{"id":29111,"date":"2008-04-25T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T03:55:28","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T03:55:28","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T03:55:28","slug":"why_should_conservatives_be_loyal_to_maverick_mccain_s_ego2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2008\/04\/25\/why_should_conservatives_be_loyal_to_maverick_mccain_s_ego2\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Should Conservatives Be Loyal to Maverick McCain\u2019s Ego?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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RUSH: Here is the ad that will run — by the way, Reuters had a story yesterday that the North Carolina Republican Party pulled this ad. They have not pulled the ad. I don\u2019t know who told Reuters this or if Reuters just made it up, but they have not pulled the ad. It is going to run Monday. We have seen to it, though, that even if they do pull it, it\u2019s going to air. They\u2019re not going to pull it, and McCain is fit to be tied. Here is the ad in question, the North Carolina Republican Party TV ad: Jeremiah Wright and the North Carolina Republican Party chairman Linda Daves also appear in this audio.<\/p>\n

FEMALE ANNOUNCER: For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew listening to his pastor.<\/p>\n

WRIGHT (screaming): And then wants us to sing God Bless America? No, no, no! Not God Bless America. God (bleep) America!<\/p>\n

<\/a>FEMALE ANNOUNCER: Now, Bev Perdue and Richard Moore endorse Barack Obama. They should know better. He\u2019s just too extreme for North Carolina.<\/p>\n

DAVES: The North Carolina Republican Party sponsored this ad opposing Bev Perdue and Richard Moore for North Carolina governor.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s Linda Daves, the last voice on the ad that you heard. So today on the Today show Meredith Vieira is talking to Senator McCain, and she said, ‘The ad says Obama\u2019s, quote, ‘just too extreme for North Carolina.\u2019 Now, you\u2019ve called this ad ‘degrading,\u2019 and you\u2019ve asked the state party to pull it, but so far they\u2019ve refused to do that. Why do you think they\u2019re not listening to you, A? And why do you believe that they would continue to raise questions about Senator Obama\u2019s patriotism?\u2019<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: They\u2019re not listening to me because they\u2019re out of touch with reality and the Republican Party. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, and this kind of, uh, campaigning is unacceptable. I\u2019ve said that. It will harm, uh, the Republicans\u2019 cause, and I\u2019ve done everything that I can to repudiate and to see that this kind of campaigning does not, uh, continue. I have engaged in and will continue a respectful campaign of either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah. People are rightly livid about this. Senator McCain loves to make nice with liberal Democrats, loves to be critical of the Republican Party. The ego in this! I have tried? ‘I have tried, but they aren\u2019t listening to me because they are out of touch with reality.\u2019 Meredith Vieira then said, ‘Senator Obama said that if you wanted to, you could get that ad pulled; because you are, after all, the nominee, and the standard-bearer. So if you can\u2019t get the ad pulled, does it raise any questions about your leadership?\u2019<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: I don\u2019t know exactly how to respond to that except that I would hope that, uh, Senator Obama would, uh, repudiate and apologize for his remarks concerning the heartland of America; where his elitist remarks indicated that people who are hard working, dedicated people who harbor traditional values and principles and value their religion and Second Amendment of the Constitution; would not be treated in an elitist fashion. I hope he\u2019ll apologize for that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: What the hell is going on here? Is this whole campaign going to be one side saying, ‘You repudiate that!\u2019 <\/p>\n

‘No, you repudiate that!\u2019<\/p>\n

‘I have repudiated that, and I have apologized. Now you apologize!\u2019<\/p>\n

This is the big leagues! Obama is not going to repudiate anything, Senator McCain! He\u2019ll send out some underlings to make a pass at repudiating things. This is absurd! In addition to being insulting; it is absurd to sit there and sit around — I would hope he would go out and repudiate this? It got even worse on the CBS Early Show today, Maggie Rodriguez talking to Senator McCain. Question: ‘The Republican Party in North Carolina is planning to run an ad bashing Senator Obama. I know you opposed the ad, but they\u2019re running it anyway. So what does that say about you, that you haven\u2019t opposed it strongly enough or your own party is blatantly disagreeing and disregarding your wishes?\u2019<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: It means that the Republican Party of the state of North Carolina is dead wrong. They are an independent organization. I\u2019ll do everything in my power to make sure not only they stop it, but that kind of leadership is rejected; and the overwhelming majority of Republicans in North Carolina share my view.<\/p>\n

