RUSH: James in Brooklyn, Iowa, you’re nice to call. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’ll get right to my point here. I happen to think that you are on to something good by encouraging crossover voting as you did in Texas, but you need to also encourage the same thing preemptively for the all the other states that haven’t had primaries and caucuses and that would include Florida and Michigan, because in Florida, can you get people to register as Democrats in Florida, but if they do a revote, whatever they do, and they may do it mail-in, then they’ll have registered voters and if you have people registered today as Democrats, then they won’t dare disenfranchise those voters even if they are crossover Republican voters.
RUSH: Exactly right. Now, you’re talking specifically about the redo in Florida?
CALLER: Well, I’m thinking there’s a possibility you could get every primary and caucus that hasn’t voted every state so far.
RUSH: Uh —
CALLER: Republican nominee is no longer in doubt.
RUSH: You mean encouraging crossovers in every primary state that hasn’t happened yet?
CALLER: Exactly. The Republican nominee is no longer in doubt, so why not have Republicans decide who the Democrat nominee is going to be?
RUSH: Well, because you may not have heard, I’m being accused of cheating; I’m being accused of being un-American, sabotage, all these other things. But, you know, I would say this, to those of you on this integrity gig, whether or not a player in a contest or a game has integrity, do you know what it is that determines the integrity of the participants in any contest? What is it? What is it that determines the integrity of the participants in any contest? It’s the rules, right? The focus first is on the rules. Then, if a rule is violated, the player becomes the focus and might be accused of failing or lacking in integrity. But I didn’t advocate breaking any rule. Therefore, my integrity, as always is firmly intact. I didn’t advocate anybody break a rule. These are all states with open primaries. No rules have been broken here, you people. Let me tell you something. You want to talk about rules, have you forgotten New Hampshire and Iowa caucuses, too? In New Hampshire, folks, in case you haven’t forgotten, do you have any wonder why Hillary won that state? Go back and look at all the people, read all the stories about the out-of-state buses from Massachusetts that rolled in there on Election Day. Do you know in New Hampshire, you can drive into the state on the day of the primary, register and vote, even if you don’t live there. All you have to do is tell ’em you intend to move there someday, and you can vote. Don’t talk to me about rules. Don’t talk to me about lack of integrity. I have not suggested at one moment that people violate the rules of any of these contests.
Phyllis in Palatka, Florida. Nice to have you with us on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Rush, my dear friend, you are right about this being a war, but you are wrong in your strategy.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: And if you’ll just give me a moment to explain.
RUSH: By all means.
CALLER: General Patton, he was a great military genius. He said you always take out your enemy when you have the opportunity. You never give them a chance to recover, and you never leave them standing. Russia is a perfect example. If we would have taken Russia out when Russia was weak, just like when Hillary was weak, if we would have taken her out, we would not have to deal with her later on. I’m afraid that’s what might happen. It’s a dangerous game we’re playing, you know, politics is dangerous. We are playing a game where winner takes all. Hillary is an old adversary. I want her out. I want her gone. I’ll deal with Obama. But let’s get rid of Hillary first, politically speaking of course.
RUSH: All right. Right.
CALLER: And then at that point we will deal with Obama.
RUSH: Right. Let me explain some things. Our actions to whatever extent they occurred, the crossover voting for Hillary in both Ohio and Texas on Tuesday of last week did not alter her standing in the race, did not improve her standing in the race at all in terms of delegates. In fact, Obama ended up a net delegate winner because of the Texas cauci the night of the Texas primary.
CALLER: Yes, I know that.
