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Feb. 29, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:15
February 29, 2012, Wednesday, Hour #2
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No, I liked Holly.
I liked her.
She was unique.
You know, most liberals, it just takes 30 seconds and they descend into the hatred and the name-calling and so forth.
But she was laughing and pretty cogent.
She clearly did not hate anything.
I did mean to ask her a question.
I did screw up, though, because it was obvious that she was gloating.
She was gloating, and I went, what happened?
What did I miss?
She was gloating about the fact Republicans are going to lose and that Obama is going to win.
And I meant to ask her, and I just, I got sidetracked here, keeping up with the rest of her conversation.
And I meant to ask her, what happened to make, because I was assuming it's something to do with the Michigan primary.
Folks, I didn't tell you this when the show started, but the email, subscriber email.
People who listen to this program email is really down in the dumps today.
And it's, I don't think it's coincidental.
It has to do with the results out of Michigan.
I don't know what the expectations were.
And I don't know what specifically in Michigan it's tied to, but there's a noted gloom out there.
Maybe it's just the media.
Wherever you look in the media, you see, we've got them in the stack here.
Economy coming back.
Obama stars aligning perfectly for Obama to recapture white.
There's even a story about the Democrats winning the House of Representatives back.
And I've done my best to tell people, get ready because this is only the beginning of it.
You got 10, maybe 11 more months of this.
News media stories about how robust the economy is, how great and hunky-dory the recovery is.
All the great news ostensibly going on in the housing market, the unemployment scene, the electoral prospects for Obama and the Democrats in the House.
It says Olympia Snowstorm.
Why, the Democrats might get the Senate back.
And you couple that with stories like McCain here thinking, well, Romney's too damaged.
I don't think this campaign, this primary has gotten too vicious.
I don't know that Romney can survive this, even if he wins a nomination.
And we had the story yesterday in theHill.com from Ford O'Connell, who says, a Republican strategerist, who says that the Republican establishment is really worried that Romney, in order to win this thing, is having to sound too conservative.
Now, forget the details.
The point is that the news is almost entirely negative.
Even the news about Republicans or conservatives is entirely negative.
The news about Obama, the Democrats winning the House and the Senate, Obama's economic recovery, Obama's parties at the White House.
I don't care what they are.
The news is robustly positive.
But I just sense in the email today a deepening gloom out there.
And here's another great example.
CNBC, markets start to anticipate Obama victory in November.
While President Obama may not be Wall Street's ideal candidate, stock prices are rising on growing expectations that he will be re-elected this November.
We're supposed to believe this.
There is nobody on earth who can tell you with ontological certitude that the market's growth is related to Obama and his reelection.
Not this early.
This is pure puffery.
Part of that market professionals say is simply that investors feel more certain about who will be in the White House the next four years and which policies they'll have to deal with.
So you see, investors don't care what the policies are.
They just want to know who they're going to be.
And those investors, they can tell right now on February 29th, leap day, that it's going to be Obama.
And what his policies are, it doesn't matter.
Right, so the investors can't wait for all of the new taxes that we're going to have in January 2013.
The Bush tax cuts expire.
Obamacare taxes begin to kick in.
All these investors can't wait for the continued economic transformation that Obama has begun and will continue.
No, they don't care.
They just want to know which policies.
And you know what's happened?
This story has been written.
This story is time to the calendar.
It's not time to any events.
It's pure BS.
This is an NBC network in the tank for Obama.
What this probably is, is talking points, maybe even a fully written story from the Democrat National Committee sent out to the so-called business channels.
But I mean, this is, this is, when you stop and analyze this, this is hilarious.
We're supposed to believe stock prices are rising on growing expectations Obama will be elected this November.
What an absolute crock.
No, no, it can't have anything to do with the turmoil in the financial markets in Europe.
It can't have anything to do with the fact that that's a black hole to invest in.
Investors are losing half of their holdings thanks to the various bailout deals.
No, it can't have anything to do with that.
We're told that investors feel more certain about who will be in the White House for the next four years and which policies they'll have to deal with.
So these investors can't wait for taxageddon.
They can't wait for all these massive new tax increases.