RODRIQUEZ: But as the Republican nominee for president, couldn\u2019t you pick up the phone and call the head of the North Carolina GOP and say, ‘Don\u2019t run it\u2019?<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: I have communicated that in every possible way, and, uh, I will, uh, continue to communicate that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I saw Linda Daves on TV this morning; she\u2019s not going to listen to him. It\u2019s a North Carolina issue. It doesn\u2019t have anything to do with the presidential race. It\u2019s not a racist ad! You know, McCain\u2019s out there; he\u2019s been critical of Bill Ayers, who was Obama\u2019s very close buddy, and is radicalizing the US education system even as we speak. So he\u2019ll be critical of Ayers, but you put Jeremiah Wright in this thing — and here comes the very reason for Operation Chaos; and that is the Republican Party will not dare offer any criticism of Obama because they, for some reason, fear the charge of racism. Yesterday on the Fox News Channel Studio B with Shepard Smith, he talked to McCain, and he asked him, ‘What about that North Carolina ad was offensive to you, Senator?\u2019<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: I think it\u2019s — Anyone who watched it was offensive in that it, uh, brought, ehh, elements into this race which are —<\/p>\n

SMITH: Race?<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: — excuse me. Into this contest, of race, that are totally unacceptable. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln and the party of — of Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. That\u2019s just not the kind of advertising we want to do. We want this race decided on the issues.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Obama\u2019s associates and his character are issues! There\u2019s nothing racist about the ad. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: McCain is attacking the North Carolina Republican Party. He is saying they\u2019re ‘out of touch with reality,\u2019 as defined by him. They are not listening to him. He\u2019s going to do what he can to get the ad canceled because it\u2019s racist. Question, Senator McCain: ‘What if the North Carolina Republican Party or any other state Republican Party ran the same ad, but put Bill Ayers in it instead of Jeremiah Wright? Would you oppose that ad?\u2019 Because there\u2019s no difference other than the color of the skin of one of the Obama associates. I think… This is very, very tough for me, folks, but I think Senator McCain has a responsibility now to explain exactly what is racist about this ad. This is precisely what the Drive-Bys want in the Democrat Party: they want any criticism of Obama to be disqualified and not permitted because it\u2019s racist, and McCain\u2019s falling right in line. And don\u2019t tell me he\u2019s got some grand strategy here to pick up a lot of black vote in the general election. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not what this is. If you think there\u2019s a grand strategy here, you\u2019re missing the point. Keep listening. Senator McCain owes us an explanation. Tell us what is racist about this North Carolina ad. He sounds just like a liberal, asking that we may take inferences about the North Carolina Republican Party and the people that run it. I take from this several things. Number one: it appears to me that Senator McCain is back to his usual tactics of using Republicans as foils. He\u2019s attacking the president over Hurricane Katrina. Not the mayor of New Orleans, but the president. He\u2019s trying to prove to the liberal media, the so-called independents and Democrats, that he\u2019s the eventual nominee of the Republican Party but that this is all about him. It\u2019s not about Republicans, not conservatives, so no need to worry about him being too much of either. He\u2019s sending a message to Democrats and independents whose votes he wants: ‘Don\u2019t worry about me. I\u2019m not one of these wacko conservative right-wingers.\u2019 It\u2019s about him, not about a grand strategy here. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s why he is relentlessly pounding away at the North Carolina party now. This is a tactic. He\u2019s creating an image of himself at the expense of others, and he does this all the time. Now, I take from this — if you do want to talk about strategy — that McCain believes he has the South in his back pocket even though he didn\u2019t win it in the primaries. Huckabee did. He wouldn\u2019t risk alienating Southerners over an ad that clearly is not racist if he didn\u2019t think he had the southern vote in his back pocket. I don\u2019t think he understands how livid North Carolina Republicans are about this, and Republicans everywhere. Now, it is obvious to me (and this has been one of my concerns from the get-go) that Senator McCain has no interest in rebuilding the Republican Party as an institution. He intends, instead, to use it to achieve his ends and leave it in whatever state it is when he is done. Now, we know this. What was the purpose of McCain-Feingold? It was to cripple the party system. <\/p>\n

