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RUSH: Let\u2019s go ahead and play the sound bite. Back on January 23rd, there was a lot of panic on the Republican side, \u2019cause Romney just wasn\u2019t wrapping this up. And the fear, among a lot of Republicans, was that we were looking bad, that this is continuing to display a huge target and make the Republican Party big target. We can\u2019t get this stuff finalized, can\u2019t come up with a nominee, and I tried to calm everybody down.<\/p>\n
RUSH ARCHIVE: Why is it that a long primary campaign is going to hurt the Republican nominee? If the result of a long campaign is that this party finally figures out that the only way they got to win this is conservatism, it\u2019s a win-win. Let it play out! Don\u2019t panic!<\/p>\n
I just want to share with you the headline from Toby Harnden at the you can\u2019t Kelly mail. “Delusional Newt…” Toby\u2019s a conservative, by the way. “Delusional Newt Outlines His Strategy to Stop Mitt Romney: Sabotage at Tampa — Newt Gingrich took to the stage in a half-empty hotel ballroom on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama to hail a dramatic night that had changed everything. It was ‘quite an evening,\u2019 he declared. The Deep South results meant that ‘we\u2019re going to leave Alabama and Mississippi with a substantial number of delegates, increasing our total going towards Tampa\u2019 and ‘a much bigger delegation than we had yesterday,'” and he harped on a point that he\u2019s “going all the way to the Tampa convention.<\/p>\n
“‘I emphasize going to Tampa because one of the things tonight proved is that the elite media\u00c2\u2019s effort to convince the nation that Mitt Romney is inevitable has just collapsed.'” Now, for whatever reason, Mitt Romney remains in Newt\u2019s crosshairs. The Newt strategy appears to me to be to do whatever it takes to deny Romney the nomination. I think everybody pretty much agrees with that. I think everybody understands that that\u2019s what Newt\u2019s doing, and there are multiple reasons for it. One of the reasons is that Newt is still steaming over the Romney super PAC attack ads before the Hawkeye Cauci in Iowa. He\u2019s still steaming. He also has problems with Romney as a candidate. A lot of people still do. <\/p>\n
And a lot of people on the other side of that are looking at Santorum and saying (chuckling), “I can\u2019t believe it. One of these two guys is going up against Obama?” I told you I played in a charity golf tournament on Monday<\/a>. Ernie Els has an autistic son, and he started a great charity called Els for Autism<\/a> and his golf tournaments around the country for six months — well, around the world, actually. I ran into lot of people, and I was stunned at the emotion there is out there from Republicans on these candidates. Now, I have to be very careful here because I don\u2019t want to get into this loose ground where I\u2019m accused of secretly trying to affect the outcome of things here. <\/p>\n But when it came to Romney, I didn\u2019t find any ambivalence. I found what we call “perfect polarization.” There was either a lot of love or a lot of dislike. (laughing) Yeah, it sounds a lot like me, but Romney\u2019s not gonna get votes from people who intensely dislike him. I will have people who intensely dislike me who\u2019ll listen to me because they\u2019ll need a reason to continue hating me each day. But that\u2019s not how you get votes. That\u2019s one of the big differences. On the Santorum side, it was, “Gosh, I like the guy, but I just can\u2019t.” The last person in this whole list of candidates that anybody thought would be where he is right now is Santorum. That level of shock is still there. (interruption)<\/p>\n Oh, I know, you want to know what I tell \u2019em. I tell \u2019em all the same thing. I said, “You have got to stop this defensiveness! You\u2019ve gotta stop feeling inferior. You\u2019ve gotta stop thinking that the other side is made up of wizards who never make a mistake.” I said, “Who are we running against? What do you really find problematic in this country? Is Mitt Romney really the problem that you face? Is Santorum the problem that you face?” <\/p>\n “No, no, no, it\u2019s Obama.” <\/p>\n And I don\u2019t care what anybody says: Obama knows it\u2019s gonna be about him. That\u2019s why he\u2019s trying to set himself up as an outsider running against a bunch of lunatics in Congress. But he\u2019s not gonna be able to pull that off. He\u2019s the architect of the mess that we are all in. He\u2019s the architect of everything we want changed. And by the time everybody votes in November it\u2019s going to be clear that anybody on our ticket would be a hundred times preferable to Barack Obama. That\u2019s what this election is going to be about. It\u2019s what the 2010 midterm elections were all about. The Democrats know that, too. And that\u2019s why the Democrats are out there trying to change the narrative on what happened in the 2010 midterm. “Well, there\u2019s nothing similar at all. You can\u2019t take what was going on in 2010 midterms and transfer that movement forward to presidential race.”