Oh, they're just so excited.
They're doubling down on Obama even now.
But in this story, if you read far enough, as I, your host, always do, the DNC kind of blew their cover when they had their Stooges here report this, quote, string of better-than-expected domestic economic data this year, including an all-important drop in the unemployment rate.
Now, never mind that unemployment hasn't even gone down a full percent since December of 2010.
It was 9.4%.
We haven't even had a full percentage point drop, and yet this story and its origins are given away with that sentence.
A string of better-than-expected domestic economic data, including an all-important drop in the unemployment rate.
And then this CNBC DNC article goes on to claim the latest reading of consumer confidence blew away economists' expectations.
That contrasts with the Republican debates, many of which have centered on social issues.
This is clearly a political hack piece written by an ostensible business writer at CNBC.
Anyway, this is what's out there.
This is one example.
And people find it difficult to make themselves immune.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economic recovery frustratingly slow.
It could take four to five years to ratchet the unemployment rate down to about 6% from more than 8% now, according to a top Federal Reserve official.
This is a Reuters story.
The recovery is held back by the housing market and Europe's debt crisis, among other headwinds.
But monetary policy is now appropriately positioned to eventually achieve this maximum employment level, said the Cleveland Fed president, Sandra Pianolto.
Also, the headwinds again.
Yes, the headwinds.
So the Federal Reserve, by the way, Drudge has it, preparing a new round of printing money.
What is it called?
More pumping, more stimulus, more priming, more quantitative easing may be needed.
But CNBC tells us the markets are happy.
They're satisfied.
They know where we're headed.
They know who's taking us where we're headed.
And that's enough for them to start investing like crazy with no concerns whatsoever.
And yet, Reuters could take five, six years to get unemployment down to 6%.
Recovery frustratingly slow, held back by the housing market in Europe.
This economy is in a horrible shape, and people live it.
And I just remind you: in the real world, not the world of perception of reality or reality, Stan Greenberg's memo of last week warning Obama: if you think that you can score big on all of these news stories based on a great roaring recovery, you better think again because the American people aren't buying it.
You can't sell it because they're living it and they don't live what you're selling.
They don't live, they don't see, they don't feel, they don't touch what you're telling them is going on, Mr. President.
I know the Democrats work closely with the media to get these propaganda stories out.
There's no denying this.
At some point, though, they want to live in this world of total perception, not reality.
And they've pulled it off in the area of social issues.
So it is said.
I still do not believe that that's the slam dunk.
In fact, I know it isn't.
The social issues are not the slam-dunk defeat for the Republican Party that so many cowards on our side believe that they are.
White House wants to keep gasoline prices high.
I've heard about this.
Stephen Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning energy chief for Obama.
White House wants to keep energy prices high.
Chu actually said so.
And he said it before, but he said it in a congressional testimony.
He said they like the prospect of high gasoline prices because it furthers the development of alternative fuels.
They just came out and said it.
With a national average of gasoline prices hitting $365 a gallon, nearing $6 in some parts of the country and poised to head even higher, America's families are wondering when the bleeding at the pump will stop.
But for Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu, those steep prices aren't even a concern.
In fact, he says his goal is not to get the price of gasoline to go down.
You know what his goal is?
The price of batteries to come down.
That's what he said.
And they're investing in companies in Korea, Japan, United States to come up with new battery technology for your automobile.
Want to get the price of a battery down from $40,000 to $25,000 or $30,000.
What do you mean?
What the hell difference does it make to you?
This isn't about you.
It is not about the American consumer.
It's about the regime.
It's about their transformation of the economy.
It's about their transformation of the country.
They don't want the gasoline price to come down.
They like it being high, and he actually admitted it yesterday.
His goal is not to get the price of gasoline down.
Chu delivered those remarks in testimony before Congress yesterday.
Representative Alan Nunley, a Republican from Mississippi, asked whether it's his overall goal to get our price of gasoline lower, and Chu said no.
The overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy.
No.
Overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil.
And that's why we're not going to okay the pipeline.
And that's why we're not going to increase drilling or reduce the moratoriums in the Gulf.
And that's why we're not going to drill in Alaska.