It was to cripple the party system. It was McCain\u2019s revenge when he lost the 2000 GOP primary which he blamed on party officials and Bush. It\u2019s interesting. Kimberley Strassel at the Wall Street Journal has a piece today on how McCain has been hoodwinked by his own McCain-Feingold restrictions, and is now finding ways to get around his own restrictions in McCain-Feingold in order to raise money and keep up with Obama. Now, a question I have for Senator McCain and his handlers: ‘Senator, you love being praised as a ‘maverick;\u2019 you love being praised as an independent. Why can\u2019t the rest of us be independents? Why can\u2019t the rest of us be mavericks?\u2019 I want to be very clear about this, folks. If Senator McCain is campaigning not as a Republican or conservative, but as a ‘maverick,\u2019 and an ‘independent,\u2019 why shouldn\u2019t we behave in the same way? Why do we have to fall in line with whatever he dictates? Why does the North Carolina Republican Party have to fall in line and do what he says; when he is free to abandon us at any and all times, on the basis of his own desire? <\/p>\n

Why should Republicans vote for McCain? Just because he\u2019s a Republican? McCain himself teaches us that\u2019s the wrong thing to do! His recent Senate career is based not on voting for people or things because they\u2019re Republican, but rather other criteria. So why should conservatives get behind McCain? Just because he claims to be conservative? He teaches us that\u2019s the wrong thing to do as well. If McCain isn\u2019t going to be loyal to his own party, and if he isn\u2019t going to be loyal to conservative principles, why should Republicans be loyal to him? Why should conservatives be loyal to him? The way I see it, folks, we are all mavericks and we are all independents, now. Senator McCain, with these outbursts last night and today, seems to have reserved the right to dictate to all Republicans what they should say, what they shouldn\u2019t say, what they should think; while at the same time reserving for himself the right to abandon the Republican Party whenever he so chooses. <\/p>\n

So we\u2019re supposed to do what he says. We\u2019re supposed to not run commercials that he doesn\u2019t like. We\u2019re supposed to not criticize Obama in a way he doesn\u2019t like. We\u2019re only supposed to do what he tells us to do, but then he\u2019s free to wander off the reservation any time he wants, and we are not to be critical of that. So it\u2019s almost as though that he is demanding, McCain is demanding, that we follow a cult of personality here. But since we\u2019re not Democrats and since we\u2019re not liberals, we don\u2019t do that. We don\u2019t follow cults. Those of you who are conservative Republicans follow ideas. We follow issues. These ideas and issues that we believe are the best for the future much America and its people. We\u2019re not interested in following a cult of personality because he makes us feel good, or because we think he cares, or because we think he\u2019s some kind of messianic figure. If you want the support of conservative Republicans, if you want the loyalty of conservative Republicans, you have to earn it. You don\u2019t get it by commanding we be loyal while you aren\u2019t at the same time.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: You know, what\u2019s happening in North Carolina is that people are sending money to the North Carolina GOP in droves. For those of you state Republican Party operatives, this is how you raise money. You know, if the presidential candidate is not going to campaign, is not going to draw distinctions between our party and the Democrat Party, and you need money — and you want to do it yourself — look at North Carolina as an example. They\u2019re not backing down. It\u2019s not a racist ad. There\u2019s nothing untoward about it, at all. Everything in it is true! Everything in it is true, and it seems that Senator McCain is not having as much influence with the state party organizations as he would like. Los Angeles Times today, headline: ‘More GOP ads target Obama — As they promote their candidates and try to pave the way for [Republican] victories this year, Republicans have begun making their case to voters in advertisements featuring a new star: Barack Obama.\u2019 <\/p>\n

