Democrat Primary Is All About Bill

RUSH: All right, the Hillary Clinton campaign is now off on its ‘likability’ phase, and Howard Kurtz has a story today: ‘For Clinton, A Matter of Fair Media — Senator’s Camp Insists That the Press Holds Her To a Tougher Standard.’ Well, of course it does, Howard! She’s telling everybody she’s got far more experience than everybody else, so she ought to be held to a different standard: the experience standard. ‘After weeks of bad news, Hillary Clinton and her strategists hoped that winning the endorsement of [the Des Moines Register] last weekend might produce a modest bump in their media coverage. But on Sunday morning, they awoke to upbeat headlines about their chief Democratic rival: ‘Obama…’ Clinton’s senior advisers have grown convinced that the media deck is stacked against them, that their candidate is drawing far harsher scrutiny than Barack Obama. And at least some journalists agree. ‘She’s just held to a different standard in every respect,’ says Mark Halperin,’ and, by the way, Halperin also says in this story that if you get to the bottom of it, reporters would much rather have Obama as the nominee. It’s like we suspected a long time ago: they’re just worn out with the Clintons. There’s no news there, and frankly, they’re probably tired of sweeping things under the rug. So anyway, I don’t know how many of you people have been to Iowa. I have. But this story clearly makes it sound like the Clinton camp is whining and moaning about the media, blah, blah. And Iowans do not like whiners. They are tough people. Even the Democrat liberals up there, they are tough people, and whining about media or anything else is not becoming. Now, let’s listen to the latest iteration, Mrs. Clinton from — what was it? — ‘experience,’ and then ‘change.’ Now we’re to ‘likability.’

(Playing of Hillary Clinton, an agent for change spoof.)

RUSH: The title of the tune is Stupid Girl, and the name of the group is Garbage. Here’s another story about the Clintons in the New York Times today. It’s just the most amazing thing. There’s one line in this thing that really stuck out at me. ‘Now, another major question faces the Clinton team in Iowa. Did it wait too long to try to humanize Hillary? The presidential [cauci] are a little more than two weeks away. Mrs. Clinton’s negative poll ratings remain high, and some of her advisors wanted to accentuate her personal side earlier.’ What word in that couple of sentences that I just read just leaps out at you? Yeah, I know it’s hard when you’re listening to it; you’re not looking at it. The word to me is ‘try.’ Did the Clinton team in Iowa wait too long to ‘try’ to humanize Hillary? To try? Meaning it requires an effort, meaning that it might not work, meaning it hasn’t worked. They waited too long. There’s not enough time to humanize her. They had to start earlier if they were going to pull that off, meaning they have to do it. She can’t. That has always been the rub. You know, folks, we all, in public life — even I, El Rushbo — have a public image, and the people that do not listen to this radio program — and you know them, and you’ve talked to them — they think things of me that you who listen regularly and daily can’t possibly agree with because you know they’re not true. So my critics, of which there are some, have crafted an image of me that is not accurate in terms of who I really am, but you who listen every day know what the real me is. But people who work with me here at the EIB Network are constantly asked, ‘Is Rush like that off the air, too?’

Meaning, ‘It’s just an act on the radio, right? When he gets off the air, he’s like everybody else, right? He’s mad? He screams at you, and he’s a tyrant?’

‘No. No, no. He’s like that all the time,’ is what they say.

But with Mrs. Clinton, look at what her public image is. There’s nobody that thinks she’s optimistic. Nobody thinks she’s likable. Now, maybe people who know her intimately do. I’ve lobbied about Mrs. Clinton. Way back when I did those Hearts Afire shows with Markie Post. Harry and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason were the writers and producers and creators of the show, and I can remember Linda Bloodworth-Thomason — who grew up in Poplar Bluff just a little bit south of where I grew up — saying, ‘Oh, Hillary’s so sweet. She loves umbrella drinks.’ Yeah, it’s what she said! ‘She loves umbrella drinks,’ piña coladas out there while dancing on the beach with Bill with no music in the Virgin Islands. They’re having to work too hard at this. Let’s cut to the chase. All of this is irrelevant anyway, because the dirty little secret is, her personality has always been a problem. We already know her. They can’t fix that in a matter of weeks. So cut through all of this BS. The Democrats are having to decide whether or not to reject Bill Clinton. That’s what this is all about. The dirty little secret is that it is not about Hillary anymore. It’s about Bill.