Because we don't want more oil.
We don't want an oil-based economy.
We don't want an energy policy based on oil.
We want it based on batteries, which means they want an energy policy based on coal.
Because what do you charge a battery with but electricity, which is generated by coal at your neighborhood power plant?
This is who we are dealing with.
Now take a break.
We'll be back.
We will continue after this with much more.
Don't go away.
To the phones, we return.
Rush Limbaugh to Robert in Chicago.
Great you called, sir.
Thank you for waiting, and great to have you on the EIB Network.
Hello.
Thank you very much, Rush, and thanks for putting the liberal up first.
Oh, you know what?
She was actually, she was a very, very eloquent lady, but I have to disagree with just about everything she said.
I'll get right to the chase here.
Why are we letting the media dictate what our debates should be?
We're falling into this trap.
I mean, we have so many other more important items to discuss that every debate I've watched, I have been sickened by because we're letting some media hack define the narrative.
And, okay, case in point, Santorum and Romney, they both bit.
Instead of talking about the real issues like, you know, like unemployment, taxes, energy policy, what do they do?
They start talking about abortion, contraception, and Caddle Acts.
Are we supposed to believe what the media is telling us?
Why are we putting Obama on the defensive?
And that infuriates me.
It really does.
Well, I think that all happens.
I don't think the economy is not being discussed.
I don't think unemployment's not being discussed.
I don't think energy policy isn't being discussed.
I think in the course of a three-hour debate, it all comes up.
Yeah, but not to the degree it should be, really.
But what you don't want is for abortion and social stuff come up at all.
It took an hour for it to come up in the last debate.
Oh, I didn't say that it shouldn't come up at all, but what I'm saying is that we shouldn't make this the focal point of a candidate's worth or maybe his disdain.
We shouldn't make this the focal point of it.
And the media is successful.
I'm not arguing with you, but I have there's a guy named Jeff Bell.
He was in the Reagan administration.
He's a political scientist slash sociology.
He's got a book out.
He's looked at past elections where social issues have been predominant and have been one of the key elements the Republican candidate for president has talked about.
And each of the last two elections where the Republican candidate won the popular vote, which does not include 2,000, by the way, social issues were paramount.
They were paramount with Reagan.
They've been paramount with, I think, H.W. Bush at some point, but George H.W. Bush.
But I think it's one of these things that just scares the heck out of people.
And you believe it's a recipe for instant defeat when it really isn't.
But it still makes you uncomfortable.
I'm here to tell you it has not been the focal point of these debates.
In fact, it didn't enter this campaign until January 7th.
Well, I'm not going to say it's been the focal point, sir, but what I am saying is that it's taken way too much attention as of late, particularly with this last vote in this last election.
You're in Michigan.
In Michigan, yes.
Well, okay, you know how it was injected into the scene.
It was done by the Democrats.
It was done by Obama.
Oh, absolutely.
So what you think then is obviously people on the Republican side should just ignore it, not take the bait and don't.
So when Obama comes out with this mandate that the Catholic Church and its schools give away contraceptives and abortifacients that the Republicans can't bring this up because they scare off voters.
No, I'm not saying that, sir.
What I am saying is that what our candidates should be saying is, no, we disagree with you, but we have so many other topics you don't seem to want to discuss.
Maybe you can ask the media, throw the questions back at the media.
We have a target-rich environment.
If we throw these questions right back at the media, okay, what about Obamacare?
Doesn't anybody want to address the stealth taxes that are in there?
I mean, it's horrendous if you read that bill.
And I know, and I know your staff have.
You're singing my song.
I lament all the time that we've got these Democrat hacks moderating debates, disguised as journalists, and that these things happen on MSNBC and CNN and all these places.
But the Republicans make that decision.
Well, sadly, they're falling into the trap.
And what scares me is that we're going to end up with another Democrat light.
You mean, who would that be?
That would be Mr. Romney.
Democrat light.
Well.
I'm sorry.
I regard him as Democrat Light, and I regard Ron Paul as another Ross Barreau.
Right.
So you're a Santorum guy?
Not necessarily.
I'm a Newt guy.
Newt or Santorum.
