Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
No, Dawn, I haven't voted yet, and I haven't voted yet for a reason.
So that I wouldn't come in here and be goaded into telling people who I voted for.
And Politico tried that late yesterday afternoon.
But I'm ready for all comers.
Yeah, Jonathan Martin sent me an email.
Has the most important conservative in Florida figured out how he's going to vote?
Everybody's out after.
It's been pressure-packed.
I can't tell you.
This whole situation is, if you're not careful, it can lead to uncomfortable moments with people.
See, now they're asking me, have I figured out who I'm going to vote for?
Yes, you are.
Next.
If I tell you, yes, I've figured it out, then you're going to say, whoo, who?
You're going to keep badgering me all day.
Hiya, folks, how are you?
Rushlinboy here, the godfather of talk radio, as it's written in Politico today.
Telephone number here on the day of the Florida primary, 800-282-2882.
The email address, lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
I'll bet a lot of you have forgotten Florida is being punished for going early in the primary process.
Normally, Florida would have 100 delegates that would be appointed today, but they've been cut in half.
Only 50 delegates from Florida for the Republican convention this time around because they wanted to go early.
They jumped the line, and the establishment wasn't crazy about it.
So I'm minding my own business.
Colin Powell, I'll bet you he doesn't get the kind of pressure I'm getting.
You think Politico emailed Colin Powell, who's a titular head of the Republican Party, and said, okay, who is the godfather of talk radio voting for?
Who do you tell him to vote for?
I think Colin Powell is getting this kind of pressure.
I'm minding my own business.
And even yes, while minding my own business, I was nevertheless bothering a lot of people.
Just my existence was bothering a lot of people.
And I get an email from my old buddy Jonathan Martin at the Politico.
And he wanted to know if I decided who I was going to vote for.
So I wrote back, not yet.
He writes back, does that mean Romney is still possible?
I wrote back, all three are possible.
Then this is the next line in the political stuff.
That's all I said.
Not yet.
All three are possible.
And I told him this because there's no way I'm going to tell the media who I'm voting for.
And since I made, you know, since I decided to reply to the email, which probably was a bonehead mistake, I put myself in this position.
Anyway, I responded to it.
And so he's asking me who I'm going to vote for.
And if I give him a name pro or con, then I'm in trouble.
We're in trouble I don't want to be in.
So when I say all three are possible, it's simply my way of telling him I'm not going to tell you who I'm voting for.
And I'm not going to give you any indication one way or the other who I'm voting for.
So I said, all three are possible.
Well, that, when Politico ran the story last night, you wouldn't, the people who think that I love Newt were all over me.
The people who think that I should be for Romney were all over me for not committing to it.
The people who think, what do you think?
It sounds to me like you're supporting Santorum.
What the hell?
Why won't you?
I mean, I got bombarded.
So I was a bonehead move to answer the email.
But I was sitting there and I was in the middle of something and it just, you know, my natural inclination is toward politeness.
It's a shame, one of the tried and true virtues.
Manners, politeness seem to always get a person in trouble.
Have you ever noticed that?
The virtues of manners and politeness can get you into trouble.
Well, trouble.
I mean, in a situation you'd rather not be in.
Anyway, so back to the political piece here.
And it's written by Jonathan Martin.
It shows up in the Burns and Haberman blog.
Doesn't even show up under Martin.
It shows up in his byline, but not on his blog.
Anyway, not yet, Limbaugh wrote when I asked if he had figured out who he was supporting.
All three are possible.
Here's the next line.
He didn't say it, but it seems Limbaugh has qualms with both Gingrich and Santorum.
And I had not said anything to indicate that.
I don't know that I have said anything to indicate that on the radio.
I mean, I've been critical of all of these people.
I've been, as the day goes, comes and goes, and as it is warranted, I have been critical of all three of them.
Probably less so of Santorum, but I have not been less critical of the other two or more critical.
Well, how do you write?
He didn't say it, but it seems Limbaugh has qualms with both Gingrich and Santorum.
Well, that line, I guess it's wishful think.
Well, that line, coupled with the line where I had said all three are possible, can you imagine the avalanche I got yesterday?
I mean, I was inundated from friends, and then I went to the El Rushboat EIBnet.com, the public email box, and I'm sure it was tweeted all over the place.