They talk about what\u2019s going on in North Carolina. ‘In Louisiana, a [Republican] TV ad attacking Obama\u2019s healthcare agenda as ‘radical\u2019 proved so threatening that the House candidate it targeted, Democrat Don Cazayoux, distanced himself from Obama on Thursday,\u2019 yesterday. The ad worked! ‘Clinton\u2019s tumultuous presence on the national stage long has made her a favorite target of Republican attacks. But [Republican] strategists said the negative six-week campaign in Pennsylvania produced reams of material that, for the first time, laid out for them a clear pathway for attacking Obama. They pointed to the much-publicized sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. … 1960s radical Bill Ayers; and the senator\u2019s own statement at a San Francisco-area fundraiser,\u2019 about the bitter clingers. <\/p>\n

‘Some Democratic activists said Thursday that they were worried about Obama\u2019s prospects in the general election, wondering if certain working-class white Democratic voters might abandon him for the Republican nominee, particularly in key states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio.\u2019 So this story is Democrats are worried about the recent stumbles that Obama has made that will hurt him in swing states during the general election. The Republicans now have ‘a clear pathway\u2019 to attack Obama, given Operation Chaos! Operation Chaos has produced this pathway by sustaining the Democrat Party nomination fight, which is… I knew it. Trust me, folks. McCain said it, but we knew it. Neither the Republican Party nor McCain were gonna bloody up Obama politically. Somebody had to do it. Who better than the Clintons? They\u2019re experts as bloodying people politically. It has happened, and it\u2019s given state Republican Party organizations, as they say, ‘a clear pathway.\u2019 In fact, there\u2019s a line in this story: ‘target-rich\u2019 candidates. ‘Hillary is a better target for us. But the more you see Obama in action, the better we\u2019re liking him,\u2019 as a rich target!<\/p>\n

So McCain is out there chastising the North Carolina Republican Party. They\u2019re not listening to him. He\u2019s upset about it. We\u2019re supposed to do everything he says, but he\u2019s allowed to be the maverick. He can cross the aisle. He can make deals with Democrats left and right. He can sell out his own party. He can leave his party in the lurch. But we? We are supposed to sit there and follow the orders as dictated by the enemy campaign. We\u2019re not to run ads he doesn\u2019t like. We\u2019re not to say things he doesn\u2019t like. We are to say things he does like. He\u2019s free to abandon us; we have to stay loyal. He can be a ‘maverick.\u2019 Well, Senator McCain, we are all mavericks now. We are all mavericks and independents, and that\u2019s that. Here\u2019s Senator McCain. We\u2019re up to sound bite number nine. This is just… Well, you listen to it. Shepard Smith says, ‘Senator, are you gonna call on these 527s, the special interest groups not to campaign on your behalf outside of your rules?\u2019<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: I will ask 527s not to campaign on anybody\u2019s behalf. They should stay out. If they want to contribute the — and be part of this campaign, they can do it, on both sides. I\u2019m not saying unilaterally disarm. I am saying, everybody should stop it, and I call on the Federal Election Commission —<\/p>\n

SMITH: So you\u2019re telling 527s not to campaign on your behalf, right here and right now?<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: I\u2019m telling them not to campaign on my behalf. I\u2019m telling 527s not to campaign on behalf of my — behalf of my opponents, either; and I\u2019m calling on the FEC — if we ever get a viable FEC — to enforce existing law. Existing law, the \u201974 law, says they\u2019re clearly engaged in — in activity which is in violation of the law. But I\u2019m calling on both sides, my friend. Both sides.<\/p>\n

RUSH: (laughs) Folks, you can say this as well as I can say it. We only have 527s because of you, Senator! Campaign finance reform gave us 527s because you didn\u2019t want the parties be involved, and so the money had to go somewhere. Do you know that George Soros has given that little squirt, David Brock, $40 million to run a 527 against you, Senator McCain? Do you think they\u2019re going to disarm just because you proclaim it from the presidential campaign mountaintop? They might even lie to you, and say, ‘Okay, we will disarm,\u2019 but they won\u2019t. By the way, he says he\u2019s ‘calling on the FEC — if we ever get a viable FEC.\u2019 Who\u2019s holding up the FEC having enough members to get into gear? Harry Reid! Dingy Harry. He\u2019s upset. He\u2019s demanding something somewhere. I forget all the details about it, but the very people that Senator McCain loves to make deals with are now stiffing him on the FEC. This is Wednesday in Inez, Kentucky. Senator McCain held a press conference and said this about the North Carolina Republican Party ad.<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: We called and asked them not to run that message. It\u2019s not the message of the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

