We ought to send that first hour out to Hollywood to the Grammys just to send them for a loop.
How you doing, folks?
Greetings.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number.
We'll get to your calls in this hour.
Maybe.
Now we will.
800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address, LRushbaugh.
at eibnet.com.
Time magazine, their party establishment, maybe not the Republican establishment, their party establishment, and they are just beside themselves.
John Meekum, who used to be at Newsweek, such an incestuous bunch.
These people leave one magazine, go to a newspaper, go to a network, go back to the newspaper, then go to work for a politician for a while, then become a press secretary and go back to the media.
What an incestuous business.
Anyway, here's John Meekum.
Yeah, in Time magazine, Gingrich's win in South Carolina is bringing out the big guns.
Meet Newt Nixon.
Forget Reagan.
Gingrich's real political analog is another angry striver, Richard Nixon.
Like Nixon, Gingrich is fluent in the vernacular of cultural populism, brilliantly casting contemporary American life in terms of an overarching conflict between the real people and distant elites.
Now, everybody knows that's what Obama is doing.
Obama's pitting the 1% versus a 99.
That Newt's sitting here doing class warfare?
Was Nixon known for class warfare?
These people hated Nixon like you can't believe.
For one reason, well, two reasons.
He outed and convicted Alger Hiss.
He sent a communist to jail.
They never forgave Nixon for sending a communist.
And number two, he wiped some broad out of the William or Wilma Helen Cahagan Douglas.
He beat some woman in a campaign.
Unforgivable.
That's like shooting one in the head.
You just don't do it.
And he couldn't blame it on Sarah Palin because she wasn't old enough.
No, I'm not kidding.
They hated Nixon.
They despised Nixon.
So now Newt equals Nixon.
To the audio soundbites, we go.
David Brooks, the New York Times, this is from last Thursday, University of Chicago Institute of Politics, had a panel discussion about the presidential campaign.
George Stephanopoulos left Washington to go to Chicago to moderate.
Asked Brooks, in your most recent column, you state that you agree with the sentiment that America's got to go back and discover what we had, while also lamenting how it makes for an incredibly backward-looking campaign.
So we've got to go get what we had, but that's looking backward.
What would a successful resolution of this looking backward campaign look like?
I do think that the country has lost something.
There's been a growth in self-esteem.
And this, I think, has a lot of real-world consequences.
One, if you think you're incredibly special, you spend a lot of money on yourself, as befits your station.
And if you look at personal consumption, personal debt as a percent of GDP was 43% for about 70 years, and then it shot up to 133%.
And if you look at polarization, if you have a sense of modesty about yourself, you realize you need the people who disagree with you because of your own flawed understanding of the world.
Yeah.
But if you think you have the truth by the shorthairs they're just in the way.
And so it's no accident that Rush Limbaugh's two shticks are self-grandiosity and partisanship.
I am ruining the country.
What a tortured path To get to me in this question, the question is about how do you win a campaign of the future saying we got to reclaim the past?
That was the question.
So he goes on to describe the country as a lot of self-esteem out there and a lot of debt out there, a lot of polarization, a lot of confidence, selfless braggadocio, if you will, and polarization.
It's no accident that Limbos two shticks.
My plot, I plotted my two shticks.
Self-grandiosity and partisanship.
I'm not a real guy.
I've just calculated what works in a marketing sense, according to David Brooks.
And in the process, I'm ruining America.
Well, that's the thing.
You know, the self-esteem movement is the exact opposite of what's preached on this show.
Self-esteem movement tells losers they're great.
The self-esteem movement tells people like two plus two is five that they're right.
That's what the self-esteem, the self-esteem movement in school tells every reprobate and everybody, you're special, little Johnny.
It's a way to celebrate mediocrity.
The self-esteem movement is a way to make sure nobody feels bad about themselves.
This from the guy who said, you know what, the crease in his pants, there's our next president.
That's the guy that said, I saw the crease in Obama's slack.
So there's the next president.
This is me.
