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Rush Limbaugh

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RUSH: I’m thinking of endorsing Obama. Well, everybody’s asking me about my endorsement. I want to give you a reason why I’m thinking of endorsing Obama. Listen to this. (playing of Barack Obama spoof)

Barack Obama, ladies and gentlemen, is a blank canvas upon which anybody can project their fantasies, or their desires. You look at Democrats in the audience, and they’re swooning. He’s saying nothing. He’s saying nothing better than anybody in my lifetime ever has. The reason he says nothing so well is because everybody thinks that he’s saying what they want. So they’re able to project onto Obama their fantasies. If they believe in allowing somebody to marry a dog, they think Obama will support it. Therefore, I would like today to announce a tentative decision, I’m stilling thinking about it, to endorse Barack Obama, since everybody is asking who am I going to endorse, and here’s why. Barack Obama is pro-life. Barack Obama is a Constitutionalist. Barack Obama believes in limited government. Barack Obama is in favor of health care savings plans. Barack Obama loves free markets and wants to protect them. Barack Obama is strong on national defense. Barack Obama is a tax cutter extraordinaire. Barack Obama makes my leg tingle when I hear him speak. Barack Obama will end the designated hitter rule. Barack Obama will establish a college football playoff once and for all so we will genuinely have a champion. Barack Obama will get to the bottom of Spygate. Barack Obama will offer free beer Fridays. Whatever you want Obama to be, folks, he’s a blank slate, he’s an empty canvas, and this is the nature of his appeal. Whatever people fantasize about, whatever they want, they are confident Obama supports it, too.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Jared in Spokane, Washington, you’re first today. Nice to have you here.

CALLER: Hey, thank you, Rush, thanks very much. As I told your screener, I am a conservative in Washington State — in eastern Washington, a more conservative part of the state — and even I am considering voting for Obama just because of the way he communicates; understanding, I know, that a lot of what he says doesn’t have a lot of substance to it. But the reason why —

RUSH: Do you realize what you just said?

CALLER: — is I think he is a — he is a great communicator like — like Reagan was, and he’s inspirational.

RUSH: Do you…?

CALLER: I remember growing up as a kid in the eighties, and the thing that Reagan did for me, is he made me feel good again, feel good about the country; and I think that’s what Obama does. I don’t necessarily agree with his politics. I don’t like what he says. I think he’s kind of a socialist. But I agree with the way he inspires people.

RUSH: Are you listening to yourself here?

CALLER: (laughs)

RUSH: You’re a conservative Republican in the state of Washington.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: You want to feel good. You expect a presidential candidate to do it. Even if he’s a socialist you’re going to vote for him. You know that his policies are way over there on the left.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: You admit that his speech doesn’t contain much substance, but it is inspiring like Reagan inspired you. And you’re thinking of voting for him even though you know he’s a socialist lib.

CALLER: Because the alternative is John McCain, who you know works with liberals more than any so-called Republican out there. And what’s the difference if I have John McCain working with liberals, and a liberal as a president? There’s not a whole lot of difference there.

RUSH: If the liberal inspires you.

CALLER: So if I can get someone who’s a good person deep down, if I get someone who’s a good person as president —

RUSH: I tell you what, we’re in trouble.

CALLER: — that for me is more important.

RUSH: All I can say is we’re in trouble. Okay. So you’ve decided here. McCain is going to work with the liberals. Obama is a liberal. So it’s a wash.

CALLER: So what’s the difference?

RUSH: So it’s a wash.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: And so you are a going to vote for the liberal who inspires you? And that’s Obama.

CALLER: It may come down to that. Yes.

RUSH: We’re in trouble.

CALLER: I agree.

RUSH: We are in trouble. There’s no… We’re in trouble. You need to really hear what you just said. Besides that, you know, Reagan… How old are you? You sound relatively youthful, how old are you?

CALLER: I am 33.

RUSH: Thirty-three. Thirty-three. Thirty-three. You were…(sigh) You were teenage years or even younger than that when Reagan was around.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: And yet he inspired you?

CALLER: He inspired me, and as I studied him in high school and in growing up further —

RUSH: Yeah. Yeah.

CALLER: — I agreed with him. I agreed with his stance on communism.

RUSH: Well, he was full of substance, though.

CALLER: I agreed with his stands on social issues.

RUSH: The thing is, he was full of substance.

CALLER: Oh, I agree.

RUSH: He was full of substance.

CALLER: But he also inspired people, and he inspired people to believe in themselves and believe in their country and believe in conservatism.