Oh, okay.
All right.
Well, Newt's hoping for a big Super Tuesday to back.
Anyway, look, I understand what you're saying.
I don't mean to be argumentative with you.
I'm struck between two things.
I live in Rielville.
I just do, and I do not live in fantasyland anywhere.
And the way that manifests itself here, I hate having to succumb to this notion of perception.
As somebody who lives in Realville, having to live in a world where what is perceived to be true that isn't is what everybody lives by, that's like showing Dracula the cross.
So telling me, as the mayor, much less of Realville, that I've got to just understand that women hate Santorum and Gingrich, and we've got to stop talking about socialism.
All that does is fire me up to teach people and tell them how wrong they are and the damage they are wreaking on the country by voting Democrat because they're being stupid, idiotic, and fooled.
But that's just me.
I don't want to succumb to the lies and try to win in that universe.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh.
I have my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair, as is always the case.
Let me explain that this is why, folks, I don't think I could survive or triumph in politics, because there is an axiom that perception is reality, and whatever the voter's perception is, is what you have to deal with.
And that's how you have to campaign.
So if, as an illustration, if the perception, if your polling shows you, your focus grouping shows you that a perception of a majority of, say, female voters believe that Republicans want to take your abortion pills away from them, then you have to accept that.
That's the reality.
And you either come up with a strategier design to persuade them they're wrong or you just hope the issue doesn't come up.
You don't bring it up yourself.
And when it does come up, you try to slap it away, so forth.
Now, I couldn't live in that world.
Now, some of you might say that I do, but I actually don't.
For example, in the attempt to acquire an audience on this program, I never once ask.
I don't do any audience research, and I don't go out and say, well, what does my audience want to hear me say?
In politics, that's all they do.
I got a focus group, and they have consultants, and they're advised to go say this and say, why do you think Romney will say something like, you know, Anne drives a couple of Cadillacs, and I've driven.
That's to meet whatever his advisors told him.
The perception of him is that he is a rich, removed, distant guy.
So he drives a pickup, happens to be made by General Motors.
His wife drives a couple of Cadillacs.
Boy, they're connected to America.
I get it.
But for most people, it comes off phony.
Most people are not good actors.
And you can't fake a connection with people.
And I'm not harping on Romney.
I mean, I could say this about any of these Republican candidates.
And I have just explained to you, by the way, the way Democrats win every election they do win.
They create a phony, false virtual reality.
They convince people that it's true.
Their false, phony reality is based on the sole value that they are the ones that big hearts, compassion, and care for people.
And therefore, anything that descends from that is all done or planned to be done in furthering that fact that they care about people, have compassion, and they're interested in fairness and all this other nebulous stuff.
And what, frankly, I think it's what gives a lot of people challenge and frustrates a lot of people in trying to deal with it because I don't know about you.
I'm not an expert in dealing with people who lie.
I call them on it.
And if they're pathological, then you've got a problem.
You become a threat, and they've got to do something about you.
But I live in Rielville.
And when I'm confronted with people who believe something, it's total BS, I want to try to persuade them that they're wrong, or better yet, set up circumstances where they will end up persuading themselves, because you never will persuade people by getting in their face and shouting at them or pointing a finger at them or making fun of them, impugning, laughing at them, what have you.
It has to be done in an entirely different way.
But still, it's something I think needs to be done.
I believe that an informed voting electorate is the absolute best way to afflict long-term, positive, deep-rooted change in the country.
So I have to say there's a mission statement to this program.
It would be to create that very large, informed, educated, engaged voting public that also lives in Rielville.
But if somebody came to me and said, look, you've got a problem with women.
Your numbers on women are down.
You've got to change your attitude on abortion.
At least you've got to stop talking about it.
I said, the hell would you?
That isn't going to happen.
Politics, oh, okay, what do I have to say?
And in politics, they start modifying their statement or their beliefs, or they don't bring it up at all and otherwise accept a phony premise or a lie and then try to survive whatever they're dealing with by getting those people to eventually vote for them.
And one of the examples right now is this silly notion that take any Republican, Santorum, Romney, Gingrich.
There's not a one of them that poses a threat to women in the real world.