Now we get to the other stuff that I promise you about December 5th on this program.
I think they are more concerned, our consultants, with holding the House and winning the Senate.
I think they believe deep down in the depths of their soul that Obama can't be beat.
I think that they look at Mitt Romney as the single only hope we have of taking the Senate, even if he loses the presidential race.
They're looking at Romney not because he can beat Obama, but because he can limit the damage in the Senate House races, which is what they really want.
I do believe that in some cases, and I'm not prepared to name names right now, I do believe in some cases on our side, they would rather Obama win than a full-throated conservative beat him because they don't control the conservative.
They don't control the Tea Party.
They don't control where that victorious conservative candidate would come from.
That's the statement about the Republican establishment.
That's November or December the 5th.
And I first postulated this theory on November 10th of last year.
Here we go.
Saturday night, MSNBC's special coverage of the South Carolina.
Rachel Maddow had as one of her guests Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign manager.
You know, I have, I have a logical question, but I must tell you, I've got nothing against Steve Schmidt.
I don't know him.
I've never met him.
I've had a couple email back and forths during the 2008 campaign.
But I don't, this is so hard to say.
What do people who ran losing campaigns have to offer?
It's like, why would Romney openly put McCain on stage with him in New Hampshire, which he had in the tank anyway?
I mean, that was favorite son, supposed to win New Hampshire easily.
Nothing could have stopped it.
Why put the 2008 loser and somebody that you know the Republican base does not like?
Why put them front and center on stage with you endorsing you?
Would somebody explain the thinking?
I've never understood.
Bob Schrum is a constant guest.
He's never won a presidential race for any candidate that hired him.
He's up there as an expert.
It would be like having somebody in last place in prime time tell you how to finish first.
McCain is a symbol to Romney?
McCain is assembled.
Well, okay.
All right.
You really think if that's true, then they're dumber than I thought.
Snurdly just told me that the reason that they put McCain up there to endorse Romney is to basically jam it down our throats.
You think that that was a method that Romney getting McCain up there to endorse him was the Republican base saying to us, you.
That's okay.
The theory is that you put McCain up there to endorse Romney because you're sending a message to the Independent.
See, we're the reasonable ones.
We're the ones who will bend over, grab the ankles, and work with you.
Well, if that's true, then I'm even more right about why the base is doing what they're doing in these primaries.
I'm even more right than I knew.
That's right.
Anyway, I don't mean any of this to be insulting.
I'm asking, just from a business standpoint, why would you have a coach who has lost every Super Bowl he's been in as an analyst to tell you how to do it?
At any rate, here's a nice guy.
Don't misunderstand, but I allowed myself to get off point.
Rachel Maddows said to Steve Schmidt, put yourself in the Republican.
Oh, well, here's the answer.
Okay, okay.
I should have read the question.
He's from the establishment.
That's why they wanted him.
Okay, okay, okay.
Put yourself in the Republican establishment shoe, Steve.
What's the panic button that you hit if you're really freaked out that Newt is going to get this nomination now?
We're probably moving towards a declaration of war on Newt Gingrich by the Republican establishment.
And if Newt Gingrich is able to win the Florida primary, you will see a panic and a meltdown of the Republican establishment that is beyond my ability to articulate in the English language.
People will go crazy.
He's right.
He's exactly right about that.
It's already happening.
He is all ready.
It is already happening.
That was the point of my monologue in the first hour of the program.
There already is that panic.
They're already trying to get Mitch Daniels calls renew for Mitch Daniels to enter presidential race.
An online petition called Run Mitch Run launched at 8 o'clock Saturday night, shortly after Newt was declared the winner.
Over a thousand people have signed it so far.
Thousand people, that's big.
Thousand people sign an online petition since 8 o'clock Saturday night.
Big whoop.
Okay, so then, let's see, who's next to it?
Maddows said, okay, is there a component of that which is building a firewall around Romney, protecting him?
We saw the establishment try to do that.
Romney helping us saying, you can't talk any smack about Bain.