Then this is a godfather of conservative talk radio has taken up for Gingrich as the former speaker has taken fire from pro-Romney Republicans.
But Limbaugh has also spoken out against Gingrich as bane bashing and had nice things to say about Santorum.
Just as with other conservatives who like the former Pennsylvania senator, though, Limbaugh doesn't want to waste his vote.
I didn't say anything about that.
As a caller Monday made a lengthy case for Santorum, Limbaugh cut him off and said, so tell me why he's there at 13%.
Now, that was not a rhetorical question as it's being, as it seems it's being reported.
I really wanted, this person had just given me a top-down resume-enhanced, I'm voting for Santorum.
And I said, okay, if all that, why is he at 13?
I wanted to know, really, what does the voter think?
It was not a rhetorical, okay, so then why is a loser at 13?
That was not the question.
Didn't ask it with that tone.
You know, Whale Trump finds out that he's not Florida's most influential voter.
Trump is politico says I am.
That's what it says here.
That's it.
Florida's most important undecided Republican voter.
It's a story about me.
Whitele Trump hears about this.
That's the kind of stuff that they say about Trump.
I'm going to hear about it.
I'm going to hear about that from Trump.
He'll call you on to go play golf.
I say, oh, yeah.
He says, what is this?
You didn't correct the Politico and tell them that I'm the most important undecided.
I said, Donald, I didn't write the headline.
I didn't know that was going to be the story.
Just joking about that.
So then Jonathan Martin said, well, are you going to tell people how you voted after you vote?
I don't vote till after the show.
Oh, oh.
So I don't think Trump votes in Florida, actually.
I think Trump votes in New York.
He's a New York resident.
Channel 5, the local NBC affiliate, is wondering how, wondering what?
How they're local?
Oh, I'm just now hearing that the local NBC affiliate here, Channel 5, this morning in their morning news, wanted to know how their local Republican celebrity was, as though there's only one here.
There's only one Republican celebrity here.
How that Republican, I.E. me, is going to vote.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
I think Trump probably votes in New York.
He's a New York resident.
I think Trump probably votes.
Trump is not voting in Florida.
They said most famous Republican celebrity, most famous Republican celebrity.
Six of one, half dozen or another.
But then it says here, one Limbaugh has come out for Santorum, though.
Limbaugh noted last week on his show that his brother, David, the conservative author, is backing Santorum.
And I quoted here as saying, my brother goes rogue.
David did tell me he's going to vote for Santorum.
So I'm the big vote on the right, the big voice on the right, and the big vote on the right.
What did the polls now show?
Is King Rich bound down by 15 in Florida?
20 in one poll, 15.
See, this is the thing.
I've always, you know how much respect I have for you in this audience, for your intelligence and your independence, and for your ability to follow and understand what we do on the program here.
And I've never, ever considered all of you mind-none robots.
And I've really, contrary to what many of you might believe, I do not have an outsized ego.
I don't have really much of an ego at all.
I frankly wish I had a bigger ego than I do.
I don't think that my endorsement is going to change a whole lot of opinions.
You listen to the people calling here that are passionate about these.
The guy that called yesterday about why he thinks I'm screwing Romney, you think if I came out and said I'm voting Santorum, that it changed his mind?
No, no.
My point here is that this is the thing about this primary.
The attachments that people have to these candidates are really solid.
And they are passionate.
And a lot of it is driven by a hatred for the other guy.
Like the Romney people, a lot of them just can't stand Newt and vice versa.
A lot of Newt people just can't.
In fact, I have to tell you, the vitriol, the dislike, the enmity that people who are not voting for Romney have for him is powerful stuff.
And if I came out today and said, I'm voting Romney and I think you should too, I wouldn't win a bunch of converts.
Those people would be livid with me.
They are attached either to the negative aspect of somebody or the positive, the support aspect of it.
But the people that are not supporting Romney largely is they just can't stand him.
They don't think he's conservative.
And in their minds, I would be dumb and idiotic and I'm not seeing things.
It's plain as day.
They wouldn't be swayed.
This is my point.
I think it's a little insulting to conservatives to think that a series of endorsements from people will have a significant impact.
And I know some people, I'm not denying that, would be influenced by it.
I would like to hear an endorsement.
