RUSH: Mark in Schaumburg, Illinois, glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, this is the first time I’ve had the privilege of speaking with you. Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
CALLER: I was a Romney supporter, and I honestly felt he was the only Republican who had a chance of winning against either Hillary or Obama. Isn’t McCain sort of a moot point? And I have another question for a follow-up, if you will indulge me.
RUSH: Isn’t McCain sort of a moot point? You mean because he’s going to lose?
CALLER: I just don’t think McCain can win against either Hillary or Obama.
RUSH: Why not?
CALLER: I just think he’s a loose cannon. He is old. There’s just all kinds of problems with him.
RUSH: But conventional wisdom is that McCain can’t lose, ’cause he’s going to win by attracting Democrats and independents to join the Republican Party and thereby take votes away from Obama or Hillary.
CALLER: Well, you know, I — I just — I think that —
RUSH: The question is, if that happens…? The real question is, ‘If that happens, who wins?’
CALLER: Well, Right.
RUSH: The Democrats win in that case. This is —
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Sorry.
CALLER: The question, if they vote for him, why would they just vote for the Democrat? That’s my point.
RUSH: There’s an answer to that. You could walk around New York and you could find some of these liberals who want to vote for McCain over these other two clowns, and what it boils down to is the POW story and honor and national security. In New York, liberals do care about national security. Outside of New York and New Jersey, they don’t care about it much, but here they do. I don’t think that they necessarily trust Hillary, certainly not Obama, but they do trust McCain — and McCain is saying just enough things on the social side to satisfy ’em. So there are a lot of liberals in New York that might vote for McCain.
CALLER: Can I ask you my second question?
RUSH: Sure! By all means.
CALLER: And this is based on the premise, you know, that McCain is going to lose. I’ve heard predictions that whoever is elected in 2008 will be a one-term president, and I’ve even heard that McCain said he will only serve one term, which is why I think —
RUSH: He hasn’t said that. He hasn’t said that. If he said that… He hasn’t said that.
CALLER: Okay, great; which is why I think Romney is aiming for 2012. What do you think?
RUSH: A lot of people are going to be aiming for 2012. You know… (sigh) You’ve brought me dangerously close to an area here I don’t want to discuss, and I think I’m going to practice my restraint and discipline here not to go there, in terms of this one-term business. But let me say this about the one-term business. What’s fascinating about it to me is, Obama, I think, can afford to lose. He’s got a future. He’s young. If Hillary doesn’t make it this year, and let’s say the next Republican — let’s say McCain and his vice president — end up serving two terms. That means it’s, what, 2008, 2016? Hillary will be 68. I think she’s 60 now. This is it for her, I think. Trust me on this, folks, for reasons I’ve explained previously, that people wrote about. Trust me: This is it. That’s going to make them so desperate, too. But I think there are a lot of people looking at 2012. I don’t know that the conventional wisdom is right, that whoever wins is only going to serve one term. I don’t know where that comes from. I haven’t necessarily… You mean only last one term, might get defeated after one term. I think the odds of that happening are pretty good if the Democrats win.