RUSH: Well, see, but yet Mrs. Clinton stayed in, didn’t she? What you have to understand is that Mrs. Clinton could not be defeated on last Tuesday if Obama had won even a large margin of victory in either state. He could not have because she was going to hang around anyway. The Clintons are obsessed with one thing, Phyllis, and that’s power. There was no way Mrs. Clinton was going to be aced out of this race or as, Patton said, destroyed last Tuesday. It wasn’t going to happen. I know it, she knew it, Obama knows it, everybody knew it. What instead needed to happen was a momentum shift for the express purposes of the media and for the Clinton campaign to be able to say there’s a reason to stay in it, for the exact thing that’s happening now: This party is in a state of chaos, and these two candidates are beating the shreds out of each other, whereas our party is not going to do it. There is no way, as we sit here today, Phyllis, no way, the numbers have been run, the math has been calculated, if Hillary Clinton wins by landslide portions of 15% to 20% in every remaining primary state, she doesn’t catch him in delegates.
CALLER: Yes. I do understand all of that. I understand the math. I’ve heard the math over and over again. But there are so many things that could happen between now and then that’s frightening. I mean you just cannot know every —
RUSH: I understand that.
CALLER: — variable out there.
RUSH: But you seem to think that if Hillary had lost big in Texas and Ohio, that she would have been finished.
CALLER: You were right about the momentum. Once the momentum swings to somebody, you have all these hanger-ons and they run to that side, then they’ll run to the other side.
RUSH: She lost more momentum on Saturday in Wyoming; he gets seven more delegates. She’s going to lose momentum tomorrow night in Mississippi. The point is she’s not going anywhere regardless what these elections show. That’s not going to happen. She and her husband are obsessed with power.
CALLER: I know that.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I understand that completely —
RUSH: Nothing that I did, to whatever extent it mattered, nothing that all these crossover voters did contributed to Hillary Clinton being more viable in this race than she was before last Tuesday.
CALLER: May I address Terry’s remarks, please, the remarks he made about who we are?
RUSH: Oh, the guy from Sandy, Utah.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: I understand where he’s coming from, because you have told us so many times, Rush, we don’t want to be like them, we want them to be like us. We’re mad at McCain because he runs across the aisle and tries to join them. I don’t want to do that. I want our principles and our beliefs and our way of thinking. I want them to look at us and say, ‘That’s who I want to be like. That’s who I want to be like.’ I don’t want us to be like them. I don’t want us to be more like them. I want them to be more like us.
RUSH: I totally agree, but that’s not happening. Our candidate is not reaching across the aisle to bring them in as us. Our candidate is reaching across the aisle to bring them in as them. You must understand, I’m not the problem here. I am not the one who is helping to corrupt the Republican Party by bringing Democrats and independents into it as Democrats and liberals. I am trying to beat them. This is about winning. It is about winning. I don’t think the moderates on our side have the slightest idea how to win this election. They haven’t a clue. I would love it if we could convert these people to join us, but there’s a way you do that. Ronald Reagan did it. I hate to keep using the name because people get confused and think I’m in a cult of personality here. Reagan Democrats, you remember them, they came in as conservatives to give Reagan a huge landslide victory twice. There’s a way to do it. You do it with ideas. You don’t run from conservatism, you don’t act embarrassed by it, you don’t act embarrassed of conservatives. You shout it, proudly. It works! It need not be a minority. But if we’re not going to do that, if our party has made the decision that it’s going to try to expand by bringing Democrats and liberals in as Democrats and liberals, then, okay, the gauntlet has been thrown down. If they can choose our nominee, we can choose theirs. We can participate in it. Oh, man. I never thought this would be so hard.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to the audio sound bites here on the one and only Rush Limbaugh program and the EIB Network. This is a montage of the way the Drive-Bys are characterizing as ‘un-American’ the Limbaugh Effect. Notice you will not hear the word ‘maverick’ here. They ought to be calling me a maverick! Our guy, Senator McCain, crosses the aisle all the time, and makes deals with Democrats — in what Thomas Sowell has referred to as a betrayal of the Republican Party on the times he’s done it — and yet McCain is loved and appreciated by the Drive-Bys as a maverick. Notice that term is not applied to me in this montage of media types.
ABRAMS: I believe it’s actually un-American. It’s shameful.
