{"id":24885,"date":"2007-03-08T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T05:50:25","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T05:50:25","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T05:50:25","slug":"there_is_a_hunger_and_thirst_for_conservative_leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2007\/03\/08\/there_is_a_hunger_and_thirst_for_conservative_leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"There is a Hunger and Thirst for Conservative Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Here we are, Rush Limbaugh on the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. I have to tell you people, I think I\u2019ve been very well composed today, and I have been very, very patient. But despite all of the wonderful news items and material provided by me, your host today — saying more in five seconds than most hosts will say in a week or a career — what am I getting? I\u2019m getting, &ldquo;You\u2019re not doing enough,&rdquo; which is a carryover from yesterday. <\/p>\n

&ldquo;You need to do this. You need to do that. You need to go out and do that. We can\u2019t beat this. Global warming is bad. It\u2019s too late,&rdquo; da-da-da. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m learning something from this. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve always believed, by the way. It\u2019s being confirmed, actually. I\u2019m not just learning it. That is that so many people are just hungry for some leadership <\/emphasize>out there. There just isn\u2019t any that people are responding to in the person of any of these candidates. It\u2019s obvious to me. I mean, you can go out and take polls on which Republican is leading in the primary race so far, but in terms of exuding leadership, I\u2019ve not had one person call here in the past two days and tell me, &ldquo;Well, we need to do what Giuliani is doing. We need to do what Mitt Romney is doing. We need to implement the kind of things McCain\u2019s doing,&rdquo; or any of the other candidates, which tells me that nobody\u2019s responding to these candidates as though they are leaders. People are turning to me to do these things. <\/p>\n

Snerdley said that some guy (he didn\u2019t put him up because he didn\u2019t want to go on the air), said, &ldquo;Screw this three million people marching on Washington! Get yourself and some of your big buddies and buy the New York Times.&rdquo; A) It\u2019s not for sale. There is a guy trying to buy the New York Times and he\u2019s a Republican. His name is Hank Greenberg. He used to run AIG, the big insurance conglomerate, but the way that company is structured, the Sulzberger family, even with a minority of the stock, controls it. So you just can\u2019t say we\u2019re going to go buy the New York Times. It\u2019s not for sale. It\u2019s a family heirloom if it were. Besides if I did that, I\u2019d have trouble upgrading to a new jet. (Laughing.) So there are decisions that I have to make in all of this as well. I\u2019m just joking there. But clearly there\u2019s just a hunger and a thirst for genuine leadership out there, and people, I guess, are not seeing any of it or recognizing it in any of the presidential candidates. I may be wrong about that. It\u2019s purely anecdotal. We haven\u2019t taken enough calls on this to make a scientific assessment of this that would be accurate. But it does seem to me that when this topic comes up, we\u2019d at least get some phone calls, &ldquo;Well, yeah, Giuliani is suggesting we do this and that.&rdquo; None of the candidates have that. I\u2019m not singling out Giuliani. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s an interesting column by George Will today that I read in the New York Post in which he basically started wagging the finger at conservatives, saying, &ldquo;You know, you\u2019re going to make the mistake here by demanding the perfect. You\u2019re going to totally bypass the good.&rdquo; He\u2019s not talking about any particular candidate. Just you\u2019re going to bypass the good by demanding perfection, and he uses an example. He said (paraphrasing), &ldquo;Would conservatives today elect a governor who had raised taxes the highest they had ever been in his state and done a couple other things that come from the lib social agenda?&rdquo; and he points out these were all done by Ronald Reagan, when he was governor of California. Could Reagan get the nomination today if there hadn\u2019t been a President Reagan, is the point. He goes on to say — basically focusing on the attendees at CPAC — that the vast majority of the 6,000-plus that were there were college age. He was there, and he introduced Giuliani. I wasn\u2019t there so I don\u2019t know if this is accurate. He said the attitude was mostly morose. There just wasn\u2019t that excitement because there\u2019s no perfect conservative out there. Of course, I guess I may be contributing to this because people ask me who I\u2019m for, and I say, ‘Nobody yet. There\u2019s nobody out there that revs me up as of now,\u2019 so George Will could be talking about me.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know that I\u2019m holding out for perfection (I\u2019m not that na&iuml;ve), but I am really, really, really, really frightened that conservatism is in the process of being redefined to fit whatever it is said to be on the basis of these candidates. As far as polling data is concerned, Giuliani is running away with it. He\u2019s just creaming McCain out there, in a Newsweek poll and a number of others as well. But it\u2019s early. I\u2019m going to just tell you this, folks. I was talking with a friend the other night via instant message. I don\u2019t talk on the phone because there\u2019s always somebody on the other end. When you instant message, you can ignore them for ten minutes or so, leave the room and then respond if you want. It\u2019s just easier. If they call you on an instant message you can always pretend (laughing) you\u2019re not at the computer and don\u2019t answer it. So it\u2019s just easier. But we had this back-and-forth going on, and the whole notion of this imperfect conservative was being discussed and whether somebody is falling into line and having conservatism redefined and this sort of thing.<\/p>\n