Bain's what I want to run on.
It has to be positive.
Don't undercut that at all.
Which to me was like flashing red neon arrow.
Here's my glass jaw.
Please don't hit it.
Is there a way to protect Romney other than this wrong approach they've taken on Bain?
Newt Ingrid has 100% name ID, has a 60% national unfavorable number.
And it's a number that's so high that with the 100% name ID, it's just impossible to come back from.
You're not electable in a general election and a 2012 presidential election if your unfavorable numbers are that high.
There are 33 House Republicans in districts that Barack Obama won.
What is the impact in terms of Republicans being able to keep the House of Representatives in majority control if Newt Gingrich was the nominee of the party?
What is the impact in the United States Senate races where Republicans have a great chance of taking majority control of the United States Senate?
With Newt Gingrich as the nominee of the party, that is perhaps all up in the air.
See, my point, it's all about the Senate and the House.
Is there anything here about beating Obama?
Not much.
Senate and the House.
I told you back in November 10th.
Gingrich can't win.
He can't get the Independents.
He just did.
He can't get the women.
He just did.
His negatives two ways.
He can't win.
There's no way he can win.
Romney, who's nine out of 25, there's our winner.
Don't doubt us.
Britt Hume.
Saturday night, Fox's election coverage had this to say.
Newt Gingrich, 27% favorable, 56% unfavorable.
Believe me, Republicans in Congress will be terrified to run with this man for fear they will lose the House and the Senate.
They will begin to do what they can to try to defeat him because they fear he can't win the election.
And moreover, he may drag many of them down to defeat with him.
Inside the Beltway Convention of Wisdom, folks.
Newt can't win.
They'll lose the House and the Senate.
It's a bloodbed.
It's over.
This is the worst thing that could possibly happen.
It's a full-fledged panic.
Didn't the establishment say they wanted Mitch Daniels back last summer because Romney wasn't exciting enough?
They wanted Mitch Daniels.
That's who they really want.
They really wanted Mitch Daniels.
But everybody knew he wasn't going to run because his wife didn't want any part of it.
We knew this last spring.
Back on May 9th, 2011, on this show, I said this, quoting the Washington Post.
There's a blog published by Chris Salizza.
It's obvious both Republican Washington insiders as well as Democrat power brokers want the nominee to be Mitch Daniels.
What were Hillary's negative numbers in 2008?
Weren't they pretty high?
Did the Democrat elites try to take her out?
Well, some did.
Some did, because there were some Democrat elites that didn't like the Clintons and didn't want to be beholden to the Clintons.
This intrigue goes on in both parties.
Always has.
Party establishments are what they are.
But you can see, I'm just playing somebody's here to confirm for you that I knew what I was talking about back in November.
Mitt Romney is there to save the House and win the Senate.
And Newt, oh, God, oh, no.
Absolute panic because they lose the House and don't control the Senate.
They lose their chance to be in charge of the money.
Here's another Republican consultant, Mike Murphy.
This is on Meet the Press Sunday.
David Gregory, the Obama acolyte, said, you think Romney should triangulate, go more to the middle, even for the rest of the primaries.
Why and how?
Well, after he's got it locked, the new message is Democrats win the House.
We lose the Senate in a general election.
It would be a train wreck.
Romney can't be contaminated by that either.
It's a very tough course for him.
There you have it.
Murphy is a Republican consultant.
He's one of the guys that goes out and tells candidates, elect me.
I can tell you how to win the independents.
That's my job.
I'm better at it than anybody else.
I'll get you the 20% of the moderates and the independents.
Now, you hear it.
Yeah, he was with McCain.
Yeah.
He was also, he's the guy who said, all right, fine.
You think Christine O'Donnell, I'll sit here and sip my cocktail.
Go ahead.
You know, you think you can tell her to win.
You go ahead and do it.
I'll sit here in Georgetown, sip my cocktails, just like you think I'm doing.
Well, after, but Romney should go more to the middle for the rest of the primaries.
