RUSH: From the headquarters of Operation Chaos, I am your commander, El Rushbo, sitting firmly in the prestigious Attila the Hun chair here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, behind this Golden EIB Microphone, broadcast excellence for the next hours and as always a hearty welcome to those of you watching at RushLimbaugh.com on the Dittocam. A thrill and a delight to have you all with us. Operation Chaos continues unabated, continues to exceed all of our objectives. Here are the latest numbers from the Rasmussen poll. Did I do the phone number? No. 800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program, the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
The latest Rasmussen poll data, McCain leads by double digits. Now, these are early polls. It doesn’t mean anything, because if polls, six, seven months before an election meant anything, Rudy Giuliani would be our nominee. But it’s an interesting snapshot. McCain is now 51 to 41 over Hillary, and 49 to 42 over Barack Obama. Operation Chaos showing results. Also, the New Republic on their blog today has a little post entitled: ”Limbaugh for Hillary’ — Yes, Hillary Clinton won the Texas Democratic primary by 100,000 votes. What with the caucuses and the complicated rules of the process, Barack Obama actually won more delegates. Still, Hillary has been crowing all over the country about her win — although the early polls had her topping Obama by … well, it was supposed to be another Ohio. Well, it turns out that roughly 119,000 Republicans voted in the Texas primary, which is an ‘open’ primary, for Hillary herself. Thus, her margin was almost all from voters who cast their ballots for her on instructions from Rush Limbaugh who believes — soundly, I think — that she is, by far, the weakest nominee the Democrats can choose. … Yuk,’ is how he ends this. They’re all frustrated out there in the Drive-By Media.
Now in Pennsylvania, a fascinating story here from the Associated Press out of Wayne, Pennsylvania. ‘Pennsylvanians are rushing in record numbers to sign up as Democrats so they can vote in the April 22 presidential primary between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.’ (laughing) Listen to this story. ‘Many are lured by the historic drama of two US senators vying to be the first black or female president. But the two campaigns also are busily recruiting independents, disgruntled Republicans and those who weren’t previously registered at all.’ Now, we got a phone call from somebody in Pennsylvania that Obama is running radio ads urging Republicans to register to vote for him, because he’s trying to counter Operation Chaos. ‘Obama’s effort has generated the most fanfare as his campaign has laid down a steady drumbeat of radio ads and e-mails leading up to the deadline for switching or joining parties. … ‘The volume is very large, very steady,’ said Jim Forsythe, director of voter services in Chester County, a Philadelphia suburb where Democratic enrollment grew by nearly 7 percent — the second-largest gain among the 67 counties. … Neither the Obama nor Clinton campaigns will offer a public estimate of how much they contributed to the increased registration, and certainly other factors are at work.’ This story does not mention Operation Chaos. This story does not mention your host.
The Drive-Bys are fit to be tied over this. The reason why neither the Obama nor Clinton campaigns will offer a public estimate of how much they contributed to the increased registration is because they didn’t contribute to it, and so they have no way of knowing what it’s going to be. Obama might try to lay claim. In Ohio, I think we’ve discussed this in a casual way, but this is from the Cleveland Plain Dealer: ‘The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has launched an investigation that could lead to criminal charges against voters who maliciously switched parties for the March 4 presidential primary. Elections workers will look for evidence that voters lied when they signed affidavits pledging allegiance to their new party. And at least one board member, Sandy McNair, a Democrat, wants the county prosecutor to review the findings. But it remained unclear Wednesday whether the four-member board will agree to pursue prosecution. A 2-2 vote would mean that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, would have to break the tie. The investigation comes 10 days after The Plain Dealer reported that more than 16,000 Cuyahoga County Republicans changed parties before voting March 4.’ (laughing) Now, again this story does not mention Operation Chaos by name or your host.
You Democrats, you know, this is starting to get laughable. You guys in 2000 and 2004 did everything you could to muck up our primaries, and even this year. All you independents and moderates in New Hampshire and in Iowa and in all the early states where the majority of Republicans are not conservative Republicans, crossing over to vote for McCain, to choose our nominee. Let’s not forget, many of you Democrats are doing everything you can to get as many illegal immigrants registered. Don’t talk voter fraud to us. This is aboveboard; it’s in plain sight; it’s happening in the sunshine; there is no mistaking what is happening here, and Republicans are doing this happily. I’ve had reports that people are more excited about this than they’ve been about any vote in their lives. I had somebody in Pennsylvania call, went and registered Democrat, just felt more excited — it’s actually not long-term good news, but they’re at least energized by something. Anyway, the Drive-Bys continue, I think, to slightly misunderstand and misrepresent this. Yesterday, Fox News Channel and the Live Desk with Martha MacCallum, she had this exchange with the Republican strategerist Angela McGlowan.