He’s front and center. He is all over this place. He is running in the grocery stores. He’s going off message. He’s giving the security people fits. He’s drawing huge crowds. They’re going nuts in there, the Democrats are, asking for autographs, posing for picture. If she were on her own, without Bill, we’ve said this countless times. She would not be a serious candidate. She is pushing Bill out front. People go, ‘Look at Clinton. He can’t help himself. Why, he’s upstaging her!’ Nope. She’s pushing him out there, folks, because she knows that the Democrats are deciding whether to finally cut ties with him or not. That’s the way the Clintons view it, too. Now, they’re not going to say this. They will not confirm that this is correct, if anybody were to ask them about it, but that’s why he’s out front all over the place. He’s got an uncontrollable ego but he’s not out there off message in terms of upstaging his wife and possibly doing her harm. He is putting himself out there as a third-term president who’s not on the ballot. That’s what this is all about. The Clintons are viewing this as a referendum on him, as well as Hillary, and he wants back in the White House in the worst way. Upstaging her. If that’s what’s happening, it has to be with her approval, because she knows that alone, she is toast.

Their mutual goal is power. Get back to the White House to get it. She doesn’t care how, she wants the presidency. But the Clintons want the Democrat voters to see this as a vote for Bill. They do, folks. Why is he out there all over the place, and why is he out there saying things like (Clinton impression), ‘Well, I’m going to have… Hillary’s going to send me and is gonna send George Bush 41 and me around the world to repair America’s reputation.’ I mean, a bigger lie, no bigger lie’s been told, and that’s go saying something of Clinton. George Bush had to go out and say, ‘I didn’t talk about that, and I would never do it.’ But, the crowds that Clinton’s speaking to — the Democrats, the delegates at the convention, made up of their lunatic fringe base — love hearing this kind of thing, whether it’s true or not. She has already thrown aside any concern about this looking like she needs Bill to win. She’s not worried about that anymore. She’s already calculated she doesn’t care how this makes her look. She wants the power. So does he. They both believe the way to get it is to run Bill for a third term, but without saying so, especially here in these primaries.

This wasn’t so a month ago, but I think this is the major policy change that’s happened that nobody is picking up on. This was not the case a month ago, when she thought she could glide to like a coronation of a nomination, but they have clearly change strategeries now. I don’t think Bill is as popular with the American people, but he is popular with the people in the Democrat Party who run for delegate positions: the party leaders, the party elders, and the party operatives. He’s far more popular than she is. So what we’re watching here, in Iowa — and we’ll see if it continues into New Hampshire, and he’s in South Carolina, too. This is a third term of Bill Clinton without him being on the ballot, because she can’t do it by herself, and so this is a referendum on him. I think that if you Democrat voters in Iowa and New Hampshire haven’t considered this possibility, you should start now, because all that you’re seeing up there is being made to look like Bill riding to the rescue or Bill off message or Bill this, maybe sabotaging Hillary. It’s not that. It’s putting Bill out there because they know he’s far more popular with Democrat primary voters than Hillary is — and he wants it so bad back, he could taste it as well.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Just one more story on this likability business. This is by the info babe Beth Fouhy at the Associated Press. It’s an ‘analysis piece.’ This means that the reporter is admitting putting her bias in the piece, whereas in news stories, the bias is not admitted to. So when you see ‘analysis’ by an info babe reporterette or a guy, it just means they’re putting their opinion in it and admitting it, and the pull quote is this: Hillary Clinton says, ‘I know people say, ‘We’ve got to know more about her, know more about her personally.[‘] It’s not easy for me to talk about myself.’ It’s just not easy for Mrs. Clinton to talk about herself. It makes her uncomfortable — and, of course, it’s a very safe modus operandi because it’s very hard to keep track of all those lies, and so the less you talk, the less you have to remember which lie you told who, when.

Clinton is not bothered by this. She is. But the writer here, Beth Fouhy, seems stunned that Mrs. Clinton has this problem of likability. Indeed, in an AP/Yahoo News national poll released last month, just 41% of voters said Clinton was likable, compared with 54% for Obama and 49% for Edwards. The Drive-Bys are just stunned by what is very old news. This has been the case since the nineties. They just seem to be shocked by the fact here, folks, that not everyone in this country just loves and is willing to bow down and curtsy to Hillary Clinton. It’s just like they do not understand the anger and the frustration over illegal immigration. They are stunned when they go to the outskirts of Iowa and they find people in small towns just fed up about it. They can’t believe it. So talk about being out of touch? The Drive-Bys.