to uh to to agree on a candidate when Newt Gingrich came along soared in the polls they were trying to talk themselves into Gingrich because uh certainly some of the social conservatives still had difficulties uh with the three marriages thing and uh so they've never been able to get behind a candidate.
They would love to stop Mitt Romney in Iowa but they have not been able to unite behind one candidate to do it.
Well and that's what I've been talking about here the people who want to stop Mitt Romney are being confronted with the notion of Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul and a lot of people want to stop both of them and people are really throwing up their hands.
Again I want to thank you for joining us Byron York Washington Examiner you can find his piece on Washington Examiner dot com do you have a hard copy of the paper that you guys distribute in Washington or is it a website only?
Well it's in Washington it's a newspaper and I urge it up any time they can at subway stations and stores and everywhere else but uh everywhere else it's Washington Examiner dot com.
You can read my stuff, Michael Barron's stuff, Tim Carney, a lot of people writing for it.
Okay, thanks Byron.
Thank you.
1 800 2A22882 is the phone number.
Now I started the hour by mentioning that for those of us who are conservatives it shouldn't be too much to ask to find a prominent eloquent accomplished mainstream conservative running for president of the United States.
That's the thing that's so frustrating here.
Somebody's going to win this nomination and if history is any judge, there's a good chance that that person won't be all that conservative we saw what happened last time around with McCain.
John McCain is a moderate.
He's not a conservative.
George W. Bush campaigned as a conservative.
He governed rather conservative in some areas and not in others.
Then you had Dole in 96.
You had Papa Bush in 92 and 88.
You have to go back to Reagan before you can find somebody who I think would fit the credential as being a mainstream contemporary American conservative.
That's the part that I think is frustrating.
Many people like myself.
Oh, we have a brand new format on the call screening thing.
How am I supposed to pick out which which uh caller I take here?
Should I just take them in order?
Is that how it works?
All right, uh, let's see here.
Let's go to uh Dave and Herring Lake, New Mexico.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program with Mark Belling.
Good morning.
I want to give you my opinion of the Republican Party that I've been watching for the last fifty-five years of my life.
They keep shooting themselves in the foot all the time.
They have these rhino club uh, you know, country club Republicans running the Republican Party, and they sabotage their own candidates.
You know, they got these people like Carl Row, uh O'Reilly and the other gentleman that it's in the wheelchair.
Uh, given their opinion, it's always negative.
They had good candidates to begin with.
They got rid of one of them, Kane, and now they're after uh uh what do you call Newt and then Well, but do you think Newt's a good candidate?
I don't.
Why why do you think Mitt Romney is a good candidate?
I didn't say he was.
I said he's I I'm saying he he's the fall he's the fallback for a lot of us.
But the what what you mention here, and and you refer to the fact that some people in the party leadership don't like some of the candidates.
I think some of those people are speaking for a lot of us who are not enamored with these candidates.
My problem with Newt Gingrich is that over the last several years, he hasn't been particularly conservative on almost every issue that you can look at that's been important since about two thousand three.
Newt Gingrich has been on the opposite side of most conservatives.
That's the problem.
You mentioned Herman Cain, who did bring a lot to the table, but was utterly unqualified unqualified to be president of the of the United of the United States.
Now, I I understand that you think that this is beaten up on all of the candidates.
My point is is that there ought to be better candidates than this out there.
There certainly are better Republicans in America that are out there right now, and we ought to have one or two or three or four of them to be able to choose from, but the reality is we don't.
Well, you keep talking about Ron Paul.
Ron Paul is a libertarian.
He he's like the uh Republican uh what it called Ralph Nader.
He's there to spoil the party.
He's not there to win.
I know, I know, but he's in there.
Hold on, hold on.
He's in there.
He's got written on Mitch Romney, who was the governor of Massachusetts, who his...
Uh best buddy was Ted Kennedy.
Now, this guy here started what uh over the case.
You object to so many people trashing the Republican candidates, but you spent a good portion of your call trashing some of them.
And thank you for the call.
And all of that is well and good.
This is after all a campaign.
It is an election.
People are supposed to argue on behalf of the candidates that they like and they dislike.
The point that I'm trying to make is that it's real hard for a lot of us to find some candidate that we do like a lot, that there are all of these flaws that are out there.
Now there's a big reason for it.
A lot of the candidates, potential, you know, potential candidates that could perhaps have been the one, the candidate didn't run.
