2008 Race Still Hasn?t Taken Shape

RUSH: To New Orleans and Paul. Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Multi-mega dittos, Maha Rushie.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Thank you for everything you do every day. I’ve got a question for you.

RUSH: What’s that?

CALLER: I’m a Baby Boomer just like you are, and given that our generation and our older brothers and sisters are the people who are most likely to vote in the presidential election next year, what do you think are the top two or three things that are motivating our group of voters next year?

RUSH: Well, now, that’s an interesting question. Since you categorized it as Baby Boomers… Baby Boomers, most of them… I have real problems with my generation, and I think they’re so me-oriented. Everything was, like, handed to us on a silver platter compared to our parents and grandparents. We’ve had to invent our traumas. The trauma is no less real and the stress is no less real, but we’ve had to invent it because we really didn’t have nearly the challenges. So we had to focus on ourselves, so everything is about us. So when a campaign starts, what is it that is going to motivate likely voters in the baby boom generation?

‘What’s in it for me?’

Of course, that tends to take people down the road to Democrats, because if they say, ‘Well, what’s in it for you? Well, whatever you need! We Democrats are here, and the government is at your disposal. What do you need?’

This election is interesting in terms of what’s going to motivate likely voters. There are so many things. I can tell you that Mrs. Clinton is going to probably redefine the concept of negative turnout, meaning people turning out to vote against her. For that reason alone — and a surprising number of those people I predict to you here and now will be women. Just as was the case in France with that socialist babe that ran over there. What was her name? Ségolène Royal. She didn’t even get 50% of the female vote. Of course, the female Drive-By Media types were aghast. They couldn’t figure it out. ‘I can’t believe she didn’t get more female vote than that!’ You just wait and see. The same thing might happen here. The likely voters on the other side, people are not just voting against Mrs. Clinton. I think it remains to be seen what likely voters on the Republican side look for. I know what they want to vote for. It’s a question of whether or not they’re going to get it in sufficient doses. They want good, old-fashioned, traditional conservatism. I know I do, and I don’t want to have to take second or third best and say, ‘Well, okay, I’ll look the other way.’ I might end up having to, but that’s not what I want. You know, I’m a thoroughbred, full-fledged conservative here, and I know in national elections it wins. I get very frustrated when people on our side are afraid to proclaim it proudly and loudly and with confidence. I hear certain Republican candidates say, ‘Yeah, I’m going to win New York, and I’m going to win Pennsylvania, and I’m going to win New Jersey.’

Yeah? Maybe so. Yip yip yip yahoo. How you going to do it? What’s it going to take to win? The objective of the election is to win, and in this race, I’m going to tell you something. Alongside on the Republican side, if that thoroughbred conservative would emerge — I don’t think it’s going to happen; it’s too late now, or one already would have — the other thing that will, I think, encourage likely voters is if the candidates on the Republican side can truly make the case for what we face in terms of our liberty (individual liberty and freedom, day-to-day freedom) if any of these Democrats ends up getting elected. So it’s a combination of things. You’re going to have people motivated by what’s in it for them, and really that’s a large part of the seasoned citizen vote, because Social Security and Medicare, and that’s it. Whatever other benefits they get, that’s why they show up in the largest numbers. It’s not because they’re older and wiser and have more care and concern. Some of them do, but so many of their lives depend on somebody in the government sending them that check. So, ‘What’s in it for me?’ is a big thing, which is why the liberal push or persuasion is oriented in that way. That’s why we sit here and decry it, because they’re out there trying to create that kind of level of dependence throughout the population, not just the seasoned citizen population. Paul, are you still there? Are you still there, Paul?

CALLER: Yes, I am.

RUSH: What do you think?

CALLER: Well, I’m sick and tired of holding my nose, Rush. I’m looking for somebody who is a candidate of principle and who stands for something, and I don’t see that many candidates like that on either side this time, and I’m looking for somebody to be excited about voting for.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: So, I’m looking for somebody who has character and who stands on principle and who speaks about principles rather than specifics about, well, ‘We’re going to provide health care this way or that way,’ or things like that.

RUSH: I agree with you. Broad themes. Two or three broad themes, issue-oriented broad themes. You don’t want conflicts. Reagan ran on a trifecta. Reagan ran on three things that were very understandable: I’m going to rebuild the military; I’m going to wipe out the Soviets; and I’m going to cut taxes — and he did it all.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: It was very easy to understand. In the context of those three things, he gave a lesson in conservatism every time he spoke. He won two landslides. Now, I realize you can’t go back into the past and there’s only one Ronald Reagan. But I agree with you, it’s frustrating to have that experience, not learn from it, and nobody is seeking to try to repeat it. ‘I’m the next Reagan.’ No, you’re not the next Reagan because you have this belief he didn’t have. You’ve got that belief he didn’t have. You’ve got that belief he didn’t have. You’re not the next Reagan. I said some months ago that what worries me about this is having conservatism ‘redefined’ by people who aren’t. So I agree with you. I think large themes and principles… You know, right now, I still maintain to you — even though it’s post-Labor Day and we’re in the latter parts of September going into October — it still seems early to me. It just seems early to me. I know the first primary comes up — well, some states are threatening to do it in December, but they won’t. It will be January. I just don’t know. Maybe when I get to November and December, it won’t feel like it’s early. I still think a whole lot of candidates have not yet emerged from their shells, for whatever reason.