RUSH: Yeah, but Obama is not inspiring people to believe in themselves. He’s inspiring them to believe in him. He is messianic. He’s making people feel good about themselves, but they’re not personally inspired. They are personally ‘hopeful,’ and Obama is who they’re inspired of, not themselves. It’s a significant distinction.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: RUSH: All right, folks, before we get to the Obama speech sound bites, a quick question. How many of you spent some time, as I suggested, processing the last call that we just heard on this program? If you did, let me ask you a question. How do you know that it was a plant? Because it was. That call was so obviously a plant. Am I the only one? Probably so. That’s why I’m host. (interruption) No, that’s not it, Snerdley, that’s not it. Snerdley’s close. It’s not the fact that he wasn’t old enough to know anything about Reagan. When I asked him about the age thing, he said he learned a lot and was inspired by Reagan in what? High School. My friends, name for me a high school anywhere in this country that, A, teaches anything about Reagan, B, teaches anything good about Reagan. That call had to be a plant. Reagan is simply not celebrated and heralded in American high schools, especially in the state of Washington. I know Spokane is a conservative place, but the public school system is the public school system. All right, now we go to Obama and his acceptance — well, whatever it was, his speech last night in Madison, Wisconsin. We have four bites. Here’s number one.

OBAMA: I should not be here today. I was not born into money or status. I was born to a teenaged mom in Hawaii. My father left us when I was two. But my family gave me love, they gave me an education, and most of all, they gave me hope. Hope that in America, no dream is beyond our grasp if we reach for it and fight for it and work for it. Understand this. Hope is not blind optimism. Hope is not ignorance of the barriers and the challenges that stand between you and your dreams. I know how hard it will be to change America.

RUSH: I hope you do, because hope never got anything done. I don’t want to go through my hope riff. That’s number one. Here’s number two, Obama last night in Madison, Wisconsin.

OBAMA: We’ll invest in you, you invest in your country, together America will move forward, that’s what we dream of. That is our calling in this campaign. That’s our calling, to reaffirm that fundamental belief, I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper; that belief that makes us one people and one nation. It’s time to stand up and reach for what’s possible, because together people who love their country can change it.

RUSH: See, Snerdley, I mean you’re the guy that supports all this. I’ll tell you, this is so syrupy I feel like I’m going to need to take some medication to keep my blood sugar down. I think I’m going to get an insulin attack here. Here’s the third sound bite of four from Obama last night in Madison.

OBAMA: Now, when I start talking like this, I have to say some people will tell you that I’ve got my head in the clouds; that I’m still offering false hopes; that I need a reality check; that I’m a hopemonger. But, you know, it’s true, my own story tells me that in the United States of America, there’s never been anything false about hope, at least not if you’re willing to work for it; not if you’re willing to struggle for it; not if you’re willing to fight for it.

RUSH: And here is number four.

OBAMA: When we instead join arm in arm and decide we are going to remake this country block by block, precinct by precinct, county by county, county — state by state. That’s what hope is. There’s a moment in the life of every generation when that spirit has to come through if we are to make our mark on history. And this is our moment. This is our time.

RUSH: When we instead join arm in arm and decide we’re going to remake this country block by block, precinct by precinct, county by county, state by state, that’s what hope is. Nope. What he’s describing there is action. But I don’t want to get into my hope riff. Now, there’s no question that this kind of stuff, to the right audience, can lift ’em up. It is, in its own way, inspiring. It’s telling the hopeless that there is hope in hope. (laughing) Look, here’s my point about this. There was nothing substantive; there was nothing about policy here; there was nothing about what he was going to do in the future. It was all psychological, the Oprahization of a presidential campaign. But here’s the real point. If you watched that whole speech last night, you know why he’s winning and why Hillary is losing. If you agree with Barack Obama, if you are John McCain, and you agree with Barack Obama, you will lose. The thing that McCain needs to understand — this hit me last night after watching this speech — if he agrees on a lot of issues with Obama, as McCain tends to agree with liberals a lot, he loses. Because Obama’s going to have this technique and this appeal wrapped up.

You cannot take a part of this and appropriate it as your own in your campaign. This is Obama. He owns this, whatever it is. He has a patent on saying nothing, but he owns it and it’s his, and you can’t appropriate it. Senator McCain can only beat this back by embracing conservatism. You can’t out-speech Barack Obama. Just isn’t going to happen, especially when he has a TelePromTer. You’re not going to be able to out-charisma Obama. And you’re not going to be able to out-sex-appeal Obama. Ideas are going to be the only way to stop this guy, because his ideas he’s trying to hide. Like all liberals, he’s trying to get away with not having to be public about what his ideas are; they are socialist, slash, liberal. Ideas are not embracing him halfway, say, oh, we love Obama. I think Hillary said this, I’m not sure, I’ve been hearing so many things, but I think Hillary said that Obama has not had one negative ad run against him in this campaign, because they’re scared to. McCain’s media guy, Mark McKinnon, said, ‘Oh, we’re not going to do that.’ Well, if you’re not going to do that means he hasn’t been tested, you’re going to need to beat this guy with ideas.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So we just play these four audio sound bites of Obama, and you just heard them, and basically he’s about ‘hope’ and ‘the future.’ And, of course, everybody said, ‘Well, who’s possibly against the future?’ Well, I’m not necessarily against the future, but somebody’s gotta be for right now, and I am for right now. If you don’t pay attention to right now, then the future could be bad. We’re all for the future. I’m not necessarily against the future, but somebody gotta stand up for right now, and I am the man to stand up for right now. I want to grab a quick phone call because it sets up what’s coming.

