![](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Mercurylogo.jpg\")
RUSH: How are you, Karen?<\/p>\nRUSH: This is Karen in Henderson, Nevada, which (pause) is Las Vegas!<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hello, Rush.<\/p>\n
RUSH: How are you, Karen?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m fine. It\u2019s an honor to speak with you.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank you!<\/p>\n
CALLER: I was gonna mention, earlier in the show you were talking how Ford\u2019s going to come to the Michigan plant?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Mmm-hmm?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I just think it\u2019s so great for America to have that opportunity to have more jobs. But also, at the same time, I\u2019m kind of nervous about the electric car thing because, um, we were always Ford Mercury drivers, and when they went with all the electric cars during the Obama administration, there was a whole bunch of us that got X\u2019d. Because actually there was a really large group that\u2019s fans of the Mercury Ford, and they don\u2019t make \u2019em anymore. They just stopped making \u2019em — and we still have ours. Ours is 14 years old.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay, now, wait. I want to make sure I understand. There\u2019s the Ford brand, there\u2019s the Lincoln brand, and there used to be a Mercury brand. Are you talking about the brand or are you talking about a vehicle called the Ford Mercury?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m talking about like the Mercury Cougar, the Mercury Grand Marquis, y\u2019know?<\/p>\n
RUSH: All right.<\/p>\n
CALLER: And they don\u2019t make those anymore. They stopped making them, and I think part of it was they were influenced by the Obama administration.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Why?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I think they just wanted to get the electric, go-green stuff going, and they used Ford —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n
CALLER: — to get \u2019em in there. But they actually X\u2019d a bunch of us when they did that.<\/p>\n
RUSH: By “X\u2019d,” you mean eliminated you as customers because you didn\u2019t want to buy anything that didn\u2019t say Mercury on it?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah. Because, like I said, we\u2019ve been in the same car for 14 years.<\/p>\n
RUSH: What did you like about the Mercury as opposed to the Lincoln version of the car or the Ford version of the car?<\/p>\n
CALLER: What is that?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, let me use General Motors as an example.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Okay.<\/p>\n
RUSH: This is, in fact, going way, way back here to the seventies and eighties, I think, is when General Motors got in trouble.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n
RUSH: There was the Chevrolet Camaro and the Pontiac Firebird, and they were the same car. Exact same car, same engine. They just had a little different grills. The Pontiac had a little different look than the Camaro did, but they were generally the same. The Impala had a Buick version; they didn\u2019t call it the Impala. It was the Buick whatever it was. And every General Motor car other than the… Even some of the Cadillacs looked like the Chevrolets and the Buicks.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Okay.<\/p>\n
RUSH: And they did it because it was much cheaper if you only have to make one body style for five brands, it\u2019s much cheaper than designing five different body styles and manufacturing different brands and so forth. But the problem with it, I always, thought if you\u2019re gonna buy — and GM had a tiered system. It was Chevrolet and then Buick and then Oldsmobile and Cadillac. If you bought an Oldsmobile that looked just like a Chevy, why buy it?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes. (chuckles)<\/p>\n
RUSH: And I think you can trace some of General Motors problems there. I thought… Doesn\u2019t Ford do that? Doesn\u2019t…? Isn\u2019t whatever…? Like say, the Ford Falcon… Well, that\u2019s old. That doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/FORDLOGO-1024x402.png\")
RUSH: Pick your favorite Ford car. Isn\u2019t there a Mercury version of it, or were they entirely different cars from the Fords?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well (sigh), we were gonna do a Lincoln, but even those are no longer being made. So I know our car\u2019s on… We got about 230, 225 — somewhere around there — thousand miles. My husband said they\u2019re known to go out around 200, but he\u2019s a good car maintenance guy, so we keep fixing it.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah. I\u2019ll tell you what this is. This is one of the greatest examples of brand power that I can give you.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Okay.<\/p>\n
RUSH: For some reason, the Mercury brand, you loved it.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: You trusted it. You believed in it.<\/p>\n
CALLER: And the full-steel frame!<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I had somebody hit me once; I\u2019m still here. (chuckles)<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah. Right. Right. And you\u2019 think in the Ford car, you might have been injured?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes. Well, when I was coming home this morning after I dropped my husband at work, a person turned right from the inside lane; and, boom! He got hit from an oncoming car. The pieces were flying like an explosion everywhere.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m like, “Oh, my God. When I buy a car new, I\u2019m buying a huge one.”<\/p>\n
RUSH: I can\u2019t believe we\u2019re talking about accidents on the EIB Network. This is a first. Well, I\u2019m glad you\u2019re safe.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Does Mercury not make anything that you can buy now that you want to buy?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I have no idea, because I just don\u2019t know the whole car industry, with all the CAFE standards —<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/650-032417-Trump-Points.jpg\")
RUSH: Okay. So you have a Mercury now and you\u2019re holding it.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah. Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: If you can\u2019t buy another Mercury, what are you gonna buy?<\/p>\n
CALLER: That\u2019s what we don\u2019t know. Because all the car industry is like… When we go out of town we have to rent one, and I don\u2019t know what to do \u2019cause —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay.<\/p>\n
CALLER: — they\u2019re all like tin cans now.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, that\u2019s a different story. But, Karen, if I were to tell you that the steel and the body and the suspension in your Mercury is identical to what\u2019s in a Ford, would you believe me or think I\u2019m wrong?<\/p>\n
CALLER: It\u2019s you I would believe. I would believe you, absolutely. (laughs)<\/p>\n
RUSH: ‘Cause my point is, you could probably buy a Ford or a Lincoln. If it looks enough like the Mercury you like, then you might be getting very close to the same car, even though they might not make it under the Mercury brand anymore. You should look into that.<\/p>\n
CALLER: That\u2019s what I\u2019ll do then.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Go to a Ford or Mercury dealership. Are Mercury sold at Ford dealerships?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/650-032817-Right.jpg\")
RUSH: Yeah, it\u2019s been a long time since you bought one \u2019cause this is lasting you so long. Well, I appreciate the call. This is fascinating. She\u2019s all excited that Ford is expanding but she can\u2019t buy her favorite Mercury. Folks, I\u2019m not kidding. This is a great illustration of the power of branding. Have you ever wondered why people back in the seventies wore two-tone, Army green leisure suits and thought they looked good? And yet they did! I saw \u2019em all over the place. You look at that and said, “Where in the world did you buy that? Why — when you got up today — did you want to put that on?” They thought it looked good.<\/p>\n
You thought it looked a bowling alley; they thought it looked good. So taste is… There\u2019s no accounting for it. It\u2019s all personal. But the power of branding, particularly when it comes to automobiles, is overwhelming. You go back to the seventies and eighties with the General Motor situation I was describing? Literally, folks, the Camaro and Firebird were identical cars but you\u2019d so have the Firebird buyers, the Pontiacs, “No way I\u2019m I buying that Camaro!” ” It\u2019s the same car.” “Nooooo, it is not. That is a Chevy and mine is a Pontiac.”<\/p>\n
Brand power is fascinating, and the Mercury brand appeals to Karen here. So Karen, we\u2019ll tell Trump \u2019cause he\u2019s talking to the Ford people. If there are enough people here that are interested in the Mercury, Ford\u2019s interested in selling them. You never know what\u2019s gonna happen here. But I predict you\u2019re gonna be able to find something that\u2019s close to what you want, regardless what they do with the brand. I appreciate the call. I really do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: Brand power is fascinating, and the Mercury brand appeals to Karen here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n