Most of you are not mind-numbed robots.
Most of you have made up your mind.
And this next comment is by no means critical.
This next comment is by no means critical.
I want you to understand that.
Sarah Palin, God bless her, has been out for the past week doing everything.
In fact, I think she's now crossed over and said, vote newt.
As for the past week, do this.
Now, it's not showing up in the polls.
We'll see.
I mentioned yesterday that this enmity toward Romney is so strong that the polls may not be picking up.
And Gingrich may finish a lot closer than minus 15 tonight.
That's how strong the anti-Mitt feelings are among those who harbor them.
It's vicious.
And a lot of them are angry at Mitt because of the way he's conducting the campaign and all of what they think are the lies that are being told about Gingrich.
Even though there's nothing illegal about it, they're fed up with it.
They're blatant lies.
They don't like it.
It just seems to a lot of people unnecessary.
A lot of people dirty pool.
A lot of people says a lot about Romney's character, whatever.
They just don't like it.
So we'll see.
Well, are you telling me that if I came out and said I'm voting for X, that everybody would then think X could win?
A lot of people would.
But wait a second.
Wait a second.
Snirdly, wait a minute.
See, this is I've often said people that work for me have a far loftier impression of me than I have of myself.
I don't think of myself at all.
In fact, I'm not looking at this from the standpoint of elective.
Whoever I choose, it's not because they're going to be, I think they can win.
Whoever I vote for, it's not because I think they can win.
It's because I like them.
I like their policies.
There's a whole lot of reasons to vote.
I also don't mind this process going on further.
Anyway, let me take a brief time out here, folks.
That sets the table out there.
Nate Silver, supposed genius, blogger, Yahoo, New York Times, whoever he is, got Romney up by 15.
Rasmussen has Romney up by 15.
The best way, folks, for you to read my tea leaves is to go to 2ifbytea.com and buy some.
And we're back.
Rushlin bought a cutting edge of societal evolution.
For example, in the monologue, I just told you how some people that are voting for Newt are just ticked as hell about the lies that Romney is telling.
I got an email.
So what lies is Mitt telling?
You know, I have never been through anything like this in my life.
I am not going to lose friendships over this.
And I haven't taken a position.
I'm the one that has not taken a position.
I'm going to lose friendships.
I'm going to fire people over this.
And that's why I'm not going to tell anybody for whom I voted.
That would destroy my objectivity as a journalist.
Somebody has to be a journalist in this situation.
I just want to see, it's the Florida primer.
I want to see if anybody votes for Pat Buchanan today.
That's what I want to see.
I want to see if there are any, I know the Chads are gone, but I still want to see if somebody ends up voting for Buchanan.
Now, let's see.
There is some interesting data out from Zero Hedge, but I can't see it anymore.
Zero Hedge, it's a website, have pointed out some confirmation about something that I've been talking about for a long time, and they have been saying it too as well.
And that is if you factor in the smaller workforce, the real unemployment rate would be a good bit higher than it is.
And there's a companion story to this, and that is from the Wall Street Journal today.
Consumer confidence unexpectedly declines.
You know, Obama's trying to set this scenario up where the economy's roaring back.
Everything's doing fine.
Some woman shows up, grabs some bites one and two.
This is amazing what happened yesterday.
This was on the Google Plus website last night at the White House.
And during the Q ⁇ A, a citizen named Jennifer Weddell or Weddell, I don't know how she pronounces, she's in Fort Worth, said, my husband has an engineering degree with over 10 years' experience.
He was laid off three years ago.
He has yet to find a permanent job in his field.
My question to you is, why does the government continue to issue and extend H-1B visas when there are tons of Americans just like my husband with no jobs?
I can tell you that there's a huge demand around the country for engineers.
Where you're seeing a lot of specialized demand is in engineering that's related to the high-tech industries.
And now, what industry tells me is that they don't have enough highly skilled engineers.
If your husband's in that field, then we should get his resume and I'll forward it to some of these companies that are telling me they can't find enough engineers in this field.
So it's going to vary, but as a basic matter, there's a huge demand for engineers around the country right now.
Okay, so here's a woman whose husband is unemployed, shows up to this stupid Google Plus thing with Obama, says her husband has been unemployed for three years, worked as an engineer.
Obama says it's not possible.
