RUSH: Dick in DuBois, Pennsylvania, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, how are you?
RUSH: I’m great. Thank you.
CALLER: It is an honor to speak to you, sir.
RUSH: Well, I appreciate that.
CALLER: My comment today is I understand how people can hate you, because years ago I was one of those people, before I listened to you. And after listening to you, you made so much sense that it just baffled me how I could have so much hate. My brother always said, ‘You gotta listen to Rush. You gotta listen to Rush,’ and I said I didn’t care whether Rush lived or died. I said I really didn’t care. But when I started listening to you, it just — all my life I thought I was probably a liberal Democrat, and then when I listened to you, it’s like maybe that’s because that’s all I ever heard, all I was ever taught. My parents, I try to talk to my parents, and all they know is what they see on CNN, and it drives me crazy that they listen to CNN. It’s like you can’t believe everything that you’re seeing on there. There’s more out there than what you’re hearing, and it’s sad that people are like that, they’re so closed-minded. But you truly changed my way of life, or my thinking, and I agree with so much — almost everything what you say, let’s put it that way.
RUSH: Well, you’re more than welcome. Thanks very much. I have a question.
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: Because there are a lot of people still out there like you used to be, and they harbor hate, not just for me but President Bush, and a lot of other people. What was it that made you have this intense dislike for me when you had never listened to my program?
CALLER: I don’t know, because my parents were lifelong Democrats, so of course I thought that’s what I was, and I knew you were… You were… You know? What’s the word I’m looking for? You were a lifelong Republican, and maybe what I thought was bashing the Democrats for no reason until I listened to you, and it’s like, ‘You know, that’s true. That’s true.’
RUSH: (Laughing.)
CALLER: The more that I listened, the more I said, ‘He makes so much sense,’ you know? ‘It’s so true what this guy is saying out here,’ and I mean now, I get mad at you when you’re not on radio. It’s like, ‘Doh, he’s off today!’
RUSH: (Laughing.) Well, there’s an old entertainers’ creed, and that is you always keep the audience wanting more. Snerdley is sending me a note here and reminding me, Rick, that after the 2002 midterm elections, Tom Daschle who was then the Senate minority leader, commissioned experts, he said — a polling group — to go out, and they did a private poll of Democrats and talk radio. Daschle was so stunned by the results that he made them public. He said we found out that there are a lot of Democrats that listen to Rush Limbaugh, and some of them are changing their minds. They thought that this audience was nothing more than a choir being preached to, and it stunned them, and you’re one of those guys that they discovered exist out there. Well, thanks. I appreciate your kind words, more than you know.