<\/p>\n Yes, you can. <\/p>\n Tea Party Americans, other Americans were simply angry and outraged over what was being done to their country, and nothing\u2019s changed. And they\u2019re going to want to change that. And I maintain to you that that\u2019s what this election is going to be about. So Newt (back to him), his objective here is to deny the nomination to Romney at the convention and then throw it wide open. Where, theoretically, anything can happen. I know. What is this old cliche being bandied about that no nominee from a brokered convention has ever gone on to win? I don\u2019t know that that\u2019s true. But I also know there\u2019s a first time for everything if it happens.<\/p>\n And I also know that all of the coulda-wouldas and the has-beens don\u2019t apply anymore, particularly in this election cycle. We haven\u2019t been in an election with circumstances quite like this with so many millions of Americans actually thinking we are losing the country. I know this is just anecdotal, meaning it isn\u2019t statistical. There\u2019s not a poll on this. (There obviously wouldn\u2019t be.) At the golf tournament on Monday, virtually everybody who asked me a question about this campaign, the first thing out of my mouth (on purpose) to each of \u2019em was, “Look, we are losing the country. And I don\u2019t mean that in a cliche. We are literally losing this country,” and they all universally agreed.<\/p>\n Passionately. They knew exactly what I meant. A lot of people know. And that, to save the country, is a motivating thing. This is what the Democrats know they\u2019re up against, but they can\u2019t quantify it. And they\u2019re not gonna be able to talk people out of that sentiment. No matter what they do.<\/p>\n BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n RUSH: By the way, folks, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the product of a brokered convention. Don\u2019t believe all this conventional wisdom that brokered conventions lead to nominees that lose. FDR came out of a brokered convention. Conventions used to always be brokered.<\/p>\n BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n RUSH: Let\u2019s go to the audio sound bites. From last night after the Republican primaries in three southern states, here we have Rick Santorum. Actually, this was this morning. He was on Fox, America\u2019s Newsroom. The correspondent John Roberts played a clip from an interview that Santorum did last night after his win in Alabama and Mississippi. Roberts said, “In your victory speech, you called for uniting conservatives around you, but you can\u2019t do that if Newt Gingrich stays in the race. Do you think he should get out?”<\/p>\n SANTORUM: I\u2019m not asking Newt Gingrich to do anything. I\u2019m asking conservatives to give us the best chance to nominate a conservative, and I think we\u2019ve seen it in the past. We nominate moderates in this party, we lose. We nominate people who stand for what — what our principles are that made this country great, we win.<\/p>\n RUSH: Now, this is last night in Lafayette, Louisiana. This is at Santorum campaign headquarters and a portion of what he said.<\/p>\n SANTORUM: This campaign is about ordinary folks doing extraordinary things. Sort of like America. Sort of like America going out there and exceeding expectations. Going out there, defying the odds because we believe in something that\u2019s bigger than ourselves. In spite of all the odds, all the money being spent, all the establishment bein\u2019 on the other side of this race, you stood with a guy comes from the grandson of a coalminer from a steel town in western Pennsylvania but (who) you knew shared your values and was gonna go out and of work you to make sure that this country was free and safe and prosperous based on believing in free people and free markets, a free economy. And, of course, the integrity of the family and the centrality of faith in our lives.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/Obama-wave.jpg\"\/)