What do you mean?
This economy, we need engineers left and right.
And the woman says, well, he's a semiconductor engineer.
See, it is interesting to me, and I meant what I said.
If you send me your husband's resume, I'd be interested in finding out exactly what's happening right there because the word we're getting is that somebody in that kind of high-tech field, that kind of engineer, should be able to find something right away.
That is incredible.
So send me the resume.
I'm going to find out what's going on.
Our economy's coming back.
There's no reason your stupid, idiotic husband can't find a job.
Send me his resume.
Let me find out what the hell's wrong with this idiot.
This is amazing.
Thomas Sowell is out with a piece today, a column, National Review online, and he takes note of the Romney criticism of Gingrich, not happy with it at all,
describes it as wild distortions and lies about, for example, why Newt incorrectly being said was run out of the house in disgrace and so forth when he was completely exonerated by the IRS and all this ethics stuff, Romney charging that he was so bad, so embarrassing, so devoid of ethics, his colleagues got rid of him, that kind of stuff.
And Sowell makes the point.
And I remember, ladies, Going back as recently as 2008, maybe 2010, trying to warn everybody what's really going on in the Republican Party.
And I've tried to highlight it over and over again, repeatedly, as necessary as needed.
In addition to the effort we all are engaged in to defeat Obama, the Republican Party is hell-bent on making sure that the Tea Party, i.e., conservatives, do not conquer this party and end up controlling it or running it.
Now, Sowell is of the belief that the real purpose of Romney's assault on Gingrich is to just take out the conservative wing of this party and defeat it and send it packing.
That it is the establishment, the rhinos, the Teddy Roosevelt wing, the Rockefeller wing, what are the moderate Republicans who don't have a taste and don't have any ability to get down and get muddy and actually do what it takes to win.
It's too easy to just play the game and get close to winning now and then win sometimes, but stay close to power however you have to do it.
Conservatism upsets that apple cart, wants to de-emphasize the role of government in people's lives.
The Rhino Republicans don't want that.
Sowell says that what's happening here is the establishment is waging war against Tea Party and conservatives.
And Gingrich happens to be the last man standing in that region.
So he's the target of it.
That's Thomas Sowell's opinion.
A lot of people hold that view.
I know for a fact that the Republican establishment, and you know how to define them, what would you say, Stergley, if somebody asked you, in a sentence, complex understandable here, what is, who is, and don't give me a name, the Republican establishment.
What is it about them that makes them the establishment?
They run Republican thought.
No, it's far more specific than that.
The Republican establishment wants spending.
They want active government.
They want to be in charge of it.
They'll tinker with it on the margins, but they want to be inside the entire power structure.
They don't want to be at odds with the power structure in New York, in Washington, in the whole Northeastern corridor.
They want to be part of it, and they're happy being a minority part of it as long as they're close to power, as long as they have the respect of the people who run the overall largest.
They want to be part of the ruling class.
They don't want to be fighting the ruling class.
They want to be part of it.
On the social side, they might not care that they don't get invited to the big Fourth of July parties in the Hamptons, but they want to be in the Hamptons when they're happening.
They don't want to be laughed out of the Hamptons.
It's really, it's high school.
Nobody ever really graduates high school.
It's that kind of stuff.
In this case, it's money-oriented.
And they are not conservative.
They don't like conservatives.
And so that battle is being waged and has been going on.
It's been going on since the early 1900s.
Teddy Roosevelt's soul goes through all of this.
You've heard it all on this program.
That's what this is about.
And that's where the fault lines lie.
So people who understand the belief, I came out today and said I'm voting around it.
I wouldn't, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, that to these people is a vote for the Republican establishment and against conservatives.
That is a vote for the Republican Party as a minority party forever.
That's how they see it.
They just do.
So it's a and while all this is going on, the big target is, as we speak, getting away scot-free.
And that's another thing that troubles me.
I mean, on the other hand, I like this battle going on because I think the longer it goes, the more conservatism ends up being discussed, explained, because that's what's going to win in the end.
And I mean, at the end of the presidential race, if whoever the nominee is doesn't go conservative, it's over.
It's just as we're not going to go moderate light and win.
We're not going to go moderate and win.
We're not going to go middle of the road and win.
We're not going to win going after the independence as our primary objective is not going to happen.