That's the advice.
Go more to that's why Romney's no, if he goes to the middle, he's going to that.
That's what they tried to do to get into nomination.
My point is, they tried to get Romney to win as a moderate in the primaries, not as a conservative.
That's where the all was blown.
Their whole theory and strategy was as many conservatives in the primary as possible, split the conservative vote.
Romney wins by default, and that's that's all blown up.
So here's Murphy: the newt message is: Democrats win the House back, we lose the Senate, it'd be a train wreck.
I'm just playing these bites because I warned you people, I told you back in November, that's what this was all about.
No, I'm just trying to get you to know who your party is.
That's all.
That's it.
Tournament, I got to take a break.
Be back in a minute here on this week, Sunday.
Is it this week with Chris Yanaman Porch?
She's gone yet.
No, she's gone.
Stephanopoulos is back.
The University of Chicago, then Good Morning America, then this and that.
And then back to the Clinton campaign, wherever that needs work done.
Stephanopoulos says, George, well, they're banking on Florida, being the backstop.
Big state money work for Romney there.
Stop Newt.
200,000 people already voted.
It has to be tough for Newt to overcome.
Been working the absentees, Romney has closed primary.
I think the Romney campaign's been counting on Jeb Bush giving him an endorsement.
But he said last night he's going to stay neutral.
Here's a small sliver of the silver lining for Mitt Romney.
All across the country this morning, people are waking up who are running for office as Republicans from dog catcher to Senate.
And they're saying, good God, Newt Gingrich might be at the top of this ticket.
Oh, yeah, man, it's true.
All over America, there's abject fear in every Republican precinct that Newt Gingrich may be the nominee.
Stop and how could Newt be the nominee if there is such fear on the Republican side?
How do those two go together?
No, I know the Republican establishment is one thing.
What I'm, I guess, trying to illustrate here is Republican establishment is quite a ways away from the voters.
Alex Castellanos, a Republican consultant, he was on CNN Saturday night.
Anderson Cooper said, how much does Newt's margin of victory matter here?
If Newt wins this by double digits, then I think it's a serious blow.
And Romney, there are going to be phone calls going out to Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal tonight, wondering if anybody else wants to buy a ticket on the train to the GOP nomination here.
Yeah, and then, of course, that leaves out Mitch Daniels.
Let's listen to Scarborough Sunday morning on Meet the Press about Newt.
Newt's not a conservative.
He uses this resentment, the politics of grievance, to actually hide a record that you can really identify very quickly on Google.
You know, the remarkable thing, and this is why Republicans are panicked in Washington, D.C., for good reason.
You know, yeah, Mitt Romney supported an individual mandate.
Newt Gingrich supported an individual mandate.
Newt Gingrich supported cap and trade at one point.
So did Mitt Romney.
It is a mess out there.
And I think you're going to hear more people like Bill Kristol, Eric Erickson talking about a brokered convention.
If Newt Gingrich wins Florida, everything's up for Groms.
Yeah, if Newton wins Florida, boy, it's all over.
Everything's up for gribs.
Brokered convention.
Except there aren't any brokers other than the delegates who are pledged on the first vote.
But as you know, party can make any change it wants anytime, no matter what.
We'll be back.
All right, one more Scarborough soundbite, and then we go to your phone calls.
Wouldn't it be nice if the Republican elite were unhappy with Newt because he's not conservative enough?
That's not why they're unhappy with him.
Here's Scarborough.
This is his explanation about what's going on out there in terms of the panic.
The party base is revolting, but they're revolting against the Washington Republican establishment anointing Mitt Romney.
Now, Mitt Romney could attack Newt for not being a conservative because Newt is not a conservative.
Google it.
We ran him out of Congress in 1998 because he sold us out on taxes.
He sold us out on spending.
He went to the floor and he sided with Democrats on his last speech, calling us the perfectionist caucus.
He'd call us jihadists.
He's not a conservative.
He's an opportunist.
Joe Scarborough, and he was part of the freshman class in 1994.
