RUSH: Ray in Tampa. I’m glad you called, sir. You’re next on the EIB Network.
CALLER: El Rushbo.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: Earlier in the program, you were talking about the fact that you’re not going to show your support and back any candidate at this point. When you said that, I couldn’t have agreed with you more. Right now, currently in this political environment that we’re in, I don’t hear any candidates talking about things that truly matter to Americans. They talk about things that matter to illegal aliens. They talk about things that matter not so much to our national security. When I say that, I mean the big picture. Iraq and Iran, that’s one thing. But there are other players that are doing things right now that are far more dangerous, like Russia, China and India. They all got together and had a powwow. I don’t hear any of these guys talking about what truly matters to America and protecting and preserving our American dream and our American way of life.
RUSH: Why do you think that is?
CALLER: Because I think they’re pandering. I think they’re nothing but a bunch of, as you say, linguini-spined individuals that if they stood up with a true thought — stood on two feet and said that thought and meant that thought and stood by that thought — it would cause them to not be a talking head on all the 24-hour news channels. It would cause them to not be as popular.
RUSH: Well, look, I think you have a point up to a point. I haven’t followed everything that they have been saying. Look, this is probably going to shock some of you and disappoint some of you and sadden others of you, but I just have to tell you: there is not one aspect of the presidential race right now that I care about. It’s too soon. I’m sorry. I don’t want to spend the next ? we have ten months ’til the first primary! I am not going to turn this program over to the presidential campaign of 2008, yet. I’ve always followed my instincts, and my instincts says it’s too soon to do this. There’s something not right about all of this happening now. On the other side of that, I understand what’s happening now is important from marketing standpoint. The candidates are out there making their statements. But I think to the extent that you’re right, my fear is that the campaign is being waged for the media.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: Everybody is convinced that they gotta have media approval, or at least they can’t have the media out there slicing and dicing them to shreds every day. So there’s a little, shall we say, “media offset” going on as part of the campaign. Plus, you have candidates going to Iowa and going to New Hampshire, the site of the first cauci and the first primary, and obviously if you lose both of those you’re in deep doo-doo. If you enter both and lose both, you’re in deep doo-doo. So they’re out there pandering to those particular voters, and they have pollsters in those states determining what’s important to people in those states. The rest of it’s running around raising money.
So that’s why right now, to me, it’s just a little premature. As to whether or not candidates are ever going to get around to talking about what you want and the things that you mentioned like the problems with Russia? Frankly, I don’t expect to hear that from anybody. I don’t know why I say that. I don’t expect to hear it. I think there is a tiptoe mentality. “Let’s not ruffle feathers. Let’s not get people worked up with various things.” I see it in the way Iraq is being approached by many people and the associated alliances that Syria and Iran have in this whole situation. That’s being avoided as well.
There will be a day of reckoning on all of these things at some point down the line. I don’t know how soon. Some of it may not be in our lifetimes. To give you an example of a little bit of what you?re talking about here, Ray, this is a story from the Houston Chronicle from yesterday: ?The Senate’s march to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws is starting in somewhat rocky fashion, with Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and other leading Republicans complaining they’ve been shut out of the bill-writing process. ?It’s not a good way to try to build consensus and to solve problems by withholding information,? Cornyn said Wednesday as the Senate Judiciary Committee began debate. Even the committee’s top Republican, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, complained he’d been frozen out of the talks on a bill co-sponsored by one of his GOP colleagues, Arizona Sen. John McCain.?
McCain and Ted Kennedy are negotiating the immigration bill in the Senate, and it is closeted. Cornyn and Specter are just two who are being shut out of the debate. Kennedy and McCain ?will unveil the bill as early as next week. Senate leaders hope the Judiciary Committee will approve the bill this month, paving the way for a vote by the full Senate in April. The bill reprises much of what the Senate approved in May: A path to citizenship for most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, a guest worker program for future foreign workers and heightened immigration enforcement. Though Congress is now in Democratic hands, Republican support will be essential to deliver a bill to President Bush’s desk.
“Last year’s immigration overhaul foundered amid arguments between enforcement-minded Republicans in the House and legalization-friendly Republicans in the Senate.? So to illustrate your point, here you have McCain who informally announced his candidacy last night on the Letterman show. I haven’t heard him talk much about his immigration bill in public on the campaign stump, have you? Of course Ted Kennedy’s not talking. They’re not talking about it period. It’s going on behind closed doors, and they’re even shutting out some Republicans on the committee. So that’s sort of illustrative of what Ray in Tampa was talking about.