And I don't mean that doing so will cause people to base to sit home.
I'm talking about getting a majority of the votes of the United States citizenry.
The vast majority of people in this country, what's so maddening about the Republican establishment is how blind they are or willingly, willfully blind, how overwhelmingly conservative this country is.
Just take a look at the people that identify themselves ideologically.
40% say they're conservative, 20% liberal, 30-some-odd independent.
Party identification, not quite as big a margin.
But when it comes down to ideology, there are twice as many people who will tell pollsters they are conservative.
Think of that.
It's probably therefore greater than 40%, because you know how people intimidated don't want to tell a pollster something because they don't want the pollster to think that they're a bigot or a racist or whatever the heck else.
That's pretty powerful.
And I think the majority of people in this country are conservative.
You give them a conservative agenda and you tell them you're going to implement it.
And this is how.
And you're going to have the equivalent of those standing ovations Gingrich got in South Carolina all over this country on Election Day in November.
And what's maddening about this is the Republican establishment knows it and they are afraid of it.
They don't want any part of it until Election Day of any presidential year.
They'll take it that day to win and then after that distance themselves, insult them, impugn the conservatives, do whatever they have to do to relegate them to the dustbin.
Except on Election Day.
So here's Obama out.
You know, wasn't long ago, people sent tea bags to the White House.
Maybe everybody ought to send their resume to the White House.
Obama asked for the woman's resume.
Well, I don't understand.
Our economy coming back.
High-tech engineering jobs today.
I knew Steve Jobs.
I know Zuckerberg.
Oh, jobs everywhere out there.
Let me see that resume.
I'm going to find out why your stupid husband can't find a job.
My economy roaring back.
Let me see his resume.
Send me his resume.
It doesn't make sense.
The economy is roaring.
But is the economy roaring back?
Back to the guys at Zero Hedge.
If you factor in the smaller workforce, the real unemployment rate would be a lot higher than it is.
And where does Zero Hedge get that confirmation?
Where do they get it?
From the supposedly nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which says, buried, by the way, in its latest report, if you take out the portion of the decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007 that is attributable to neither the aging of the baby boomers nor the downturn of the business cycle, the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about a one and a quarter percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7.
Now, what all that means is, if you take out the portion of the decline in the labor, just the people who have quit working because there aren't any jobs, if we just reduce the universe of available jobs because they don't exist anymore, and then add the unemployment number, compare it to that, you actually end up with an unemployment number of 9.35% right now instead of 8.1.
That was 8.7 when these numbers were run.
If you add the one and a quarter percentage point to the 8.7 unemployment back when it was 8, well, you get 10.1 percent.
Now, the U6 number is still in the 16 to 17s.
That counts people who've gone beyond their 99 weeks of unemployment, and nobody knows what they're doing.
The economy is not shaping up.
Obama started this whole charade in the State of the Union show.
They're going to focus every bit of energy they have on the Buffett rule, the new alternative minimum tax, class envy, try to get 99% of the people revved up and in full rage and hatred against the 1%.
And that's how they're going to try to win the elections because they cannot talk about their record.
They cannot say, vote for Obama because we need four more years of this.
They can't do that.
So they've got to go back to something that traditionally, in presidential elections, hasn't worked.
The class envy thing.
Ask Walter F. Mondahl about it in 1984.
Mondahl tried it, lost 49 states.
It just, no, don't cite Clinton in 92.
Clinton in 92 didn't do class warfare.
Clinton did worst economy in the last 50 years.
Clinton, he was not at that time focused on the rich being the sole reason for a down economy.
He was blaming it on Bush.
And, you know, Bush had raised taxes in violation of his pledge, like everybody wanted him to do.
They weren't able to run around and say that Bush had done tax cuts for the rich in this.
They had to focus on Bush not caring.
And to the extent there was class envy, Bush was a patrician bluebloody.
He really didn't care that much, wasn't engaged, worst economy.
And that was a lie.
The Democrats can't get anywhere without lying about it.
We just literally cannot survive as we exist today and as we were founded with four more years of Obama.
And I'll tell you something else.
Four years of effectively being a lame duck, meaning he can't run again, so he doesn't have to worry about the negatives.
The only stop for Obama is if we hold the House and increase the numbers in the Senate.
