{"id":7434,"date":"2015-01-05T18:17:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-05T18:17:31","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2015-01-05T18:17:31","modified_gmt":"2015-01-05T18:17:31","slug":"what_this_poll_of_gop_voters_means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2015\/01\/05\/what_this_poll_of_gop_voters_means\/","title":{"rendered":"What This Poll of GOP Voters Means"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

RUSH: Let me now, without any interruptions — well, I can\u2019t say that because this stuff fires synapses in my fertile gray cells, and we\u2019re off and running. But I\u2019ll do my best here to stay focused and finish the highlights of the Pat Caddell supervised poll, the People\u2019s Poll conducted by EMC Research. We left off with 23% of Republican voters are confident that future generations of Americans will have a higher standard of living and better lives than we do today. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s an incredibly low number. That\u2019s as low as I\u2019ve ever seen it. That does not constitute, “Hey, we\u2019re in a good mood out here.” When only 23% of Republicans think that their kids and anybody\u2019s kids are gonna do better than people are doing today. That used to be the essence of the American dream, that your kids would do better. It was part of the uniqueness of this country. People believed it, and therefore they made it happen. And when you don\u2019t believe it, you don\u2019t live it. It\u2019s not good. <\/p>\n

Nineteen percent of Republicans say the government\u2019s working for the best interests of the people. That\u2019s probably at an all-time low, too. That means 71% think the government is not working for the best interests of the people. And clearly what\u2019s happened here, the government today is not the government of when I was growing up. The government today has become — I want to say “combination,” but it\u2019s actually more than that. But the government\u2019s not the government anymore. The government is an association of the powerful, in finance, in industry, and in politics. And they are all working to benefit each other. <\/line><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why you get a number, 19% of Republicans say the government\u2019s working for the best interests of the people. It isn\u2019t. It\u2019s working for the best interests of itself. Stands to reason. That\u2019s where all the money gets collected. It\u2019s where all the money is. It\u2019s where you go if you want to get your fist in the pile. And the way you get your fist in the pile of money in Washington is to buddy up with whoever is running the show, Republican or Democrat. Sell your soul for a piece of action. And the political parties today have much more allegiance to those arrangements than they do their voters. <\/p>\n

It really isn\u2019t any more complicated than that. You call it corporate cronyism, crony socialism, crony capitalism, whatever you want to call it, the powerful have gotten together and have basically taken over Washington and are using the power that is Washington to take care of themselves. And then every two or four years when it\u2019s time to campaign the voters are told, “Hey, we\u2019re looking out for you. Hey, we love you. Hey, we\u2019re gonna do this and this and that and that,” and creates landslides like we just had. And then immediately after a landslide victory like we just had, the winners began sounding just like the people they beat. It\u2019s interesting. <\/p>\n

On leadership, only one in four Republican voters want both Boehner and McConnell to be reelected as top leaders. Only 16% want both Boehner and McConnell as leaders. This is a poll of Republican voters. This is not Republicans in the House and Senate. This is a poll of Republicans outside Washington. Fifty-three percent of these voters want an entirely new leadership team. Sixty percent of Republican voters want Boehner replaced as Speaker. Boehner\u2019s favorable rating among Republican voters, 43%. A full 64% of Republican voters think that Boehner has been ineffective in fighting Obama\u2019s agenda. And the reason they think that is that nobody\u2019s fighting Obama. They\u2019re giving lip service to it, but nobody\u2019s fighting Obama\u2019s agenda. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s my point. Obama\u2019s agenda is not just Obama\u2019s. Obama\u2019s agenda is the agenda of Wall Street, of the Chamber of Commerce, two constituencies people have always assumed to be Republican, at least mostly. It works this way. When you have somebody like Obama, liberal Democrat who despises capitalism and gets elected, the people in industry, media, finance, look at the situation and say, “You know, it\u2019s not worth fighting the guy. We better get on board with where he\u2019s going so we can stay viable and stay rich, stay successful,” whatever. And that\u2019s the difference. <\/line><\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t anybody fighting this agenda in Washington. Nobody. They give lip service to it, but nobody\u2019s really fighting it. Look, there are exceptions. I\u2019m not trying to diminish the importance of people like the conservatives in the House who are fighting it, or Ted Cruz, but they\u2019re still a minority. The point is that there is no political party in opposition to Obama\u2019s agenda. And this is now inarguably clear. Both parties seek the same thing on immigration reform. Both parties seek the same thing on Obamacare. <\/p>\n

