RUSH: Greetings, my friends, and welcome to what the Democrat Party is considering its opening move in the 2014 campaign: a government shutdown that looms in front of all of us. It’s the latest, and it is the next Democrat Party campaign move. It is felt and it’s being covered by the media totally in historical ways. It is not being adapted to anything really happening.

If I were to tell you that I don’t even know what really is happening here, I probably would be more honest than not. You know, I’ve been doing this for 25 years. We’ve been through government shutdowns countless times, and this one is just like all the other ones. It is being covered, it is being reported, it is being discussed totally within the paradigm of a horse race, totally within the framework of how this is going to destroy the Republican Party, the merits absent. The reasons for this maybe happening, absent. The human impact, the impact on real people of this disastrous piece of legislation, absent. Nobody is talking about it. I mean, in the media.

Frankly, I’m bored with it, folks. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of everywhere you turn in the media, having as the top-level analysis how this is gonna destroy the Republicans, how it’s gonna be a great boon to Obama and the Democrats, and that’s all that matters, in fact, to the media. The substance of this — you know, the exchanges open for business tomorrow. It’s gonna be an absolute disaster. Nobody cares. Not a matter of concern. I mean, even in some so-called conservative journals of opinion, Obama’s no more than a CEO. He’s just a CEO, and when it doesn’t go right at implementation he’ll take whatever steps necessary to get it right. There’s no practical application in reporting of this story of what any of it really means and what any of it is really all about.

So the thing that you can do with this is to just discuss it within the same framework that the media presents it each and every day. CNN’s got their countdown clock, what is it 11 hours and 51 minutes and 25 seconds to the government shutdown, as though disaster awaits, as though the end of the world is on the cusp. And who will compromise, and who will blink, and who won’t? And who are we going to blame? The fact is that everybody involved on the left wants the government shutdown because this is the opening salvo of the Democrat campaign for 2014.

The Republicans, now, what happened over the weekend in terms of the substance here, what happened is that the House Republicans approved a measure — well, the whole House, ’cause it passed, they approved a measure early yesterday morning that will fund government through December 15th. It will delay the implementation of Obamacare for one year. It includes an amendment to repeal the medical device tax, a separate provision to pay military members in the event of a shutdown. It passed easily, putting the continuing resolution to keep the government running past Monday back in the Senate’s court.

Now, this contains in it one of the debates that’s been going within the Republican Party, should there be a delay, or should we move full fledge to defund. And the House did not vote or take the route to defund. They went the route to delay for one year, including the individual mandate. Because the employer mandate has been delayed by Obama, and it is felt that if these mandates can be delayed and stopped, that the guts of Obamacare will have been ripped out of it. And indeed, the individual mandate that requires everybody to have insurance starting with the exchanges opening tomorrow, if that were to be delayed, there are a lot of people not happy with that. If you’re gonna do that, go for the whole ball of wax. Go for defunding this whole thing.

Now, Ted Cruz was on Meet the Depressed yesterday with David Gregory. And once again, I thought he made mincemeat of Gregory just as I thought he made mincemeat of Senator Turban on the Senate floor during his filibuster.

Now, TheHill.com: “As Government Shutdown Looms, Cruz Calls Dems ‘Absolutist’.”

And here’s their story. “The Republican leading the fight to defund President Obama’s healthcare law called Democrats ‘absolutist’ Sunday for refusing to budge as a government shutdown looms.” Now, I have to tell you, the Democrats want this. The Democrats want it because they are confident that the Republicans are gonna get blamed. You might have forgotten this, but I haven’t. Bill Clinton, he’s out there saying Republicans are desperate for America to fail. They’ve been obsessed with that ever since January the 16th of 2009 when some guy on the radio said he hoped Obama failed. Anyway, we’ll get to that, too.

But Clinton is telling Obama not to negotiate with the Republicans, do not do it. Now, Obama’s negotiating with the Syrians, or wants to. He’s negotiating with the Iranians or wants to. He’s negotiating with the Taliban, and they say that’s perfectly normal. Obama says I got nothing to fear from those guys, but I am not talking to Boehner. People on our side want a big deal made about that. I don’t think it’s gonna change one person’s mind in the low-information crowd. I don’t think any history of government shutdowns — there’s been 17 of ’em — not gonna matter. The here and now is where the impact of this is gonna be made.

I could have a room full of low-information voters in here. I could have ’em totally captivated. I could own ’em. I could have me be the only thing they listen to and I could give ’em the history of government shutdowns, how nothing bad happens, how sometimes something good happens, it wouldn’t change their mind. The history of this is a weak vehicle for persuasion, given where we are, given where the news media is and given where the low-information crowd goes to trust whatever it hears. The history of this stuff, just like American history’s being rewritten, so is recent history.

Clinton. He’s out there telling Obama not to negotiate with the Republicans. He’s telling Obama go ahead and force a government shutdown. In Clinton’s case, you know what happened to him during his government shutdown? That’s where he met Lewinsky. She delivered pizza in a thong during government the shutdown. Clinton loves government shutdowns. So he gets his dream again and live vicariously.

