{"id":25612,"date":"2007-05-16T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T05:30:27","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T05:30:27","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T05:30:27","slug":"rush_s_analysis_of_the_gop_debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2007\/05\/16\/rush_s_analysis_of_the_gop_debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Rush\u2019s Analysis of the GOP Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: We have a lot to talk about today. We\u2019re going to get to the debate, and I know a lot of you probably want to talk about the debate. We will, but the election is 500 days away, folks, and there\u2019s some larger stories out there: what\u2019s happening in Iraq, the Democrats. That\u2019s one of the problems I had with the debate last night was that there\u2019s not enough attacking Democrats in this debate. I know it\u2019s the primaries and so forth. By the way, Fox showed last night how to professionally do a televised debate. It wasn\u2019t like a school Glee Club the way PMSNBC handled their debate. It was really well done. No complaints about it. We\u2019ve got audio sound bites from it as well. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/line><\/line>RUSH: We\u2019re not going to get to the audio sound bites in the debate yet, because there are some things I want to say about it. I watched some of it on the way back into New York from Pittsburgh last night. I know that everybody\u2019s got their own opinions about this. I\u2019m going to tell you what I think\u2019s going on. The media — and I love the way the Fox people ran this. There\u2019s a professional way to do a debate, and they did it, but they limited the questioning and the answers in such a way that Republicans ended up attacking Republicans. We\u2019re talking about winning the White House here. I know it\u2019s the primaries and we gotta pick a nominee, but enough of this beating-each-other-up stuff. There\u2019s plenty that the Democrats are doing and saying that\u2019s attackable and Giuliani did hit the Democrats, but I just didn\u2019t hear enough of it, for me. But I think there\u2019s something more important: the way the media covers all this, and I think the way some of you may even watch these debates, it\u2019s more about the game right now than the substance. I\u2019ll give you an example. Giuliani is being praised, getting rave reviews for the way he stood up to the comment made by Ron Paul in which that we need to examine our policies and listen to what the terrorists are saying if we want to understand why they\u2019re attacking us and killing us. <\/line><\/p>\n

Now, all the other candidates on that stage wanted to respond to Ron Paul, too. They weren\u2019t allowed to. Rudy just got the first shot in. This is not to criticize Rudy, but, folks, how hard is it to sit there and criticize anybody, Republican or Democrat, who essentially says something that most people are going to hear as criticism of the country? So people say, ‘Well, big-time score for Rudy Giuliani!\u2019 I understand how people think of it. That\u2019s more, ‘Let\u2019s analyze the game of this rather than the substance of things.\u2019 The substance is important to me. A lot of people disagree with this, but I think Romney\u2019s getting stronger. He seems to have his positions nailed down. The flip-flopping charge nevertheless seems to take him off step for a second, but he looked like he was in command to me. That\u2019s just my opinion. I\u2019ve formed no conclusions about anything. I\u2019m giving you the game analysis of the debate last night. I think if McCain were pressed as hard as Rudy is being harassed about his non-conservative positions, McCain would be finished by now. But, there are so many of them. There are so many non-conservative positions that McCain has. The action line in the media these days is Rudy and ‘Is he a conservative?\u2019 Rudy\u2019s finally made it plain, ‘I\u2019m not a conservative. I\u2019m a center-right Republican.\u2019 He\u2019s not going to try to play the game that he\u2019s a conservative anymore, ergo, his new position on abortion. <\/p>\n

Now, it was obvious to me last night that both Rudy and McCain want the election to be about the war. That\u2019s what they think their strong suits are. I understand that politically. You have to understand, the reason for this is that neither of them are that conservative. But you can sound conservative and tough on the war and maybe overcome some of your lack of conservative credentials by capitalizing on your strength on an issue that many people in the Republican Party and most people, feel very important, and that\u2019s the war on terror and threats to the country. But a president has to it all. A president is going to be doing much more than just managing or leading a war. He has to fight a war. He has to protect our liberties at home from those who threaten them with their big government agenda. Conservatism is still important to me here, folks — not ‘center-right Republicanism,\u2019 but conservatism. When you focus on the war you like that, because you don\u2019t have to be zeroed in on the positions other than the war. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Back to the debate. I want to reiterate this point again. Rudy and McCain obviously want the election to be about the war only or primarily, and the reason is that they\u2019re not all that conservative, and to talk about the war will allow that fact to be not as obvious. You have to remember that presidents have to do it all<\/emphasize>. They have to fight wars and they have to protect our liberties at home from those who threaten them with big government agendas. Now, somehow McCain has managed to claim the mantle of spending cutter, that big government is more about spending. He would massively increase the power of government with his support for Kyoto and his position on global warming. That is a position specifically designed — the whole policy is designed — to grow government and eliminate as much individual liberty as they can in the process. He\u2019s not getting called on any of this stuff. He was opposed to tax cuts, which is our money. Now says he wanted spending cuts as well but we couldn\u2019t get the cuts, so he would have let the government continue to take more and more of our money! All of this is coming out after the fact. But he\u2019s the guy who undermined the effort to kill the Democrat filibuster of judges when Bill Frist was ready to defeat it. Remember the nuclear option? Frist was ready to pull the trigger on the nuclear option, and it was McCain who put together the Gang of 14. <\/p>\n