One party tells its voters they\u2019re gonna repeal and replace, but they never really do anything. They have fake votes, faux votes. At the end of the process, Obamacare gets fully enacted, fully funded, and they even capitulate on the budget. They had a chance here to write their own budget for this remainder of the fiscal year; they punted that. They let the Democrats write it in a lame duck. They let the losers write the budget, because they fundamentally don\u2019t disagree with the government getting bigger. They fundamentally don\u2019t disagree with the government spending more money.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know when it happened. It certainly was in my lifetime. I don\u2019t know when it happened, but the traditional private sector opponents of this kind of thing gave up and threw in and abandoned all pretense of ideological disagreement or difference. And now everybody — not everybody. But, I mean, the vast majority of what is called the establishment inside the Beltway is all on the same page. Business, for example, has found it\u2019s easier to let government wipe out your competitors than it is in direct competition. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re, say, a major big-box retailer and you are swimming in money, and the leader comes along and wants to raise the minimum wage, you, in your gut, in your mind, in your heart, you know it\u2019s wrong, you know it\u2019s bad, you know it doesn\u2019t create jobs, you know that it does not lift people up economically, but what if supporting it will put your competitor out of business \u2019cause he can\u2019t afford it? You just joined the whole process and you punt what you believe on the minimum wage. You throw in with the guys who want to raise it because your big-box competitors go by the wayside. Ditto supporting Obamacare. <\/p>\n

In the old days, there\u2019s no way private sector businesses would turn all of this over, the regulatory, the funding, everything, to government. But at some point they decided it\u2019s not worth the fight, that they were gonna lose it, and so if it will help put your competitors out of business, you throw in with the powers that be and you sign up supporting government-run health care. It\u2019s a faster way of putting your competitors out of business than actually building a better product, providing a better service. And this is what happened. It coincides with the election of Obama, frankly, and it might even predate that, with Clinton. <\/p>\n

But all it took was a genuine socialist, big government liberal winning the day and everybody threw in with him. Remember O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s law. Any organization that is not actively conservative will become liberal. And conservatism\u2019s been so demonized by the media. What conservatism? Racism, bigotry, sexism, homophobia. Why fight that? If you run major corporation C, why sign on to be a conservative and have to deal with that crap? Just throw in with the other side. It\u2019s easier. Pay off Al Sharpton to leave you alone<\/a>. That way you don\u2019t have to worry about your company being called racist or whatever. You don\u2019t have to worry about Al Sharpton protesting or arranging protests. <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what\u2019s happened, folks. Conservatives sat around and let themselves be demonized without fighting back to the point that many people think, you know, it\u2019s not worth fighting to try to reject all this; we\u2019ll just join the enemy here and be rid of the strife. We\u2019ll have a frictionless life, and so forth. It\u2019ll all come back to bite \u2019em someday. It always does. Because eventually Obama\u2019s ideas are gonna destroy everything, even the people that threw in with him. But until such time as that, we\u2019re left to fight it ourselves. <\/p>\n

Sixty-four percent, again, of Republican voters think that Boehner has been ineffective in fighting Obama\u2019s agenda. Only 44% of Republican voters think that Boehner puts the best interests of the public above special interests. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve been talking about. Forty-eight percent of Republican voters want McConnell replaced. Sixty percent want Boehner replaced. Most Republican voters — and don\u2019t forget what McConnell says. McConnell said that the main goal for the Republican Party, in a new Senate, is to not scare anybody. <\/line><\/p>\n