I think when the competition heats up, you’re going to see a lot more understanding of what they need to do to get the nomination and go on and win the general. We’ll see. I agree with you totally. Your point about, ‘I’m going to do this for health care and we’re going to do that,’ that’s what the country has become. That’s what so many of us are sitting here quaking in fear over, in a way. I mean, a lot of people are quaking in fear over the state of the country because they’re programmed to it. If you watch any Drive-By Media with any regularity, you’re going to be bombarded with doom and gloom. My trepidations about the country are probably different. I really worry about this ongoing effort that Democrats and liberals have to create as many dependent people as possible to control our lives, take away our freedom. When I see Republicans campaigning: ‘No, I got a better health care plan! I’ll give you this and I will do that.’ The way to beat ’em is not to be better liberals than they are, or more reasonable liberals. It’s not the way to win. You run against them by telling everybody what they want to do is dangerous. It’s wrong. It won’t work, and it’s going to end up hurting everybody, instead of getting into a competition with them about every issue and point by point of whatever the issue is. I agree: broad themes.

This election is just waiting for somebody to sweep in with a vacuum cleaner and take it all home, and go away as the big winner. But, look, I’m just a talk show host here. I’m not a professional campaigner or campaign strategerist or any of that. But these people are paid to figure all this out. I just think there’s too much polling going on in these races, too much polling on issues, too many polls on focus groups and this sort of thing. (interruption) ‘Democrats are more energized than we are?’ Blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, the conventional wisdom on that would be yes. The reason for the conventional wisdom on the Democrats being more energized than we are is simply because we see MoveOn.org. We see all these conventions and these wackos from the blogosphere, and they get televised. We have just as many people actively involved; we have think tank people. We just never see it talked about. The coverage of the Democrat candidates is soft. It’s laudatory. It’s respectful. The coverage of the Republican candidates is what you would expect it to be in the Drive-By Media. ‘Who are these nuts?’ and ‘Let us destroy ’em one by one and get rid of ’em!’ Here, listen to this. This is cut 10 today, Mike, and this was from last night’s New York News 1. Dominic Carter, the anchor, was interviewing Hillary Clinton’s co-chair, campaign co-chair Tom Vilsack, and he said, ‘Let’s just say Rudy Giuliani is the Republican nominee. What’s funny about that, Governor?’

VILSACK: There’s a lot that the rest of the country is going to get to know about Mayor Giuliani that — that the folks in New York City know, but — but the rest of the nation doesn’t know. I can’t even get into the number of marriages and the — the fact his children — the relationship he has with his children and what kind of, uhhh, circumstance New York was in before September the 11th and whether or not he could have even been reelected as mayor prior to September the 11th.

RUSH: Okay. See? They are worried about Rudy, and this is Vilsack! This is a co-chair! Now, when you are the co-chair of the Clinton campaign, and you start dishing like this, you have got to expect it to come out. You know, people ask me all the time, ‘Do you think, Rush, that people are going to go back and relive the nineties and question Mrs. Clinton about it? Will it be part of the campaign?’ I say, ‘It depends on what the Clintons do. There’s a risk in going back there, because people got fed up with it back then and who wants to relive those days?’ That’s another argument for not electing her, because it’s going to be the same soap opera all over again, even worse. But if this guy, Vilsack is going to bring all this stuff, the Clintons certainly have enough baggage that is far worse than whatever went on with Rudy that can be brought up. Maybe they’re trying to suck that out of people and play-fake ’em into doing that. I don’t know, but the bottom line is I don’t think the Democrats are more motivated than we are. Motivations are different. They’re motivated by hatred for Bush. He’s not on the ballot, and when they figure that out, maybe it will depress them. Some of these wacko Democrats down here in Palm Beach County are going to walk into the voting booth, and they’re going to look in there, and they’re going to say, ‘I don’t see Bush on this ballot. Bush isn’t here,’ and they’ll walk out without voting. Then they’ll call Bob Wexler’s office and say, ‘I was tricked! I was tricked again! Why, there was no Bush on the ballot.’ Once they figure that out, I don’t know what they’re going to do.