And there was a lot of anger at Newt when he went out.
Newt's ego got the best of him.
He got a hold of him.
I remember Newt in May of 1995.
He'd been speaker five months, predicting he's going to be president.
May of 1995.
Oh, yeah, I want him to be president.
He was thinking about it then.
Anyway, so we've set it all up now.
I wanted to take the occasion to explain it all to you.
And this stuff is all going to shake out, folks.
It's all okay out there.
It's all.
I know you're thinking, my God, Rush, everybody on our side's flawed.
Romney not a conservative.
Newt may not be, but Newt's a wacko.
news of this or that, Santorum can't seem to, oh god, Rush, what's gonna don't forget who we're running against We are not running against the Messiah.
Not running against God, just somebody who thinks he is.
Don't panic, folks.
This is the system.
It's how it all works.
Okay, to the phones.
You all have been patient out there, and I appreciate it.
We're going to start in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Casey, great to have you, sir.
Thank you for waving and hello.
Thank you, Rush.
Hey, I've never called before.
Now that I'm on, I'm really nervous.
My hand's even shaking.
But glad you're out there.
We love you to death.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Listen, my comment is my wife and I even talked about this yesterday or Saturday before we voted.
And you're the only one that I hear say it, and you're exactly right.
It is exactly a message that we're trying to send.
We're Romney supporters.
She may have actually voted for Romney.
I'm not exactly sure, but we kind of decided to vote for Newt.
And specifically, it's exactly because of the way he did in the debates and taking the media to task and actually just making us feel good about that.
We are so sick and tired of every single time we watch the news or anything in the media, the feeling we get, the sick feeling we get every story they tell almost.
You can almost say it's 100% of the time that it's like that.
And actually, we really want Romney to hear that message, though.
This message that we just sent by voting for Newt.
That's what I want him to do.
I want him to take that.
Newt is a vessel.
Newt, you want the heads of your party.
You want the people that run the party that you're a member of to get the message.
Stop making fun of you.
Stop impugning you.
Stop thinking you're a bunch of hayseed hicks.
You just want to save the country.
You want somebody that's going to have fire and brimstone to go out and beat Obama.
You don't want people that are afraid to campaign.
I know exactly what this victory in South Carolina was all about.
The Republican primary voters are this audience.
I know exactly what's going on here.
And look at 25 years, probably longer than 25 years.
But the people who make this country work are sick and tired of being blamed, falsely accused, attacked, called bigots and racists and sexists and homophobes and all these other horrible rotten things.
Selfish, greedy.
They're seeing their futures robbed.
Their party doesn't seem to have the guts to do anything to stop it.
They see their party leaders wanting to get themselves in charge of it all.
This guy, he's going to, if I'd let him go on, he would have said, we don't care if Newt were married 10 times right now.
We don't care if Newt had married a horse right now.
The message is what we want sent.
We want this party to figure out how to represent us.
We think we know how to beat Obama.
And it's not with McCain.
It's not by going after the independents.
It's not by saying we want to compromise and cross the aisle and work with those people who are destroying this country as it was founded.
We don't want to work with those people.
Those people have been laughing at us and making fun of us and impugning us.
And we don't want you being friends with them.
They are taxing us.
They are preventing our attempt to acquire wealth.
They are spending our children's future away.
Why do you want to make nice with them?
Why do you want to work with them?
Why do you want to compromise with them?
Why don't you want to beat them?
That's what we want.
Ergo, somebody comes along and shows how it can be done.
And they go, yeah, right on, Mama.
Keep it coming.
That's all Saturday was.
And it was a result of a couple big days prior to Saturday in the week, South Carolina, to Philadelphia.
Dennis, great to have you, sir, on the EIB network.
Hello.
Rush, I'm a 48-year-old black man who has all my life been Democrat.
And I want to say that as a truck driver, I listened to you and been angry with you over the years, but I still listen to you because I'm in a truck.
But I have finally come to see something.