Conservatism is far more than national security. That\u2019s a very important element of it. There\u2019s no question — and, of course, we\u2019ve got McCain-Feingold. McCain-Feingold is the worst assault on free political speech since our founding. We have open borders, and this immigration bill that they\u2019re trying to ramrod through again here is partly his creation. He\u2019s not getting called on any of this stuff yet, and I don\u2019t know that he will. I think he\u2019s highly vulnerable, but he has not been effectively hit. Romney tried a little bit last night, and some people said that McCain\u2019s attack and response was superior to what Romney did, where he said he\u2019s been consistent, and Romney has not been consistent. McCain can be consistent. He\u2019s been consistently wrong on a lot of things, whereas Romney says he\u2019s learned. McCain hasn\u2019t. I\u2019m just sharing the thoughts here with you, folks, in the game manner that — well, actually the substance manner, because I think most people look at this debate, especially the media, as a game. It\u2019s like the horse race. The media is always involved in horse races rather than the substance of things. An analysis of the debate, as I am offering you now, I have not seen. I\u2019ve seen analysis: ‘McCain scored here, and Romney didn\u2019t score there, and Ron Paul blew up over there, and Rudy really hit a home-run.\u2019 Give me substance on this stuff. If they don\u2019t give it to me, I\u2019ll provide it myself. Rudy? How hard was it really to smack down Ron Paul for his statement that everybody perceived to be blaming America for the 9\/11 attack? Rudy was first out of the box to attack him, but every other candidate up there wanted to but they wasn\u2019t allowed to. This is being portrayed as the greatest moment of the debate. <\/p>\n

The best pull quote of the debate is about John Edwards. Mike Huckabee said, ‘These guys want to spend like John Edwards in a beauty salon,\u2019 or some such thing. That\u2019s being cited as one of the best pull quotes of the night. But, I\u2019ll tell you what I think. If one of these guys would just take over the debate and start attacking Democrats, whatever the questions are, they\u2019d score a lot more points with voters, which I think is the point here. Now, last night, Chris Wallace was more interested in Republicans attacking Republicans, and that\u2019s okay. It got the debate going, and it was far superior to MSNBC, but from a conservative point of view — remember, I\u2019m a conservative, not a ‘center-right Republican\u2019 — the issue today is the left. The issue today is the Democrats, the American left, liberals, et cetera, et cetera, and how our guys are going to deal with them. Are they going to try to appease them? Are they going to try to reach out to them and try to get along? I want to know how they\u2019re going to deal with the left, and I want to know during the primary season. <\/emphasize> I don\u2019t want to have to wait \u2019til we get a nominee to find out, because then it might be too late. That\u2019s why all this is too early for me. This is why I keep telling you that I\u2019m not all that revved up about this yet, because the first primary is 500 days away. Do you people understand this? Five hundred days away. <\/p>\n

The media, I realize they have a role here. The media don\u2019t want Republicans attacking Democrats yet. As good as the questions were last night, those guys at Fox didn\u2019t want any attacks on Democrats last night. But the Republicans, let\u2019s be honest, are picking somebody who\u2019s going to run against the candidate of the other party and the point is to see who that should be, not who can best slam other Republicans. If you want to get into a contest slamming Republicans, I could win that one hands down. I could also win the contest who\u2019s best slamming Democrats, but I am not running for any office because of the pay cut I\u2019d have to take. Now, the debate was handled professionally, as compared to PMSNBC, and for one big reason. The PMSNBC hosts are partisan libs — Matthews, Olberdork. For all the talk about Fox being one-sided, Brit Hume is former ABC; Chris Wallace is former NBC and CBS, andWendell Goler is a longtime reporter. Chris Matthews, you\u2019ve got Tip O\u2019Neill\u2019s chief of staff and a Jimmy Carter guy. You\u2019ve got Olberdork, who is the puppet of David Brock\u2019s Media Matters little blog, and you got all these sordid other nuts that they put up there as so-called credentialed journalists. I don\u2019t think there was any comparison last night between the MSNBC debate and the Fox debate last night. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: We have a lot to talk about today. We\u2019re going to get to the debate, and I know a lot of you probably want to talk about the debate. We will, but the election is 500 days away, folks, and there\u2019s some larger stories out there: what\u2019s happening in Iraq, the Democrats. That\u2019s one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nRush's Analysis of the GOP Debate - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2007\/05\/16\/rush_s_analysis_of_the_gop_debate\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Rush's Analysis of the GOP Debate - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: We have a lot to talk about today. We\u2019re going to get to the debate, and I know a lot of you probably want to talk about the debate. 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