ABRAMS: Rush Limbaugh and others on the far right now trying to pervert, to create mischief.
DOOCY: Vote for Hillary to cause mischief.
GINGRICH: I don’t think people should play God in the other person’s primaries.
O’REILLY: The Rush Limbaugh Factor: Throw the whole thing into chaos, which is sabotage.
ZALESKY: …dirty business that Rush Limbaugh pulled.
ZOGBY: Whatever rules of gentlemanliness have existed, those rules may be broken.
MACCALLUM: …Limbaugh’s antics…
AVLON: A perversion of the process.
ROBACH: It worked, according to Rush Limbaugh! His plan worked.
RUSH: Oh, it sure as hell did. That was Amy Robach, from DNCTV. Have you heard, folks? Do you want to hear evidence of how this is working? Does the name Bill Bradley ring a bell? Former senator Bill Bradley (Democrat-New Jersey), former Democrat presidential candidate, he’s now jumped into this whole mix, and Bill Bradley is demanding that the Clintons release financial documents, including the donors to the Clinton Presidential Library and Massage Parlor. Bill Bradley wants to know if there are favors attached for contributions to the massage parlor, and what do we mean by favors? This is Bradley talking. ‘Well, pardons that are granted. Investigations that are squelched. Contracts that are awarded. Regulations that are delayed.’ Bradley also accused the Clintons of lying to win the nomination. ‘The bigger the lie, the better chance they think we’ve got.’ Folks? Amy Robach? It is working. Ever since Ohio and Texas… Look at this now, folks. Look at me. Ever since Tuesday, when Hillary’s electoral chances by virtue of pledged delegates got worse… Please understand this: Despite our crossovers, to the extent they happened, her electoral chances with pledged delegates got worse on Tuesday.
Despite that, all of this chaos has sprung up, all of these attacks back and forth. Now Obama is in Miss’sippi, saying, ‘How come it was a week ago I’m not qualified to answer the phone at three in the morning, and now all of a sudden I’m qualified to be on the bottom of the ticket?’ Folks, this is dream come true! I will guarantee you that had there not been the Republican crossovers, there wouldn’t be as much chaos. There wouldn’t be. We’ve caused it. We’ve created it — and, of course, the Democrats don’t like it, but you know they’re back there salivating, and they’re licking their lips. They’re licking their chops; they’re rubbing their hands together with glee at how they have been able to select our nominee — and they love the fact that Senator McCain is having trouble unifying the party. They love the fact that Senator McCain’s going to have to reach out to Democrats, he thinks, to win the election, to win the presidency. Politics is a business that it is what it is, and I didn’t advocate anybody break any rules, so there cannot be any loss of integrity.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We go back to the phones in Mobile, Alabama. This is Elvin. Thank you for waiting, sir, and welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: It’s an honor. Spitzer story is a tough act to follow, but I have a question for you, Rush.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Who is the only candidate in this election that you have told your listeners to go out and vote for?
RUSH: Uh, that would be Mrs. Clinton. Well, no, I actually — before the Florida primary — I did suggest people vote for Mitt Romney.
CALLER: Oh, I didn’t hear that.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: But all I know, Rush, is that we were right on the verge of being done with the Clintons once and for all — and to think that you might have had anything to do with keeping her candidacy alive, almost drove me insane.
RUSH: Well, except that that wasn’t the case, Elvin. Mrs. Clinton was not going to go away regardless what happened last Tuesday in Ohio or Texas. In fact, she lost delegates as a result of the votes on Tuesday of last week in Ohio and Texas. Yes, she’s still in the race, and she’s going to take it all the way to the convention. The point is that there was no way, even if Obama had swept both states in landslide proportions, she was going away.
CALLER: That may be true, Rush, but that wasn’t the narrative in the news — and even her husband, Bill Clinton, said she had to win Texas and Ohio, and I believe that would have been the knockout punch.
