{"id":10294,"date":"2014-01-29T17:37:47","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T17:37:47","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-01-29T17:37:47","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T17:37:47","slug":"my_apology_to_the_independents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/01\/29\/my_apology_to_the_independents\/","title":{"rendered":"My Apology to the Independents"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: I need to offer an apology, I think, to independents. Last week or the week before, we had a caller ask me<\/a> who the independents were, and I answered in a way that was truthful five years ago and beyond. Independents basically are people who think that they are more open-minded than everything else. They are not partisan. <\/p>\n

They haven\u2019t made up their minds in advance of anything. <\/p>\n

They wait for the issues, and they\u2019re not tied to any particular party or ideology — and they also happen to know that political leaders think they are the ones who determine the winner of elections. Because the independents, whoever wins them traditionally wins. I said, for the most part, independents are just liberals that don\u2019t want to admit it. They\u2019re Democrat liberals who don\u2019t want to admit it. Last night, I\u2019m watching the speech on Fox<\/a>, and they had this constant display up there. <\/p>\n

<\/a>I guess they had some people with meters that were being used to register their reaction to what they were hearing, and I noted that the independent and Republican lines tracked identically. When there was a positive reaction to whatever was being said, the independents and Republicans were perfectly aligned. There was not a gap between them. When there was anger or disagreement with whatever was being said, the Republican and independent lines tracked identically, with very little space between them. <\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s been a fundamental shift in who the independents are. I think the independents of today are, in many cases (and maybe a majority now), former Republicans who are fed up. They\u2019re actually conservatives, former Republicans who feel disconnected from the Republican Party as it\u2019s defined by the establishment. They have simply given up the party ID. They simply registered as independents.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t want to be helpful to Republicans, and they don\u2019t give money anymore. Because those lines were inseparable. It used to be in something like the independents would track more closely to Democrats. I think this is something significant. I mean, I\u2019m gonna assume here that that was legit last night. I don\u2019t know whose it was. I don\u2019t know who ran that device and how many people were involved in creating that graph or how many members of the audience were actually participating, but it was a sizable number. <\/p>\n

Both parties take note, and particularly the Republican Party should take note. What they also ought to take note of is that back in the 2012 election, Mitt Romney won the vast majority of independents and still lost the election, which upset a multi-decade theory that he who wins the independents wins the election. That doesn\u2019t seem to be the case anymore. (interruption)<\/p>\n

Well, yeah, there was Operation Chaos, but that was just a momentary blip in things. Of course, that was led by me, and that led to temporary Republican deregistration and either sign up as independent or Democrat to vote for Hillary in the primaries in 2008. That was a temporary blip. This last night, I thought it was fascinating. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is Jim in Philadelphia. Welcome, sir. Great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Rush, mega dittos.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you.<\/p>\n

CALLER: First-time caller. I\u2019ve been listening since January the 20th, 1993.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That is fabulous and the date happens to ring a bell.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I was listening to a local radio call-in show, and they were preempted by the Clinton inauguration, and I didn\u2019t want to listen to that, so I spun the dial, and I landed on a station that had a dulcet voice that was saying things that I agreed with and hadn\u2019t heard on the radio before.<\/p>\n

RUSH: And you have been here ever since?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I appreciate that. Really do.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, I wanted to call today because I think you have once again proven your profound erudition when you were talking earlier in the program about independents who might have been former Republicans. And I said to my wife, he\u2019s describing me. I gotta call. So I\u2019m glad I got through.<\/p>\n

RUSH: So am I. What it\u2019s based on is last week or the week before, a caller asked me, discussing independents, “Well, who they are?” I gave the definition that I gave five years ago. They\u2019re basically a bunch of liberals that won\u2019t admit it, a bunch of people that think they\u2019re smarter than everybody else \u2019cause they\u2019re open-minded, blah, blah, blah. I\u2019m watching last night and I\u2019m watching the track — that little graph, people responding yea or nay as Obama\u2019s speaking, and the independent and Republican lines are identical. They\u2019re almost on top of each other. If you\u2019re just joining us, I actually apologized to independents today for getting it wrong \u2019cause I think now what\u2019s happened, the vast majority of the independents are Republicans who have left the party in one way or another. And that\u2019s who you are?<\/line><\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes. I turned 18 in the summer of 1980 and was proud to register as a Republican and cast my first vote for president for Ronald Reagan because he was saying things that I agreed with. But as time went on and I watched different Republican candidates come up for president, by the time we got to 2008 and McCain, I just thought, wow, this is not the Republican Party I signed up for.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: And to paraphrase my political hero, I didn\u2019t leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left me.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right. Right. And you\u2019re not alone. There\u2019s still some independents who fit the bill as I describe them, but, yeah, I was struck by that last night. The independent and Republican response, as tracked by — it was Bing.com, it was Microsoft software that was being used last night, it was the same Bing, I think it is, it was identical. It was identical. It has to be, therefore, that there are a lot of former Republicans who are now calling themselves independents \u2019cause they don\u2019t want to be known as Republicans for whatever reason.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Do you think that the Republican Party and the Republican elite will respond to that fact?<\/p>\n

RUSH: I said to myself while the speech was going on, they better be noticing this, and the problem, the potential problem is that they will see that and think, “Well, okay, we got the independents locked up. Good, we don\u2019t have to do anything. We got the independents now, they\u2019re with us.” And they\u2019ll just take it for granted and go on their merry way. What they\u2019ll assume is that, no matter what you call yourself, you\u2019re still gonna vote for \u2019em. That\u2019s the potential mistake they make. I think they could drive you away further, right?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, it\u2019s kind of tough because where am I going to go? I\u2019m a conservative first.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You could sit home like four million did in 2012.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, I held my nose and voted for McCain in 2008, and I held my nose and voted for Romney again. But I\u2019m tired of holding my nose when I go into the voting booth.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, I hear you. Do you have access to Netflix?<\/p>\n

CALLER: I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n