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RUSH: Here\u2019s Josh in Lake Worth, Florida. Josh, I\u2019m glad you called. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Howdy, neighbor. How are you doing today?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Very good. Thank you.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Pleasure and honor. I got a theory to bounce off of you. You were talking earlier about no president — or incumbent president — has won reelection with more than 8% unemployment.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Right. So my theory is I don\u2019t care what “MSDNC” and the other propagandists say off the television. They can say 1% unemployment, but, if the actual number is 20% let\u2019s say, those six million individuals will go into the voting booth and they\u2019ll make a decision. You know, they could say what they want. They could fudge the numbers all they want. But each person is gonna make the decision. So I wonder if it even matters what number they throw up on the screens.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, it does. It does. I\u2019ll tell you why. Better, I\u2019ll tell you how. I\u2019ll never forget this. Late in the period between 2000 and 2010, starting in 2006-2007, the media every day was doing the best they could to convince the people of this country that we were at the beginning of a recession. The economy was turning down. The Bush tax cuts were destroying everything. The war in Iraq was robbing us of precious money for programs here at home. And I would get phone calls from people who believed it, who were doing fine! <\/p>\n
But they were worried about their neighbors, because they\u2019d seen on the news that the unemployment was rising and that government programs were in trouble. So the media can make people who are doing okay believe that a problem is much worse than it is — or, in this case, much better. So if there are people who over the last 3-1\/2 years thought the country was headed in a downward spiral from which it wouldn\u2019t recover, and all of a sudden beginning this summer at the Democrat convention the unemployment news is amazingly better?<\/p>\n
And the job-output news and the manufacturing numbers all of a sudden start getting better? Then people are going to think, “Well, you know what? It\u2019s getting better out there.” And even if they\u2019re unemployed like you say — even if they\u2019re part of these people unemployed — they might think, “Well, maybe my job prospects are getting better,” and they\u2019ll reenter the market to start looking for job. This is likely to happen. The media, as fractured as they are, still has the ability to make a whole bunch of people believe things which are not true. <\/p>\n
The AP, Josh, right now is insisting that all that really matters is the public believes unemployment numbers are trending down. <\/p>\n
They\u2019ve said that in a story today. All that matters is that the public thinks the numbers are coming down. That\u2019s all they need to hear, and AP is saying they\u2019re prepared to report that. In fact they did! AP reported today the unemployment number is going to be below 8% on Election Day. They told us. I know your theory is, “Well, they can lie about it all they want but there are gonna be all these millions of people that don\u2019t have jobs and they\u2019re not gonna care what the news is because they\u2019re living the economic misery.” And I, frankly, think that\u2019s true, too. And I don\u2019t think that that\u2019s going to change. What will matter is whether or not those people can be convinced that things are looking better for them. <\/p>\n
The media can do it.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Last night on PBS, The NewsHour, formerly with Jim Lehrer. Jim Lehrer retired. It\u2019s actually “Leh-rer,” but he pronounced it “Lara.” It was his signature thing. It was like he was from the South with one word. Jim Lehrer. Anyway, Gwen Ifill is the co-anchor now and she spoke with USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page about the presidential election. Gwen Ifill said, “When you talk to voters as you go out to these campaign events and you see the people that they\u2019re talking to — the people who come in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week to a political event — what are they curious about? What are they telling you?”<\/p>\n
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RUSH: Uh-oh! (gasp)<\/p>\n
PAGE: — in these suburbs.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Panic at PBS!<\/p>\n
This is The NewsHour with Gwen Ifill-Lehrer and Susan Page at USA Today says: “I was just at a Romney event, and I ran into some former Obama voters.” Uh-oh! ‘Cause these things happen in the middle of the day and that\u2019s generally only the true believers that show up at those things. A bunch of Obama people were there and “that\u2019s a sign there has been some erosion for Obama in these suburbs.” Better do some more women compressing to deal with this! So Ifill, Gwen Ifill, said, “Well, are these former Obama voters showing up at Romney events, are they curious, or are they switching?”<\/p>\n
PAGE: They are switching, and the voters in that category… Now, it\u2019s just a couple voters. It\u2019s not any kind of scientific sample (gasp), but the issue they talk about: It\u2019s the economy, it\u2019s jobs, and it\u2019s the federal debt and deficit.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Wow!<\/p>\n
And yet for Barack Obama, who killed Osama Bin Laden, that\u2019s the issue he doesn\u2019t want to go anywhere near. (interruption) It does. It sounds like Tea Party people. But they\u2019re Obama voters in Northern Virginia. That\u2019s DC suburbs (that\u2019s another way to look at that), and the DC suburbs are liberal Democrats. That\u2019s all the people with their hands inside the Treasury building, and they\u2019re upset with the economy. The reason I wanted to play these bites is because of our last caller because it may well be he may be right. I hope he is.<\/p>\n
It may well be that the media is gonna have its toughest time ever convincing people things are good when they\u2019re not. They did a good job of convincing people things were bad in 2006-2007 when they weren\u2019t. Now they\u2019re gonna have to tell people, “Oh, you\u2019re outta work? Doesn\u2019t matter! That isn\u2019t gonna last long \u2019cause everything\u2019s roaring back now. Look at the unemployment number. Your house is underwater? Doesn\u2019t matter! Obama\u2019s got a program for that! Your home, your home values? Our experts say they\u2019re gonna start going up here couple days ago after the election!”<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what they\u2019re gonna have to do. That takes us to Dick Morris last night on The O\u2019Reilly Factor on Fox News. Question: “Looking at the board here, you\u2019ve got Florida — which everybody says if Romney doesn\u2019t win Florida, lights out, go home. You\u2019ve got, North Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio. All of those four states, they\u2019re gonna tell the tale of the whole country. And it\u2019s kind of a little frightening, is it not, the battle between Romney and Obama is gonna be waged in those states?”<\/p>\n
MORRIS: Rather than four or five states in play, I think it\u2019s more like 12 or 15. I think Iowa will have a lot to do with it. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania I think will be just as key as Ohio. He has a very good chance in Wisconsin and Michigan. I think that he\u2019s gonna carry Pennsylvania. The Republicans picked up five seats in Pennsylvania, the governorship, a Senate seat, and both houses in the legislature. You\u2019re telling me Pennsylvania will go Democratic? No way.<\/p>\n
RUSH: He didn\u2019t mention North Carolina. That\u2019s gonna be big, and there are continuing troubles for Obama and the Democrats in North Carolina in paying for the convention. They have passed a law that no lobbyists can donate and very few private citizens. I forget the category, but basically the only people that can donate to the actual convention are unions, or pretty much the only people who can, and they\u2019re ticked off because North Carolina is not a full-fledged union state. The Wall Street Journal has a story on this today that is great. <\/p>\n
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<\/a>“Democrats are struggling to raise money for the party\u2019s national convention in part because,” oh, here it is: “they barred corporations and lobbyists from contributing.” Isn\u2019t that typical? No corporations! We hate corporations and we hate lobbyists — during this period of time. After it\u2019s over we\u2019ll take all the money from \u2019em we can. “Now the one set of donors they were banking on, organized labor, said it\u2019s not gonna help pay for the event, or they\u2019re gonna scale back their contributions partly because they\u2019re upset the convention will be held in a state considered unfriendly to unions.”<\/p>\n