Not that somebody’s gonna show up that way with Obama. But, I mean, without a government shutdown, Clinton, “the big creep,” woulda never met Monica Lewinsky. She did deliver a pizza, I’m telling you, during that government shutdown in 1995. She’s an intern, brought it in there. If it hadn’t been for the government shutdown in 1995, Clinton wouldn’t have had those budget surpluses and welfare reform forced on him which he now loves to brag about.

You know, I could give you the history of government shutdowns and I could tell you as we’ve been trying to do for a long time about the 1995 shutdown and how it did not hurt the Republican Party. The thing that’s on the table now is, “Will the Republicans hold to this position or will they cave?” The Senate is not gonna be back until two o’clock this afternoon. Dingy Harry said, “I’m not talking to these guys. I don’t care.”

Democrats want this.

The Democrats want the shutdown.

Everybody’s eyes are on the Republicans, Boehner, “Will they cave or will they hang tough and will there be a shutdown?” Because the conventional wisdom in Washington is the Republicans are scared to death. “Oh, my gosh, it’s the end of the party! It’s the end of their careers. Oh, God, they’re gonna be hated again and despised because the Santa Claus crowd is gonna hate them ’cause they think a government shutdown means that the North Pole’s been closed!

“Oh, Rudolph and Dancer and Donner and Prancer can’t fly. Nobody can get anything! Oh, my God, it’s horrible!” None of that’s true. None of it is true. The welfare state does not shut down in a government shutdown. Anyway, Cruz’s point was it’s the Democrats who are being absolutist. He said this yesterday on Meet the Press. He said (summarized), “It’s the Democrats who’ve taken an absolutist position. I’d like to repeal every word of the law, but that wasn’t even my position, even in this fight.

“My position in the fight has been we should defund it, but even now, what the House has done is a step removed from defunding. It’s delaying it. That’s the essence of compromise,” Cruz says. The original move out there was to defund it and totally block it. Now, the Democrats are faced with the Republicans saying, “Okay, we’ll just delay it,” and Cruz says that’s compromise. The Republicans are showing they can compromise.

It’s the Democrats are absolutists and won’t. Let’s go to the audio sound bites of Cruz talking to David Gregory yesterday. Question: “There aren’t protests in the streets arguing to do away with this the way that you would like. Again, 56% in one poll this weekend, New York Times, said let’s uphold the law. So I’m focusing on your goal and results. Where have you moved anything, Senator?”

CRUZ: Obamacare isn’t working. Every day that’s becoming more clear. There’s a reason the unions are jumping ship. One union after another is saying, “Lt me out.” There’s a reason why James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, said that he was writing on behalf of millions of working men and women — and he used millions, not hundreds, not thousands — and he said Obamacare was “destroying” their health care. “Destroying” is his word.

RUSH: Now, Gregory jumped in here at this point and interrupted because he was just personally offended that Ted Cruz was even there.

GREGORY: I asked you a specific question based on the facts on the ground of it you’ve made all these arguments. Goodness, you went and spoke for 21 hours to make these arguments. You haven’t moved anywhere.

CRUZ: Look the American people overwhelmingly reject Obamacare. They understand it’s not working. The only people who aren’t listening to the argument are the career politicians in Washington. It’s Harry Reid, who wants to use brute political force. And the great thing about the Constitution is that it creates a system of checks and balances, and each branch has the ability to check another.

RUSH: And here’s the last sound bite we have from this little meeting.

GREGORY: You’ve campaigned on this!

CRUZ: I believe —

GREGORY: You’ve raised money on this! You’ve taken to the floor for 21 hours! You haven’t moved anything legislatively! Do you concede that point?

CRUZ: I don’t remotely. And, David, I recognize that the Washington establishment hasn’t been convinced by the arguments because the Washington establishment has been exempted from some of the harms. Members of Congress. How can you possibly justify to the American people that members of Congress are exempted from the law, aren’t put on the exchanges?

RUSH: Now, what Gregory was getting at there to Cruz is, “Okay, look. You wanted this groundswell. You wanted the American people to rise up en masse and let Washington know they didn’t want any part of it,” and Gregory was saying to Cruz, “That didn’t happen. You spoke for 21 hours. You were all over the media everywhere. You had all kinds of people helping. You couldn’t create this groundswell.

“So why should anybody listen to you? Why should anybody pay attention to you? You’re representing a losing cause,” and then he cited that New York Times poll, which is the first poll I’ve seen on this, by the way. I had never heard of this until Gregory cited it, something about 56% in the New York Times say let’s uphold the law. I’d not seen that before. That’s the first poll I’ve seen, where a majority say let’s keep it as is.

The fact of the matter is that phones have been melting in Washington. Faxes, e-mails, what have you, have been pouring in. Members of Congress have just taken the phones off the hook. There’s been a willfully planned effort to ignore this uprising or this outcry or this massive show of opposition, because it does exist. It exists in poll after poll after poll. It exists in all of the jobs being lost.

Anyway, that was the exchange, and I wanted to add to it that Cruz is trying to make the point that the Republicans are compromising, because they started out full defund and now it’s just delay everything for a year. There’s a lot of news out there besides this shutdown and what is gonna happen when — and the media, again, of course, just can’t wait for it. They’re just so excited, ’cause this is nothing more than the opening salvo of the 2014 Democrat campaign.