Not a one of them.
Not a one of those guys wants to leave their house and go to the home of any other woman and tell them how they have to live.
They don't want to pass laws that tell them how to live.
They don't want a government program to tell them how to live.
That's being done by Obama and the Democrats.
And over half the people voting for Obama, the Democrats don't even realize it's happening.
And to the extent that it is happening and they know about it, they think it's being done for their own good, like that Danica Patrick.
I think the government is better suited to make these decisions for us.
Contraception.
Danica Patrick, NASCAR driver, swimsuit model for Sports Illustrated.
I think the government is better positioned to take care of it.
I'm not a paraphrase of what she said.
Well, that's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
And I'm not, in order to get Danica Patrick as a member of this audience, I'm not going to change what I believe in order to have her think that I'm on the same page with her, but just not going to do it.
And that's why I would fail in politics.
That's why I get so frustrated with this stuff.
And I'm going to tell you, when I get an email like I got that I read to you earlier in the program, well, I live in the world of liberal women and I'm just going to independent women.
I'm just going to tell you not a one of them is going to vote for Santorum.
Okay, so we're supposed to modify and we're supposed to compromise and we're supposed to change who we are for the lowest common denominator of uninformed, illegitimate idiots.
That's what we're supposed to do.
We're supposed to just cast aside what we know is right.
We're supposed to cast aside what we know are the lies and let the absolute idiocy or ignorance or misinformed status of a whole bunch of people determine how we live our lives and go about governing our affairs.
Sorry, I can't do it.
Which is why I'm doing this and I'm not per se in politics.
But it ticks me off to have to sit here and basically compromise principles in order to accommodate people who I think are blithering idiots based on the fact that they're just ignorant or uninformed and they happen to be glaringly arrogant about it at the same time.
They happen to think they're the most informed.
They happen to think they speak for everybody.
They happen to think everybody's just like them.
They're the ones, when a limit on somebody's freedom comes along, don't care.
And they won't care until it happens to them.
They'll sit around and let legislation be passed saying homeowners can't smoke outside their homes.
So somebody comes along and says, by the way, whatever matters to them, you can't do it anyway.
Then they'll raise hell.
But by then, it'll be too late.
Where are we going next on the phones?
Who is it?
Brett in Ebersburg, Michigan, or Everburg.
Great to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
Thanks so much for taking my call.
You bet, sir.
I voted for Santorum yesterday.
I had intended originally on voting for Newt, actually, until a couple of weeks ago.
He said he's just going to cede Michigan, not waste any time campaigning here.
To me, that just kind of seemed like he just didn't need our votes, so it kind of turned me off of him a little bit.
I tell what he was doing.
What's that?
He was doing two things.
It's his fault that you didn't get the right idea.
He was doing two things.
He was positioning himself for later on that he knew he wasn't going to win.
He did not want a slam duck loss on the record heading in the Super Tuesday.
That's number one.
Number two, he was trying to see to it that his voters went to Santorum so as to beat Romney, which is his objective right now.
And that's what I did.
I went to Santorum.
But I just, the reason why my question actually was, you always tell us if conservatism is on the ballot, it wins.
And it was on the ballot yesterday, and Romney won.
So I guess I'd just like to know, you always say don't doubt me, and I'm not doubting Rush, but I'm starting to get a little bit nervous, so I need some reassurance, I guess.
I would suggest to you that if you look at, I'm going to print it out.
I've got it.
I would suggest to you that conservatism did win.
You look at what Romney had to do.
Romney had to move right.
He had to be nudged to the right.
If you look at the percentage of this whole chaos effort didn't work, the whole number of Democrats that turned up was less than 10%.
It was like 8 or 9%.
The vast majority of the people, according to exit polls, who voted in Michigan were either somewhat conservative or very conservative, something like 70%.
I'll get the number here in a minute.
Conservatism or conservatives did determine the outcome in Michigan yesterday.
What did you think besides that happened, or what were you afraid happened instead of that?
Well, I mean, just the fact that Romney won, I mean, he's won several primaries now.
And if he becomes the nominee, we've got to get Obama out of there.
I mean, I'm a pre-med student.
