{"id":6354,"date":"2015-05-14T17:21:24","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T17:21:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2015-05-14T17:21:24","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T17:21:24","slug":"jeb_bush_falls_for_liberal_trick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2015\/05\/14\/jeb_bush_falls_for_liberal_trick\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeb Bush Falls for Liberal Trick"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: The Jeb Bush thing. It\u2019s an ABC News story<\/a>. It says here: “Jeb Bush found himself on defense after his town hall meeting in Reno, Nevada, Wednesday after a young voter told him, ‘Your brother created ISIS.'” <\/p>\n

Now, let me establish some givens before I dig deep into the analysis here. Jeb Bush, would we all agree, is an establishment Republican? Okay? Noncontroversial statement. Not a critical statement. Statement of fact. Anybody disagree? Okay, good. Establishment Republicans believe that the way to win elections is to be non-confrontational with Democrats, to engage in cooperation with Democrats, to engage in bipartisanship, and why do they believe this? <\/p>\n

Well, there are many reasons. One reason is that they have bought hook, line, and sinker the trick, the idea put forth by the Democrats that voters do not like confrontation, that voters do not like partisanship, that voters want the two parties to cooperate and work together and get things done. Jeb Bush subscribes to all of this. Now, what is the purpose of this? What is the purpose of bipartisanship, working together, cooperation, non-confrontation, don\u2019t disagree, don\u2019t criticize your opponent? <\/p>\n

Who\u2019s the target of that? Democrat voters, right? I mean, the theory is you have your base. The Republican establishment believes that its base voters are gonna turnout. Whether they\u2019re right or wrong about it is not the point. They believe it. They believe the old saw that once you get to the general election, that 40% are gonna go Republican, 40% are gonna go Democrat, and in there in the middle is 20%, and that is where the election is won or lost. <\/line><\/p>\n

That 20% is mainly the independents and some lazy Republicans or Democrats. So essentially the belief system of the Republican establishment is that the election is won or lost in 20% of the population, 20% of the voting population. Now, I think, as I\u2019ve said before, this is a brilliant trick that Democrat consultants have been running or Republican consultants for I don\u2019t know how long. Because what has it accomplished?<\/p>\n

It ensures that every Republican presidential candidate seeks the vote of only 20% of the population. How they can possibly win? They take for granted they\u2019re gonna have their base. They take for granted the Democrats are gonna get their base. So they do everything strategy-wise for 20%. The candidate and what he says, the way he acts, all of it is designed to get a majority of that 20%. Meanwhile, the Democrats are out trying to get every vote they can, while the Republican establishment thinks they can win by getting a majority of that 20%. <\/p>\n

And they believe that among that 20% you\u2019ve got some Democrats and you\u2019ve got some independents and it\u2019s those people that want us to work together. It\u2019s those people that want bipartisanship. It\u2019s those people who want Washington to work. It\u2019s those people who want cooperation. It\u2019s those people who don\u2019t like criticism of Democrats. No, you\u2019ve heard the old saw, “If you criticize Obama, if you criticize Democrats, the independents don\u2019t like it and they\u2019re gonna run right back to the Democrat Party.”<\/p>\n

Never mind the fact that the Democrat Party does nothing but defame Republicans. We\u2019re supposed to believe that the independent voter doesn\u2019t care that the Democrats engage in defamation, but the moment a Republican even begins to criticize policy, man, that\u2019s it! Those independents have had it and they run right back to the Democrats. Well, Jeb Bush and the Republican establishment believe all that, and they also believe one other thing.<\/line><\/p>\n

They believe the reason — and this is the key to this. They believe that the reason independents and others want bipartisanship and want cooperation and want Washington to work and want no criticism — the reason they think that\u2019s all true — is because they think independents don\u2019t like conservatives. They think independents don\u2019t like religious voters. The Republican establishment believes that its base poses a great problem because reasonable people (i.e., the independents and maybe some wayward Democrats).<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t like the Tea Party, and they don\u2019t like criticism, and they don\u2019t like confrontation and they don\u2019t like fighting and they don\u2019t like partisanship. So the establishment Republicans fall for every trick. They believe that their own base is an embarrassment. They believe that to win the election you have to let other people know that you really not a big fan of your own base, that they don\u2019t like the Moral Majority.<\/p>\n