And I want to say three years ago, I would have never saw myself or thought of myself saying that I agree with you.
And I am now dropping my association with Obama, who I voted for a few years ago.
And I'll never vote for this guy.
I can't.
I'm thinking of dropping even being a Democrat, but it's all because of you in a lot of ways.
But the tipping point for me was Newt Gingrich, what he said a few days ago, something I would have really been very angry with and almost insulted by.
He said that Obama's decision regarding this pipeline was stunningly stupid.
And I could not disagree with that because this pipeline, in addition to the fact that it's automatically going to bring a lot of jobs, without a doubt, help the economy.
It's going to have an immediate impact on the price of things, impact on the price of gas, which in my industry is enormous.
People don't understand how the price of fuel affects everything that they pay for, from food to any goods that they get.
But the bottom line is that this man, because of what I can clearly see as politics to support these environmental people, he is willing to destroy this country, destroy the economy.
It's a no-brainer in terms of getting away from dependence on the foreigners, foreign oil.
And I just cannot in good conscience continue to hurt my family in the amount that I'm paying for fuel, groceries, and everything else.
I cannot in good conscience support this man when this is obvious, obviously political, because it would have helped this country and the economy.
So I want to say I'm finally seeing the light and I'm done with him.
This is major, Dennis.
I mean, the Keystone Pipeline, this is one of the, you are one of the biggest 180-degree changes of mind that we've ever had on this program.
And you just changed your mind three weeks ago after a lifetime of thinking something else.
Well, listen, I know he's going to do his State of the Union talk tomorrow.
I hope to God that whoever's going to respond to him will highlight the fact that this is an intentional, this, well, it's a slap in the face of every hardworking American in this country who pays bills, who buys groceries.
I'm having a hard time in a lot of ways just paying for things, not just to mention my fuel costs, but the bottom line, my groceries and everything else.
And if the Republicans, if you guys don't jump on this thing during this response to his State of the Union, you're missing a major opportunity because this will have an immediate impact to benefit this country and everybody else.
And like I said, I'm done with these people.
Well, you're exactly right.
I'll tell you who's going to do the response.
It's Mitch Daniels.
Okay.
I don't.
Well, I'm saying I don't really know.
Well, he's the governor of Indiana, and he was in the Republican presidential primary field and then pulled.
Well, he never really got into it.
He was very close to getting in, but he never did pull the trigger.
He's a budget expert.
Indiana doing pretty well.
He was a budget director for Bush.
Moderate.
Well, I would say to every black American who feels they have to have some loyalty to this man simply because he's black or because he's Democrat, we're shooting ourselves in the foot.
We're killing ourselves.
We're having a hard time as black people anyway.
God, you're singing from my hymnal.
You're in my choir, Dennis.
You are exactly right.
This Keystone pipeline, everybody's scratching their heads.
This is causing a lot of people to look at Obama in a different way.
How did you know that he was acting out of loyalty to his environmentalists?
But I mean, if you knew that, you were willing to tolerate that for a while.
But what was the last straw about this?
Well, it's really a slow thing.
I think starting with the Obama care and the fact that I know that the government doesn't do anything well, they just don't do things well.
Everything they stick their hands into, it always becomes more expensive.
But this thing here with the Keystone thing, I mean, I knew, I know how the environmentalists are.
I understand the fact that they don't really want that.
They want us to eat grass and live in trees.
They're trying to force you off the road, Dennis.
Well, that's true.
And because of the fact that I agree with that, but you know, I just know that this guy was doing it more or less out of trying to buy time until the election is done.
It's kind of, it became obvious to me that, I mean, nobody with any sense can't deny the fact that this is going to help us.
And I'm hurting, to be honest with you, and I'm really hurting and the fact that he's not, he's siding with these environmental people over just the whole economy, the whole nation, and black people, my people in particular, because we are really poor in a lot of ways compared to white America.
And I used to be kind of bitter toward white America in a lot of ways, but I'm not now.
I really thank you for what you've done, and this is really, I feel it's just changed my life.