But you give this guy four years with no accountability and not really having to worry about what his negative numbers are because he can't run again, theoretically can't run again.
Second term is where his base would be having an orgasm every minute of every day for four years.
Might as well get Saul Lelinsky out of the grave, put him in the White House and have him run things.
That's what it would end up being.
Now, Kathleen Madigan in the Wall Street Journal, consumer confidence unexpectedly declines.
Unexpectedly.
Yes, because Obama said last week that we're in this big recovery now.
Everything's back to normal.
Everything's cool.
We're roaring ahead.
U.S. Consumer Confidence January gave back some of the huge gains posted in the previous two months, according to a report released today.
The conference board, private research group, said its index of consumer confidence retreated to 61.1 this month, a revised from a revised 64.8 in December.
Consumer expectations for economic activity over the next six months slipped only slightly.
Now, normally, a healthy conference board number is close to 100.
So, even this 61.1, the revised down 64.8 doesn't mean much.
They're just excited.
They were excited about the trend last month.
Consumer confidence moving back up, still way below what's normal.
But now, as they say, it even gave back the gain.
And they don't know why.
They are just stunned here.
The more cautious results are in line with expectations among economists that non-farm payrolls did not grow as robustly this month as they did in December.
So don't let anybody tell you that there's this vestige or genuine economic recovery roaring back.
It just isn't happening.
And back to the phones we go or to the phones we go, St. Louis.
This is Greg.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
God bless you, buddy.
Been listening to you for a long time.
And like you, I'm an expert at what I do.
I've got a painting company.
Funny story.
I have the ability to listen to you at different job sites, particularly residential job sites, and it's a hoot when I'm at a liberal house painting with Rush Limbaugh on.
It drives them crazy.
I can imagine that.
I've heard such stories.
Guys on ladders with the radio on where the owner can't get to it.
And the wife in particular just goes batty.
Husbands, too, and can't do anything about it other than fire the painter, which they don't want to do.
Right.
Yeah, it's hysterical.
It really is amusing.
It's funny, but I can almost tell neighborhood by neighborhood what kind of clientele I have and whether or not I'm going to drive them for a while.
How can you do that?
How can you tell by neighborhood what kind of clientele you're going to have?
Yeah, well, okay, you don't want to answer.
I caught you.
Host caught you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
An expert painter knows when he's going to a liberal neighborhood or conservative neighborhood.
You can tell.
You can tell.
Yep.
Whether you've got a car on concrete blocks in the front yard or not.
I know.
Yeah, right, right.
Especially election time with all the signs you can put in the front yard.
It's even more of a noose.
Yep.
But hey, the reason why I'm calling, you know, you're the guy that I listen to the most, and you're the guy that I get all my information from.
And I get why you can't endorse someone, but boy, it sure would be helpful for me and your listeners for you to, at the end of the day, say, here's the guy, because you're the expert, man.
You know, you know who's full of it, and you know who's legitimate.
And it would be awesome if you would just, you know, come out and say, this is.
Yeah, say, wait a minute.
You say you understand why I don't endorse.
In fact, you said you understand why I can't endorse.
And then you very sneakily and slyly try to get me to endorse.
If I tell you who I'm voting for, that's an endorsement.
You're trying to tell me I can do that without actually endorsing anybody.
I can't.
Snerdley, I'm going to tell you something.
Because Snerdley's behind this, folks.
If I don't shut this down, every call is going to be somebody demanding or trying to pressure me.
Because Snerdley is sitting in there thinking that I can change the outcome of elections, if I would just say so.
He really believes that.
You and I both know that's absurd, but he believes it.
I'm just telling you, you could give me two more hours of this.
I'm not going to tell you.
It isn't going to happen.
Because when this is all over, I am not going to be in a position where my credibility is such that I can't support whoever the nominee is.
Because I am not voting Obama.
I'm not supporting Obama.
So whoever wins this, if I can't sit here and pigeonhole myself in such a way that I don't have credibility supporting whoever the eventual nominee is because Obama is the end result.
I'll tell you right now, I'm not voting Obama.
And I'm the expert.
And that's really all you need to know.
I'm just looking at the call roster here.
Always supported you.
Distraught now.
You support Newt.
He betrayed wife in the conservative movement, and you defend him.