RUSH: April 15th, 2008, Hardball: Chris Matthews live from the campus of Villanova University. Matthews interviewed McCain. They had this exchange about the presidential race.<\/p>\n

MATTHEWS: Would you sit down with the Democrat nominee — whoever it is, Hillary or Barack — and agree to them that there will be no outside sleazeball attacks by either side, then you will tell their people you will condemn any attack — like the swiftboating — and you\u2019ll both agree to do that up front, right after you get the nominations? Would you do that?<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: I\u2019d love to do that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Snerdley just asked, why am I doing this to you; meaning, why am I playing all of these bites? Because you\u2019ve gotta know. I told you at the outset when we started this hour, this is not going to be easy for me. This isn\u2019t going to be easy for me. I have never in my life been in this situation as a conservative in a presidential race. I have never been in it. This is virgin territory for me. I am not going to capitulate, or carry water for these people. This is anathema to me. The idea that these people on the left are going to stop? Senator McCain, do you know who Barack Obama\u2019s best friends are? Do you understand what you are up against? You\u2019re up against this wacko preacher. Folks, last night I was having some e-mail back-and-forth with some friends, and I said, ‘Just for the sake of humoring me, who do you think would be more damaging to the country, Hillary or Obama?\u2019 and we went back and forth on this, and we concluded they\u2019re both socialists and they\u2019re both radicals. <\/line>Neither of them would be good. Here we are. But Senator McCain, you can sit there and want to play nice with Barack Obama all day long, do you realize the people on this side, what they\u2019re going to do to you as you\u2019re playing nice? And your whole campaign\u2019s going to be — every day you\u2019re going to be damning somebody and telling them to repudiate what they just said. Every day you\u2019re going to be talking about how you\u2019re offended. ‘This is not the kind of campaign we need to be running. Please repudiate that. Please apologize.\u2019 Like a New Age encounter group from the 1970s, is what this presidential campaign\u2019s shaping up to be. This guy Obama, it has been learned now that his chief Internet blogger, whatever, led communist riots in France! These things cannot be coincidental. <\/line><\/p>\n

Bill Ayers? A lot has been learned about what Bill Ayers is doing. This guy hasn\u2019t repudiated any of his terrorism and violence in the past, but he\u2019s now an accredited educator and he\u2019s leading the charge in genuinely polluting the minds of American school kids, K-12 into college; on the evils of capitalism. Sol Stern, the Manhattan Institute, is writing about this. Stern doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s that big a deal, and I think it is. Anyway, these are the kind of people that Senator McCain is up against, and if he thinks he\u2019s going to get a straightforward campaign… Senator McCain, if you think Obama\u2019s going to be honest about what his intentions for the country are, so that you can knock them out of the park, I don\u2019t know where you\u2019re coming from. We\u2019re just using intelligence guided by experience here. It gets worse. This is in New Orleans yesterday, at a press conference, Senator McCain talking about Hurricane Katrina.<\/p>\n

MCCAIN: The people of the Ninth Ward, the people of New Orleans, the people of this country. Never again, never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled. Never again. (applause) Never again.<\/p>\n

RUSH: He was talking about President Bush and the federal response. The local response sort of got a pass from Senator McCain. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: We\u2019ll start in Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina. Hello, Joe, and I\u2019m glad you\u2019re first up. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes! It\u2019s so nice to talk to you, Rush.<\/p>\n

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

CALLER: Rush, even you do not — I don\u2019t think you — understand how mad people in North Carolina are at him.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yes, I do. Yes, I do.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I am absolutely livid. To claim that that ad is racist, to go down to New Orleans and pander to a group of people who have been on the dole for 60 years, and then to say that we\u2019re out of touch with the Republican Party? If there\u2019s anybody out —<\/p>\n

RUSH: No!<\/p>\n

CALLER: — of touch with the —<\/p>\n

RUSH: No!<\/p>\n

CALLER: — Republican Party, he is.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You\u2019re ‘out of touch with reality.\u2019<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah, well…<\/p>\n