Well, you've rocked my boat here.
You've floated my boat.
I can't thank you enough.
What a day.
I mean, this is guys like you and calls like yours are just one of the best things that happens to me.
I can't thank you enough.
I want to give you an iPad, Dennis.
Do you have one?
No.
You don't have it.
I guarantee you'll find a way to use your iPad in your truck cab.
Oh, wow.
I guarantee you will.
You'll find it if you hook up, it's got 3G in it.
So you can connect to a cellular network when you're not near Wi-Fi, and you can find where fuel is the cheapest on your route.
You'll be able to find where diesel is the cheapest.
I assume that's what you use.
Anyway, I've got to put you on hold.
I got to go to a break, but Mr. Snurdly will get your address and give us an address at FedEx uses.
That's what we use to send it to you.
We don't mail it.
And you'll have it tomorrow or wherever you want it.
It'll be there tomorrow.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Well, thank you.
Spread the word, Dennis.
You know, don't be mute out there.
Spread the word.
Okay.
Well, wow, this is amazing, Rush.
You're a wonderful guy.
And I've rolled it over the months, just become a bigger and bigger.
Just hang in there, Dennis.
You've made the big move.
Plant roots now.
And we got to take a brief time.
Don't hang up.
Snurdle will be right with you.
Be right back after this.
Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Rush Limboy to Plymouth, Michigan.
This is Myron, and it's great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Oh, thanks, Rush.
I'm a first-time caller and a little nervous, but I'm a retired golf community developer here in Michigan.
Wow.
It's a game of golf, and I loved your Haney project.
Thank you very much, sir.
I appreciate it.
You know what I saw the other day?
I saw just this morning, there's a story about the whole business of golf resorts and communities.
You're probably, if you're retired, it's probably a good time.
Something that one out of every four houses in Palm Springs for sale is on a golf course that people are not, they don't have the money to pay the big initiation fees to join the clubs.
It was a story that really made the industry out to be in pain.
Oh, you're absolutely right.
You can't believe how many offers I've had to take over golf courses.
I believe it.
But I retired about seven years ago, just in the nick of time.
But I wanted to talk to you about this Newt Gingrich and Romney thing.
And I know you won't be, but I'm a little concerned that maybe the populists might be getting conned by Gingrich's spiel, if you want to call it.
And, you know, I was sort of on the fence with everybody.
Personally, I like Sarah Palin, but she's not running.
And I do want to see a conservative person running.
But when Gingrich made the comment about anti-capitalism, that sort of lit my fire.
What comment specifically?
Well, when he attacked Bain Capital.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He didn't call it vulture capitalism.
I mean, I know Perry did, but he was basically saying the same thing.
Yeah, that's not good.
And so I, you know, I've hired a lot of people in my time, and my golf course architect, I had a very good one, and I hired him based on what he could do, but I also hired him based on his character.
And so I went to do a little research because I hadn't really checked into the candidates all that much.
And so I just started Googling, and I was just astounded at what I found out both about Gingrich and Romney.
And, you know, it comes down to me, what's the question?
Do we want to hire a successful manager to run this country, or do we want to hire another narcissistic orator?
It's not about either of those right now.
That's what I'm trying to say.
Those are our backbench issues right now.
That's not what's going on here.
What's going on here is the conservative base trying to send a message to the Republican establishment.
You're going to have to have somebody who's legitimately conservative.
That's the only way we're going to be passionately behind our nominee.
And that's the only way we're going to beat Obama.
This is something really big.
This is not the voters saying we love Newt.
Newt's the only guy.
That's not what's going on here.
Newt's a vessel right now.
And Newt would be wise to understand that, too.
As I said earlier in the program, a couple other things I want to get into today, above and beyond the South Carolina primary, Florida primaries.
Another debate tonight, by the way.
I think this one on NBC.
I don't know what it may be, but it's a Florida debate, so that's coming up.
There are some other things, and we'll delve into them.
And your phone call, you want to still talk about this?