And if he were to win, I would probably have to change my major.
I mean, I can't, under a healthcare system, you think Romney is not conservative.
That's what I'm hearing.
Correct.
I mean, and I think that if he wins the nomination and he goes up against Obama, Obama's going to beat him, is what I think.
Okay.
Southern McCain, another 2008.
Oh, give me in your words why you think Obama would beat Romney.
Well, Romney, you know, he's after having governed in a state like Massachusetts, the bluest of blue states, in making statements that he has in the past about, you know, just about anything that I'm sorry, Rush, I don't know how to do it.
Yeah, look, I know, it's nerve-wracking.
I know where you are.
I just want to tell you one thing.
The voters in Michigan thought they were voting for a conservative.
That's all you need to know.
They thought they were voting for a conservative.
Whether they were or not, you can argue, but they thought they were voting for a conservative.
This is not a put-down.
I'm telling you what, the voters of Michigan, they were not voting for a moderate.
They were not voting for a liberal.
The Republican voters were not squishy.
They may have been mistaken or whatever, depending on your choice there, but they thought they were voting conservative.
That's not meant to be a provocative statement.
That's meant to be a reassuring statement.
Now, the second thing I want to say to you is: if Obama wins, he will change your major.
You won't have anything to say about it.
All right, here's a report from the Michigan primary from one of our guys at our Blowtorch 50,000-watt affiliate in Detroit, WJR.
Turnout in Michigan yesterday, second highest ever for a Republican primary.
Now, about that, I remember I got home late yesterday afternoon.
I fired up computer, and the first thing I see is that turnout is so light that people are falling asleep working at the polls at about 5 or 6 p.m. last.
That's why the turnout was light.
That's what was being reported.
But no, turnout in Michigan yesterday, second highest ever for a GOP primary, just under 1 million votes, about 62,000 votes less than when Gerald Ford faced off against Ronaldus Magnus in the Michigan primary in 1976.
But there were all day stories about low turnout.
The Dem crossover did not happen.
The most I saw the Democrats' operation chaos was 9%, if that high.
Now, those who voted yesterday in the Michigan primary, those who opposed the auto bailout split evenly, 3939 Romney versus Santorum.
Despite bashing from Obama, Jennifer Granholm, etc., Romney was 43-38 over Santorum among those who approved the auto bailouts.
Now, this provides me an excellent opportunity to give you another illustration of what I'm talking about living in Rielville.
If I were a Republican candidate for president, and I had to go campaign in Michigan, I would not tell anybody I was for the bailout just because there are people that work at the car companies there.
But I read in the Roundup, the lead-up, the run-up, I should say, to this election, that Santorum and Romney were both going in there trying to make the case that, well, they understood the bailout.
It's working men and women that benefited from the bailout, and it's candidates.
They had to stand with working men and women, whatever the hell that means.
The bailout was a mistake.
It was wrong.
It should not have happened.
And that's what I'd have gone in there and said.
And I would have probably lost in a landslide.
But that illustrates one of the problems we've got.
The auto bailout was wrong.
The government should not own, direct, in any way, shape, manner, or form, run automobile companies beyond whatever regulation is necessary.
And even that is a stretch for me.
And yet we had two Republicans in there vying for the Republican auto worker vote saying they supported the bailout.
Sorry, they both lost me on that.
It shouldn't have happened.
It's a weakness nationally for Obama.
But rush, but rush in Michigan, you would have had to modify.
Yeah, fine.
So in every other state, I'm opposed to the bailout.
When I go to Michigan, I'm for it.
What the hell does that say about me?
I couldn't do it.
I would have spent my time telling all those people, you may have a job, but you are that bailout was wrong.
You ought not be working for the government this way, or better yet, you shouldn't be working for the union.
I would have fired both barrels, but that's just me.
I will make you a bet that as we get closer to November, Obama, on occasion, is going to sound like my younger brother.
Even Obama is going to sound conservative.
He's going to say enough outrageous liberal stuff to keep his base, but we all know what wins elections.
We all know how the Democrats do it.
And we'll just see if that's borne out.
They will react to the reality at some point, if only briefly, in order to win.
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