Paul Ryan, Congressman from my own state of Wisconsin, probably right now the ideological leader of the Republican Party.
He didn't run for president.
Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida, passionate conservative.
He speaks, people feel what he's saying.
He's right there in the core of American conservatism on all the issues, and he can express himself while he's not running.
He felt it was too soon for him.
A lot of people deeply admire Sarah Palin.
She's not running either.
You can go into the leaders, you know, the governors who chose not to run.
Chris Christie, who's rather liberal on social issues, but conservative on economic, he he didn't run.
You can't make someone run for president.
The ones that we have were the ones that signed, you know, signed up for this thing.
It's very, very hard, though, for somebody who's looking for someone who fits the bill as president of the United States, somebody who can address the absolute disaster that this train wreck of a president that we have now has led us to, but also somebody that you find yourself agreeing with.
And it's a real, real challenge.
And that's why, as I said, that Mitt Romney has become the fallback for a lot of people because they have problems with the others.
And I'll admit, I have problems with Newt Gingrich.
I have problems with Ron Paul.
I like Michelle Bachman.
She's a hard sell as president.
Let's go now to uh Cleveland, Ohio, and Jeff.
Jeff, it's your turn now.
Uh, we're gonna take a break first.
I am getting direction from Bo Snerdly, who knows far more than me about running the Rush Limbaugh program that we should take the break first.
Now, if Jeff from Cleveland, Ohio is as good as I think he'll be, he will be worth the wait.
I'm the guest host.
I'm Mark Belling, sitting in for Rush on EIB.
EIB EIB, I'm Mark Belling.
You know, here's the other thing about the Republican presidential race.
Everybody who's expressed an opinion about what was going to happen has been wrong.
I don't think anyone anticipated Herman Cain's rise in the polls.
I don't think anyone anticipated Newt's rise in the polls.
Whatever you don't think is going to happen next, probably is what's going to happen next.
Is it possible that Rick Perry could come back?
I would say it's possible.
Is it possible that Rick Santorum could get into this thing?
I would say it's possible.
The reason I don't want to say it's possible is because I have been wrong about every single thing I would have expected.
I didn't think that there was any chance that Herman Cain would get any attention.
I thought people had written off Newt Gingrich forever after his behavior of the last few years.
But again, I think it has a lot to do with this lack of bonding that anybody's making with any of the candidates because they want somebody other than whomever the front runner is at the moment.
And the guy in the meantime that can't close the sale is Mitt Romney.
Cleveland, Ohio, and Jeff, as promised, you're on EIB with Mark Belling.
Yeah, hi, Mark.
I consider myself as conservative as anybody, Tea Party, etc.
And I think we're making a big mistake about Mitt Romney.
I really believe he is a true conservative.
And I would bring up any question and I'll answer it on why I think that it is true.
Um I think the uh the business with health care is a red herring.
The Heritage Foundation back when Mitt was uh governor, advocated for the uh mandate, and I think people mix up the mandate that Obama was talking about with the mandate that Mitt was talking about.
Mitt was talking in a state where 85% of the people wanted it, voted for it, and there aren't governments.
Well, you are right kind of madness.
You are right.
I mean, Mitt Romney's strength is also his weakness, and that is that he comes to Massachusetts.
His strength is is that he was able to get elected in an extremely liberal state and govern from a rather conservative perspective.
But because he is, but because he is some Massachusetts, you know, people like the last callers say, well, that was Ted Kennedy's best friend, and it's hard to trust, and it's hard to trust him because he's a Massachusetts Republican.
I understand what you're saying.
And Anne Colt and Colter's making this the same point, and she's making it strongly, saying, look, the most conservative candidate in the race who has a chance of winning is Mitt Romney, and we're nitpicking, we're nitpicking the guy to death.
He's certainly the safest candidate out there.
Mark.
Can I make another point?
Sure.
Okay.
Tell me this is not a conservative attitude.
Here's a guy who came in in a very liberal state, said he was going to be, he was going to stand behind Roe v.
Wade.
And when He had a sign a law that said they were going to destroy embryos.
He said I cannot do it.
He took a strong conservative stand, turned in other words, his flip-flop in this particular case, to me proves how conservative he is.
In the face of a strongly democratic government, uh uh state, he said, No, I cannot do this.
Let me let me ask you a question.
Clearly, clearly, if you watch the debates, Romney's well spoken.
