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RUSH: Jack in Palm Desert, California, I really appreciate your patience in holding on. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Well, thank you, Rush. I just had to call. You’re so eloquent when you describe the dangers of liberalism. You’ve even been eloquent when you select the Trent Lotts who have betrayed the Republican Party. Even our president has turned his back from listening to the people who voted him in office. I just ask one question of you. We don’t have a true conservative running for president. Giuliani is a fine man, but certainly no conservative. McCain is certainly not a conservative. Why is it, I ask, then, we never hear Jim DeMint? Is he a conservative? Or Tom Coburn, is he conservative, in the image of Ronald Reagan? Possibly not. I don’t know for sure. But certainly someone has to speak and encourage other candidates to get into the fray, and we don’t have a conservative, that I can see running. Possibly you could encourage…? I don’t know if that’s within the rules of the game. But since you run America…

RUSH: There are no rules in this game.

CALLER: (Chuckles knowingly.)

RUSH: That’s what people have to learn.

CALLER: Well, all I know is I’m scared to death because whomever a Republican nominates — and God willing, he gets elected — is he truly conservative? I have to say no.

RUSH: Well, this does point to a larger problem. You say perhaps maybe I or somebody else could encourage somebody who we think is out there not in the race that most closely resembles Reagan. For somebody to run, they have to want it themselves. That fire has to be in your belly. Running for president is so grueling, and it’s a media anal exam, and they’re out there. Fred Thompson has not even announced, and they’re out trying to destroy him, and they’re trying to destroy Giuliani now. Of course they’ve been trying to destroy Mitt Romney, just as they destroyed George Allen in the Senate race. Allen, if I may say so, Allen was somebody I was hoping had the potential that you’re talking about. But the Washington Post took him out in the Senate race against Jim Webb, and that probably is an indication that it was going to happen at some point, if not then, but this is one of these things where you have to deal with what you get, and sometimes we get paralyzed by Reagan because we have our fond memories. Reagan was as close to perfection as we can get, and if we measure everybody else by that standard, and of course most everybody’s going to come up short because there was only one Ronald Reagan. Look, I understand what you’re saying, and I have the same frustrations about it that go a little bit deeper than just that we don’t have a Republican candidate.

Within the Republican Party itself, there is an ongoing effort to minimize and diminish the power of the conservative wing of that party, because they’re embarrassed. The country club blue-blooders don’t like them. It will take a candidate who can relate to people in a conservative way to fire up the base and again dominate in a Republican Party. I don’t know who it would be. There will be somebody to come down the road eventually, but this immigration bill, some of these other things that are happening out there, if one of these guys you mentioned or somebody who you haven’t mentioned is looking at this, there is a vacuum that is being created here for just the kind of candidate you suggested. It’s just a little late now for filing dates and getting involved in these races. Newt Gingrich is out there, and he’s vacillating back and forth as to what to do. People have pluses and minus thoughts on Gingrich, too. But we will begin the quest — and, of course, I know that you will understand this, Jack, and I don’t mean this to sound wrong. The obvious candidate here is me, but I wouldn’t stand a chance. All it would take would be the first commercial: ‘Feminazi. He’s the architect, the author, the creator..’ (interruption) That’s right. I already run the country, so I don’t need to take the pay cut of running for politics. Look, I really appreciate what you said. You’re very nice, and I’m not trying to laugh at it. You make some excellent points. This is why, folks — what Jack said here, by the way, is why — you gotta stay involved in this and this will go a long way to producing the kind of candidate that you all seem to miss, that there is this void in now. A lot of people are of the same opinion. Again, look (sigh). I get frustrated having to say these kind of things, but things are what they are, and you can sit around and wish for something different, but wishing and hoping? You know, hope never did anything. Hope may help you if you fall down in a well. You may hope you get out for a couple days, but hope ain’t going to get you out. Wishing has its value, has its place, but it doesn’t accomplish anything — well, not really. Passion and… I don’t want to get too deep with this because I’m way long here and I might miss a commercial break, and that would get me in trouble.

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