What do you think that means? That means throwing in with the Democrats. That means not opposing the Democrats. That\u2019s all that means. Don\u2019t want to be scary. We don\u2019t want to be seen as extremist kooks. Remember, all you have to do to be seen as an extremist kook is to oppose Obama, pure and simple, no matter how principled your opposition is, no matter how factual it is, doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s easier to think “hands up, don\u2019t shoot” happened than to try to tell people the truth that it didn\u2019t. It\u2019s no more complicated than that. It\u2019s easier to fall in with Eric Garner was killed by a chokehold rather than died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, of a heart attack. It\u2019s just easier, folks. It\u2019s just easier not to oppose these guys. It\u2019s just easier to throw in with them, and you get some goodies thrown back your way. <\/p>\n

Why people voted Republican in the last election. Eighty-one percent said they voted to stop Obamacare. Eighty-one percent. Seventy-five percent said they voted Republican to stop amnesty for illegals. Seventy-one percent say they voted Republican to stop all of Obama\u2019s agenda. It\u2019s exactly what I thought. This poll has confirmed precisely how I read the election results: Stop Obama. That\u2019s what this vote was about. The Republicans didn\u2019t run on an agenda, so it can\u2019t be said they were elected to do X, Y, and Z. Individual Republican candidates ran, particularly Senate candidates ran on opposing Obamacare, and they won big. But they Republican Party had a strategy, and that was to shut up and not say anything. And they still won. <\/p>\n

The only conclusion can be this election had a singular meaning: Stop what Obama\u2019s doing. But it\u2019s easier to throw in with Obama. His race, by the way, is a clear factor in this. Let\u2019s not kid ourselves. It\u2019s much easier to throw in with the first African-American president than to oppose him because you know what\u2019s gonna come. Even if you pay off Al Sharpton, you still might face allegations of racism and that you don\u2019t want, people walking the aisles buying the Tide, you don\u2019t want people thinking racism when they see the laundry detergent. So to avoid that you throw in with \u2019em. It\u2019s gutless, but that\u2019s where we are. <\/p>\n

Tea Party support in this poll. Fifty-seven percent of Republican voters support the Tea Party. (interruption) That was surprising to you? Now, Snerdley is claiming that number surprised him because we keep hearing how the Tea Party is a bunch of ragtag, militia type hayseeds and hicks. They\u2019re really just a minority of malcontents out there. And we do hear that. I mean, Republicans talk about it in that way. The media certainly does. The Democrats do. <\/p>\n

But the way it needs to be looked at, the Democrats will always tell you what they fear by attacking it, by trying to destroy it. I mean, if the Tea Party were really as impotent and irrelevant as the media and the Democrats would have you believe, they wouldn\u2019t even be thinking about it, much less talking about it, much less trying to destroy it. But the fact they\u2019re trying to impugn the Tea Party, destroy the Tea Party, is all the evidence you need that they fear it.<\/p>\n

Sixty-two percent of those described as strong Republicans support the Tea Party. Forty-eight percent of those described as weak Republicans support the Tea Party. And 56% of those described as, lean toward being Republicans but they\u2019re not yet, support the Tea Party. The independents, support the Tea Party. In three out of four categories you have a minimum of 56% support of the Tea Party in the Republican Party. And if you think it\u2019s just the Democrat Party trying to eliminate the Tea Party, you are mistaken. The Republican Party is right in on that effort, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Let me now, without any interruptions — well, I can\u2019t say that because this stuff fires synapses in my fertile gray cells, and we\u2019re off and running. But I\u2019ll do my best here to stay focused and finish the highlights of the Pat Caddell supervised poll, the People\u2019s Poll conducted by EMC Research. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"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":"\nWhat This Poll of GOP Voters Means - 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\/2015\/01\/05\/what_this_poll_of_gop_voters_means\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"What This Poll of GOP Voters Means - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Let me now, without any interruptions — well, I can\u2019t say that because this stuff fires synapses in my fertile gray cells, and we\u2019re off and running. 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