Clearly, if you look at his background, unlike some of the others, he's qualified to be president.
Clearly, he doesn't have some of the baggage of a guy like Ron Paul.
There aren't any newsletters out there in which he was babbling incoherently.
Clearly he has more experience than a bachelor.
I mean look, let me ask a question though.
Given all of that, why do you think he hasn't closed the deal with so many other people who are conservative?
Why do you think they are wary of him?
Two reasons.
One reason is because he lacks one thing, doesn't seem to have charisma.
For whatever reason, it's an intangible, and he just doesn't seem to have the charisma.
Maybe he he's just too corporate in the way he speaks.
I don't know.
But that's I think he missed he lacks that quality.
For instance, Chris Christie, everybody's hollering for Chris Christie to come into the race.
Yeah, I want to stand Romney though.
I agree with that.
I I didn't know.
I want to say though on the Romney party.
You said that there was a second reason though, also as to why he hasn't closed the deal.
What is that?
I because I think people do not scrutinize.
They take take labels and they run with it.
You know, when they say he was for the mandate, you know, they stop thinking about it.
But there's a big difference.
You know, it's kind of like it's kind of like the people who are.
I get your I get what you were saying.
I just wanted to get your impression as a Romney supporter as to why Mid hasn't closed the deal.
And you know, if you ask me to predict who the nominee is going to be, I would guess it's probably going to be Romney, which means that it won't be because I've been wrong about everything on this race.
Let's try uh Palatka, Florida.
Phyllis, it's your turn on EIB.
Yes, hello, Mark.
Where is Palatka?
Uh it is uh about fifty miles south of Jacksonville.
Okay, because I'm from Wisconsin.
That sounds like the kind of cities we have.
Anyway, what's on your mind, Phyllis?
Uh my comment is that we are just beating up our candidates, the Republicans are.
We are castorating them in front of the world, which really bothers me because when it comes to a time when we must make a decision on one of these, we're gonna have people who are gonna say, well, it's not my particular candidate, so I'm not gonna go out and vote for him.
And there's not you're right, there's no perfect candidate.
I mean, Jesus Christ is not running this time.
So we're going to have to choose from the field that we have.
And I hear people say I don't like Newt Garris because he's had several wives or affairs.
Well, you're not voting for him to be your priest.
And I don't like Nick Romney because he passed health care.
Well, he said he would repeal it.
You can go down the list.
You're not gonna find your perfect candidate.
I know that, but can't we find one that's at least a core conservative?
Well, we have to choose from the field that we have.
This is what we have.
That's the problem.
You're right.
That is the problem.
We can't change that.
This is what we have.
We must deal with what we have.
I don't think anyone knows that for sure, though.
Let's suppose Paul wins Iowa, Romney wins New Hampshire, and Gingrich wins South Carolina, and it's all scattered.
There are some people who think somebody else might still jump into this thing that you might get a Paul Ryan to change his mind or a Marco Rubio to jump in if nobody seems to be uniting the party.
I don't think that's likely because it hasn't really happened in decades.
It hasn't happened since we've moved to the system in which almost every state has a primary, but I suppose it is possible.
I understand what you're saying, Phyllis, that a lot of people are frustrated.
The people like me are out here pounding.
I'm pounding on note, and I'm saying that Michelle Bachman probably isn't ready, and I'm pounding on Paul, calling him a wing nut, and one of these people is going to be the candidate, and you don't want that person so bloodied that they can't beat the socialists that is destroying our nation and destroying our economy and destroying our way of life.
That's all real.
I'm merely expressing the frustration that the last time around when we ran against him, you had a McCain.
When we had Bill Clinton running for a second term, there was Bob Dole.
This party is more conservative than that, and the country deserves a better alternative than that.
And I'm Mark Belling, sitting in for Rush.
Rush.
Rush.
I'm Mark Belling sitting in for Rush Limbaugh.
I think most Republicans want to get this right.
There's a reason why the ratings for all of these debates this summer and fall and even early winter of debate.
I mean, there's a debate every single week, and the ratings kept going up and up and up for each of them.
That's never happened before.
Political debates the year before there's an election, primary election debates.
These were fringe things that only political reporters watched.
But there were millions of Americans watching it.
People really want to get this right because most people understand what is at stake here.
We can't handle another four years of Obama, and we need someone who is up to the position of president.
▲
Export Selection