RUSH: This is Jack in Boston. Great to have you here. Welcome to the program, sir.

CALLER: Yeah. Rush, I never would have thought that it would actually come through but you remember the 1979 or 1980 movie Being There with Peter Sellers?

RUSH: Oh, yeah.

CALLER: There was a character, Chauncey Gardiner. Now, the way people reacted to Chauncey Gardiner is the same way people react to Barack Obama. He didn’t say anything! He just talked about planting the seeds and it will grow to the future and good, and at the end of the movie I think he like walked on water.

RUSH: Walked on water.

CALLER: They believed anything he did.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: It was a very, very funny movie. People should see it.

RUSH: Being There. That’s an excellent, excellent suggestion, because that does nail it. Chauncey Gardiner. He’s a streetwalker.

CALLER: Yeah, he was a servant. All he saw was what —

RUSH: Servant.

CALLER: — he watched television; he didn’t know anything.

RUSH: He got fired. In fact, he was fascinated with the television remote control.

CALLER: Yeah. What happened was, he was a servant to these wealthy people who passed away, and he never was out of the house, and he comes out — and all he knows is what he’s seen on television, and he says these platitudes that don’t mean anything, and everybody thinks he’s like a genius and they follow him and he becomes the president of the United States.

RUSH: Yeah, just like —

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: — messianic.

CALLER: Yeah. The movie was hysterical.

RUSH: Other wealthy people bring him into their homes for the wisdom and the guidance that he’s offering. That’s an excellent —

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: — excellent suggestion, Jack. Go out and rent it, buy it, whatever: Being There with Peter Sellers. We’ve also decided, folks, it’s time; since it looks like Obama — Hillary got her clock cleaned. There’s just no way other than that to describe it. It’s not over. Those legs are still not protruding from underneath the house; and there’s still a couple formulas whereby she can win, but let me just go through this with you. Here’s what it’s going to take. For her to overcome Obama for the pledged delegate lead, she’s going to have win 55% of the remaining delegates. Assuming next week goes Obama’s way in Wisconsin and Hawaii, that percentage will then rise to 57% of the delegates that she’ll have to win. If you toss in a likely Obama win in Vermont, Wyoming, Mississippi, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, then the percentage of pledged delegates she will need after those primaries will top 60% of the remaining delegates available. The question, how does she do that? How does she do it? I’m telling you. Did you hear what Fast Eddie Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, said? He went out there proving once again the real racism exists on the left in this country, he went out there — and he’s a big Clinton supporter. He effectively said (paraphrased), ‘Well, when you get down to brass tacks, there aren’t a lot of white people in this country are going to vote for the black guy.’ Fast Eddie Rendell, governor of Pennsylvania. It’s actually Eddie ‘Don’t Call Me Fast Eddie’ Fast Eddie Rendell. So he’s out there.


They’re going to make a play for these delegates, unseated delegates in Michigan and Florida, super delegates. I’ve got some thoughts on Chelsea coming up, too, because she’s out there trying to horn in on those super delegates and get them to vote for her mom. And like I told you yesterday: if they have to, they will cause a riot. Where is the Democrat convention? Is it in Denver? They’re going to cause a riot, if they have to, in order to win this nomination. They’re not going to let this thing slip away. So you cannot say this is over for a long, long time. But now that Obama has a 100-delegate lead — 102, I think, according to CBS — he’s a player. He’s there, and he’s for the future. I’m for the right now. For the right now, he has a theme song on this program.

(playing Candy Man by Sammy Davis, Jr.)

RUSH: By the way, folks, the vocal portrayal here by Sammy Davis, Jr., who’s black. So don’t say anything to me.

(playing Candy Man by Sammy Davis, Jr.)

RUSH: Sammy Davis, Jr., ladies and gentlemen, here on the EIB Network. That’s our Barack Obama theme song for right now. Who knows what the future will hold? By the way, Mr. Fast Eddie Rendell, what he was really doing… When Fast Eddie goes out there and says (paraphrased), ‘I don’t think white people are going to vote for black people,’ he’s telling white people not to vote for black people. That’s the message from the governor of Pennsylvania, Fast Eddie Rendell. Of course, the Clintons don’t get called on this. This is, again, the playing of the race card. They’re trying to start an Uncivil War, or revive it. This time you’re not using the Schlick Meister, Bill Clinton. They’re using Fast Eddie Rendell — who used to, by the way, in the old Veterans Stadium throw snowballs from his seat in the upper deck on the visiting players, particularly the Dallas Cowboys.

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