I was trying to make the point that whoever the nominee is going to be, I shudder to think what\u2019s going to happen to the poor guy when the Clintons get hold of him. That\u2019s <\/emphasize>why it\u2019s so early right now, and a lot of these candidates have what opposing war rooms will look at as major baggage that they can focus things at. If you\u2019re angry over what happened to Scooter Libby, you just get ready. By the time the Republicans have a nominee, it is going to get vicious out there in terms of that man. (There aren\u2019t any woman on our side, are there, seeking the nomination? Not yet.) Whoever it is, is going to be subject to destruction. That\u2019s how the Clintons play the game. Right now the Clintons have to focus on Obama and some of the others. Edwards, he\u2019s getting a pass right now, but his turn\u2019s coming for the Clinton war room. It\u2019s going to get really, really dirty. I\u2019m taking all of this into account as I assess the situation. <\/p>\n

I just am overwhelmed today by how many callers we\u2019ve had. Despite whatever we\u2019ve talked about today, everybody wants to continue the discussion from yesterday about what I am not doing and need to be doing or could do in order to move forward. It just means that there is a hunger and a thirst, big time, for conservative leadership that isn\u2019t being met. Some people would say, &ldquo;Go ahead and be a leader,&rdquo; to those who are making the complaint. That\u2019s not the problem. Everybody needs leadership. People who are not in the political realm but want to support somebody who is, you can\u2019t expect somebody not in the political business or the political realm to go out and be a leader per se. You could possibly in the neighborhood or the community, but not on a national basis like people are hungry for. It\u2019s just what it is. So I\u2019m taking all this in, folks. I\u2019m processing it. I\u2019m learning from it and we\u2019ll see what becomes of it. But it\u2019s still fascinating to listen to. All right, let me take a quick break. Look at the calls. Ba-da ba-da ba-da ba-da. Yeah, we have one more up there that thinks I should do more. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Ridgewood, New Jersey, as we go back to the phones. This is Silvio. Hello, Silvio.<\/line>CALLER: Yes, hi, Rush. First-time caller. It\u2019s an honor to speak to you.<\/line><\/p>\n

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

CALLER: My suggestion on something you can do to maybe help us a little bit, is to spend more resources on investigative journalism. I personally think that there\u2019s too many stories out there that the media never gets to the heart of. The Foley story, for example, the page that edged Foley on to the IM messages. He testified before the FBI. What happened to that testimony? I\u2019d like to hear that testimony. I\u2019d really like to fully understand that story.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, what you have to understand about that story is that Republicans ran away from it as fast as they could. They wanted no part of it. I\u2019m going to be bluntly honest here. Number one: I\u2019m not a journalist. But I do a lot of investigating of the Drive-By Media, and I spend my day on this program poking holes at all of these tactics that the Democrats use. I informed you where that first e-mail of Foley came from, that it was part of a coordinated effort between ABC and gay rights groups and so forth, that they\u2019d been waiting on this. They wanted to spring this in October, but Bush was rebounding. The war was going well. Bush was rebounding in the polls. They had to spring it in late September. It was their October Surprise. <\/p>\n

You know, some of the suggestions I\u2019ve gotten today and yesterday, if I weren\u2019t of a stronger constitution, I would have started crying because I could have easily said, &ldquo;What do you think I\u2019m doing? What do you think I\u2019ve been doing the last 18 and a half years?&rdquo; But I understand that it\u2019s not a criticism, and that\u2019s why I didn\u2019t react that way. I have a strong constitution and boundaries, and even if it is criticism, if it\u2019s true, I take it and process it. If it\u2019s false and wrong, it bounces off and I don\u2019t even consider it. But I understand what it all means. I spent the first segment monologue discussing it. This dissatisfaction is because so much more could be done and there aren\u2019t any leaders out there doing it. Frankly, I think it all boils down to people are too fed up with Republicans trying to make liberals like them, trying to make the media like them and trying to make Democrats — just like Jim Moran is trying to make Al-Qaeda like us. <\/p>\n

The Republicans are out there trying to make Democrats like us and trying to prove that we\u2019re not what they say we are, and I know what it is. I\u2019m with you on this. We are sick and tired of being on defense, are we not? We\u2019re totally sick and tired of reacting to things. That\u2019s where leadership comes in. Where\u2019s the offense? Now, I view myself as being on offense every day, but when you get a liberal news story or a bunch of liberal issues, you have to react to it. So in that way it\u2019s reactionary defensive, but we go on the offense here in the process of attacking it. But I think that\u2019s what this all adds up to. <\/p>\n

If any of the presidential campaign staffs are listening to this program — and what are the odds that they are? (Laughing.) Pretty high. The field is wide open here for somebody that can break out of all of this with an energy that translates to leadership, not just the pronunciation of where a candidate is on the issues, but an actual take-charge leadership. ‘I want to run this country because X,\u2019 and don\u2019t be afraid to rip into the left. You know, every time George Bush has done it the last eight years, we have stood up and we have cheered and celebrated. We\u2019ve prayed for more, and we don\u2019t get it much. He hasn\u2019t been ideological. We want whoever the nominee is to be an ideologue and to tell this country the truth about the Democrats and the left, rather than being afraid of doing that.<\/p>\n

END TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.<\/p>\n

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