RUSH: What is this about Mrs. Clinton pulling out of the race? Have you seen the Drudge — (laughter) The only way she’s leaving this race is in a straitjacket. Ladies and gentlemen, I know that you and countless millions of others are counting on me to convince and urge Mrs. Clinton to stay in the race. I fully intend to do everything possible. Mrs. Clinton, you didn’t get into this to quit after one caucus in Iowa. Now, true, she’s lost her national lead in the Rasmussen national poll; she’s down in three polls by double digits going into the New Hampshire primary tomorrow night. I have also heard, under the table here, that several Hillary staffers are quietly sending résumés out to join other campaigns. They’re doing it in sort of a tricky way, if my information is correct. They’re not actually sending the résumés directly, they’re sending them to like an employment agency or a clearinghouse in Washington under disguised subject lines either on the faxes or the e-mails. It does look like it’s bad shape for Mrs. Clinton.
By the way, do you realize, ladies and gentlemen, Bill Clinton has had quite a life. When he was 16, he met JFK in the Rose Garden as part of Boys Nation, and now at age 61 he has met Obama. It’s not everybody who meets two such truly great historic figures in his life, and Bill Clinton has met them both, JFK and Barack Obama. Well, the Drive-Bys, a lot of people are out there portraying Obama as the new JFK out there, and Bill Clinton has met them both. There are emergency meetings in the Clinton campaign because of these double-digit poll numbers, and it does appear that she is in big trouble. Clinton himself said, (paraphrasing) ‘Hey, look, I can’t make my wife any younger, I can’t make my wife any taller, and I can’t make my wife a man.’ He really said that in New Hampshire. Clinton is showing up and speaking to smaller crowds, they’re walking out, they appear sleepy, same thing is happening to Mrs. Clinton out there. There’s just no excitement in the campaign.
I want to tell you something. I’m going to spend some time on this, particularly on the Republican side. No candidate in either party is going to be out of the race because of what happens in New Hampshire tomorrow night. There is so much Beltway conventional wisdom out there that’s ridiculous, and we’re going to start poring through it here very quickly. But if indeed Mrs. Clinton is in trouble — well, there’s no question, she’s in trouble. But if indeed what’s happened to her is fatal, I want to remind you where it all started. It happened on this program the day of the MSNBC Democrat debate at Drexel University in Philadelphia. That was the day that I asked people after reading a story in New York Newsday, ‘This driver’s licenses for illegal aliens in New York, why, that’s a nuclear issue for Mrs. Clinton,’ and I chided the reporter, ‘Why don’t you ask her about it, then? If it’s a nuclear issue, why don’t you ask her about it?’ She had been on record telling a newspaper in New Hampshire she was all for Governor Spitzer’s plan. That night Tim Russert asked her the question. She botched it badly, two or three flip-flops in the debate, clearly wasn’t ready for it, and it was at that point that the tailspin began and that her husband was brought in and furthered the tailspin just as I have predicted would happen.
So now the word is that she’s got staffers ready to fly the coop because they want to have jobs for the rest of the campaign. By the way, that’s really under the table stuff, and it’s unconfirmed, but it’s just part and parcel of some of the things that are happening internally. Also Mrs. Clinton has decided that she’s going to start defining the terms of her own campaign. She’s going to get rid of all these consultants and all these outside advisors and she’s just going to take it over herself. Now, anybody who believes that that hasn’t been the case all along is eating something strange. The idea that Mrs. Clinton is a puppet and is listening to a bunch of campaign strategerists is absurd. That is not her personality whatsoever. She’s been running this show from day one. That’s one of the problems, and Mrs. Clinton has been right in there. That’s one of the problems. It’s not 1992, and it’s not 1996 any longer.
I’ve been trying to tell people this. There is not this massive group population of Americans salivating with bated breath (panting), panting away, hoping for the Clintons to get back in the White House. They have thought there was, or is, but there isn’t, and the Obama rise sort of indicates. The fact that she’s losing to somebody with no experience — look at his record in the Senate, you won’t find a Senate bill with his name on it, you won’t find a Senate bill with the Breck Girl’s name other than a couple of post offices being named for people in North Carolina. First-term senators don’t get much done, certainly not under their own names, and she’s losing to somebody with veritably no experience whatsoever. A couple other things before we get into the specifics and the nuts and bolts of this.
I watched a lot of the television over the weekend with the debates and the forums and the Drive-By Media coverage. I have to tell you something, I’m getting sick and tired of this whole notion of change. Change what? Even some of the Republican candidates are now picking up on this mantra, that we must have change. The dirty little secret is that most of the American people don’t want dramatic change, even these people in focus groups who say they do. Status quo always seems to ring true. Change, you know, as though some kind of change, any kind of change is miraculous; any kind of change is going to be wonderful and good. You can do a lot of things to cause change that are very, very bad. The kind of change that Obama or Clinton or the Breck Girl would bring about is horrible change, the kind of change that Mike Huckabee would bring about, not good change, the things that McCain would bring about, not good change. By the way, I also don’t buy the conventional wisdom that McCain’s going to clean up tonight.
I don’t buy this at all. I think McCain is vulnerable. I think he had two really rotten debate performances over the weekend to the extent that people in New Hampshire saw them, and to the extent that debates change anybody’s minds. In fact, I was watching some of the Drive-Bys after one of the debates last night. I guess it was Chris Wallace who moderated the forum last night at eight o’clock on Fox. He was talking to Brit Hume, and it’s like a postmortem of this thing, and he said, ‘Well, to the extent that debates change people…’ Why, if the networks don’t even think that debates change people’s minds, then why do the debates? Why even do them, and why analyze them, and why do all this nitpicking of who was good and who was bad, who had a rotten attitude. If debates don’t change anybody’s minds, why have them, period? That’s another bogus assertion. They have a potential to kill a candidate, well, then they can change the outcome. But they’re saying debates don’t change people’s minds. Debates most certainly can change people’s minds, and we’ll find out in the voting tomorrow night just how much. But look, folks, whatever you say, whatever you think, nobody is out of this race after what happens in New Hampshire tomorrow.
You’ve got two very liberal states — particularly on the conservative side — you got two liberal states, Iowa and New Hampshire. New Hampshire’s far more liberal than it used to be because people have been leaving Massachusetts to get away from high taxes and move there and they’re either Democrats or Independents or what have you. Why do you think McCain is staking his last claim to this race in New Hampshire of all places? Because it’s filled with the kind of people that he thinks will vote for him, Independents, big government, open borders types.