RUSH: Look, I’ve been explaining this all day, Elvin, and I want to move on because the audience demands fresh stuff, and I’ve been explaining this all day. What I said earlier will be on the EIB Network website, the RushLimbaugh.com website. I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a couple sound bites here that I have not played. Listen to these, Elvin, coming up on the radio. I was on Martha MacCallum’s Fox show last Wednesday at ten after five, and the only reason they had time to do it is I was waiting for my guests to arrive from out of town for the member-guest golf tournament last weekend. So I had some time waiting for them to arrive, so I agreed to appear. We have two sound bites from that appearance. McCallum said to me first, ‘[Y]ou basically said that Democrats and the Drive-By Media have nominated the Republican side of this ticket, so why isn’t it okay to go after arranging the desired candidate on the other side. What did you think today when you saw John McCain standing next to the president and the president giving him his wholehearted support?’
RUSH ARCHIVE: Well, of course! I mean, the Republican Party is the Republican Party, and the establishment is going to hang together; but I would call your attention to Senator McCain’s acceptance speech last night where he specifically thanked independents and Democrats for joining his campaign and helping him succeed in getting the nomination. It’s clear that in early states, in the primary season, where most of the states did not feature a majority of conservative Republicans, that it was independents and Democrats crossing over to nominate Senator McCain and make him the Republican nominee. And I maintain to you, Martha, that the Democrats are not doing that in order to elect McCain president; they’re trying to choose somebody they think it would be easier to beat. So we’re simply employing the same philosophy. McCain has made a habit here and a career out of walking across the aisle. Not just reaching across, but walking across the aisle and letting Democrats write legislation with him that is not really totally conservative. So I don’t think there’s any question about that.
RUSH: McCallum then said, ‘Well, you look at this situation and you implored conservatives and Republicans to cross over and to vote for Hillary Clinton because the GOP nomination was pretty much tied up at that point, or it looked like it was going to be. What would you ask them to do as the next stage in this game?’
RUSH ARCHIVE: Well, the conservatives are just going to have to sit around and wait and see what Senator McCain does. If Senator McCain attempts… You know, Martha, here’s what’s frustrating about this — and you and I have talked about this — there’s a Republican-conservative model for landslide victory: Ronald Reagan 1980, Ronald Reagan ’84. By the way, this is not cult of personality; this is about winning. Ronald Reagan won two landslides in ’80 and ’84. He had no Republicans in the House, but he was able to move his agenda forward. He was able to do it with a conservative agenda that reached out across the American public and brought people of all walks of life into the conservative movement because it’s basically a principled way of living and a principled way of managing affairs. The Republicans won the House in 1994 on a conservative agenda.
MACCALLUM: Right.
RUSH ARCHIVE: And, for some peculiar reason, Republicans today, the Republican establishment wants to eschew all that and think they have to build their party by attracting Democrats and independents, which is fine if you bring them in as conservative converts; but if you’re going to bring them in as Democrats and independents and expand the Republican Party that way, then you’re polluting and corrupting the party itself.
RUSH: She also described what I was doing as ‘Limbaugh’s antics.’ There is a decided strategery here. We’re trying to create chaos in the Democrat Party. Would you like to hear an example, a small example of how it’s working? Last Wednesday night on Capitol Hill, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, before a meeting of the Florida and Michigan delegations, said this about a possible revote of the Florida and Michigan primaries.
SCHULTZ: Unfortunately, Howard Dean made the wrong decision initially,and that’s part of why we had to have this meeting, so that we can make sure in November we’re in the strongest possible position as a party to elect the next president of the United States. We need to undo the damage that was done at the beginning of this process by the Democratic National Committee.
RUSH: Ms. Wasserman Schultz, a question: Who was it…? You want to blame this on Howard Dean, but who was it that did the damage at the beginning of this process? It was the Clintons! The whole point of the early primaries and Super Tuesday was to get her coronated by February 5th. You can trace this right back to the Clintons.