RUSH: Not just the Republican Party. You\u2019re ‘out of touch with reality.\u2019<\/p>\n

CALLER: My reality, Rush, is that the only way we\u2019re going to get control of this again is to do it on the local levels. Right now, whether he becomes president or not, I don\u2019t care; because I don\u2019t think I can vote for him, but I can vote for people for Congress and for the Senate who represent what I think and what I believe.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Amen, bro. Let me ask you a question. I want to know how you really feel about one thing.<\/p>\n

CALLER: (laughing)<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, no. I\u2019m not trying to be funny. <\/p>\n

CALLER: (laughing) Okay.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I want you to tell us how you really feel when you hear Senator McCain say that he\u2019s upset that the North Carolina Republicans are not listening to him, and that this ad is racist, and they should stop it because they\u2019re ‘out of touch with reality.\u2019 But the thing that really… He said you\u2019re not listening to him.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, if he would give me something to listen to that I could believe in, it would be something else. But, what is his name? Is it John ‘Reid-Pelosi\u2019 McCain? Because it sounds to me like he\u2019s a Democrat. If you\u2019re going to talk like that, if you\u2019re going to speak like that about us, then why don\u2019t you just become a Democrat?<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is not the way to unify your party.<\/p>\n

CALLER: It\u2019s not. It isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is not the way to unite the party behind your own campaign when you\u2019re running for president.<\/p>\n

CALLER: And he would have the opportunity if he would only learn from what\u2019s going on. He could beat either one of these candidates, and he can do it as a conservative Republican, and he could get the country behind him to do it, but not the way that he\u2019s going about it.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Wait a minute. That\u2019s not his experience, and we have to keep this in mind. McCain\u2019s experience is succeeding not as a conservative. He thinks conservatives denied him the nomination in 2000. McCain sees his success as a ‘maverick,\u2019 as making deals with Democrats. The media loves McCain. The Democrats loved McCain. That\u2019s where he is, and he thinks because he can cross the aisle, sit across the aisle, whatever; that makes him bigger and better than simple partisans and so forth. So, no. He doesn\u2019t look at conservatism as having anything to do with his success. Once you understand that — you don\u2019t agree with it — you\u2019ll understand why he\u2019s doing what he\u2019s doing. But you take a look. We all know the Republican Party has had trouble raising money for a long time. These state parties, I guarantee you, are gonna be rolling in contributions. <\/p>\n

North Carolina is probably going to have to go out and open a couple of new bank accounts to handle all the money going in there because they are showing they understand what\u2019s necessary to beat back the liberal opposition in this election. By the same token, Senator McCain is having trouble raising money, and it\u2019s no wonder why. Now, the story in Wall Street Journal today by Kimberley Strassel, with details on how he\u2019s having to circumvent his own campaign finance reform rules in order to go out and raise money. It\u2019s just mind-boggling — and the 527s which exist solely because of McCain-Feingold? Now he wants everybody to stand down, all these 527s to stop it. I don\u2019t know… I can\u2019t relate to the ego, in one sense. I can\u2019t relate to standing up and saying to both political parties, as though you\u2019re Moses and have just come down from the mountain with the tablets, ‘Okay, here are the rules. Here are the proclamations. I\u2019m delivering them to you. I want everybody to stand by them.\u2019 I do not understand. I can\u2019t relate to it –and as you people know, I have one of the healthiest egos known to exist in all humanity, but I can\u2019t understand it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Here is the ad that will run — by the way, Reuters had a story yesterday that the North Carolina Republican Party pulled this ad. They have not pulled the ad. I don\u2019t know who told Reuters this or if Reuters just made it up, but they have not pulled the ad. It is […]<\/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":"\nWhy Should Conservatives Be Loyal to Maverick McCain's Ego? - 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:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2008\/04\/25\/why_should_conservatives_be_loyal_to_maverick_mccain_s_ego2\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Why Should Conservatives Be Loyal to Maverick McCain's Ego? - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Here is the ad that will run — by the way, Reuters had a story yesterday that the North Carolina Republican Party pulled this ad. They have not pulled the ad. I don\u2019t know who told Reuters this or if Reuters just made it up, but they have not pulled the ad. 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