MACCALLUM: In terms of Rush Limbaugh and other radio talk show hosts who have, you know, told people that they should vote for Hillary because the GOP has a better run against Hillary, has that equation changed now?
MCGLOWAN: I think that Obama has a lot more troubles right now than Hillary Clinton.
RUSH: I think the message is not entirely clear to the Drive-Bys here on the purpose of Operation Chaos. The purpose of Operation Chaos has been achieved. It is out there. The first purpose of Operation Chaos — and, by the way, the premise of Operation Chaos is that the Republican Party and McCain are wimps when it comes to attacking these people while we are in the midst of being attacked by them, and somebody has to carry the banner of actually running a campaign against the Democrats. One of the best ways to do it is to cause a bunch of political bloodletting during their primaries and to have this go on and on and on and have them spend their resources up through the convention on bloodying up each other. In terms of the outcome, it really doesn’t matter whether it’s Obama or Hillary. It’s just that Operation Chaos began at a time when Hillary was almost aced out, and we needed Hillary to stay in; we needed to give her a reason to stay in, and so we have done so. She can’t catch up in the pledged delegates. Although, there is something fascinating happening out there in North Carolina, ladies and gentlemen.
Obama had this huge lead in North Carolina. It’s gone. When’s the North Carolina primary, early May? The 6th? Regardless, it’s sometime after Pennsylvania, not far after Pennsylvania, and Obama was in a commanding lead there, and it’s now neck and neck. But even so, I mean she’d have to win all these remaining primaries 70% to 30% to even get close, and she’s not going to do that, so it’s going to come down to superdelegates. They’re still arguing today over Florida and Michigan. This is hilarious. It turns out that some private citizens have offered to pony up to 12 million to redo the Michigan primary. And guess who they are? They’re friends of Hillary. Jon Corzine is one, the governor of New Jersey, Fast Eddie Rendell I think is part of this. There’s some other people. Yeah, Roger Altman, who was I think the original deputy Treasury Secretary for Slick Willie and so forth. But the whole purpose of Operation Chaos was to keep the Democrats fighting each other and to have them bring out the negative aspects of each other in the form of a campaign because McCain has signaled, (doing McCain impression) ‘It’s going to be honorable, Limbaugh, I’m not going to sink to their level. You see? I don’t have to. I am, John McCain, see?’ I mean, Obama took a took a shot at him yesterday on Iraq, and McCain said, (doing McCain impression) ‘This is childish. Not necessary. It’s like he said he’s going to call the president of Canada, he-he, he-he, he-he, Canada doesn’t have a president, Obama. He’s a prime minister. I didn’t say that. Can we just move on?’
So we’re here, ladies and gentlemen, to have some fun, to create a little turmoil and chaos and bloodletting on the Democrat side, because we want this to go on as long as possible on the Democrat side. By all rights, this should be over, Hillary should be fini. I know, I know, folks, there are many of you who wish to see that house come tumbling out of the sky and the wicked witch’s legs curling up underneath the house. I know you want to relive the wicked witch of wherever going, ‘I’m melting!’ Be patient. Look at what’s happening here. Mrs. Clinton’s had to finally release all those thousands and thousands of pages of what went on in the White House. We find out after the health care thing was over, she was over. She hardly did anything afterwards, except she was very pro-NAFTA while on the campaign trail. Now she’s acting like she was always against it. It’s working marvelously. Let me give you another illustration of how this is working. Yesterday in Washington at the Campaign for America’s Future Take Back America Conference — this is a bunch of libs, and they got together for something called the Conservative Movement’s Impact. And Arianna Huffington, and you might — do we have a Greek translator standing by? Arianna Huffington said this. Listen carefully — May 8th or is it 6th up there? North Carolina. I was right. Even when I think I’m wrong, I’m right. Scary. Here’s Arianna Huffington.
HUFFINGTON: It’s time to actually have zero tolerance for certain ways of arguing. First of all, we can not allow John McCain to ever say again that Al-Qaeda is going to increase the levels of violence because it doesn’t want John McCain to be president. That should be outside the realm of political debate in this country. We need to say, it is completely un-American to politicize real threats to this country for the sake of getting elected. There is nothing we can do about Rush Limbaugh and all the rest of them. They are toxic curiosities. But there has to be a different standard to what happens in the United States Congress, and it is up to us to demand censure and to demand an absolute zero tolerance for statements like that starting with John McCain’s statement.
RUSH: All right, now, what does all this mean? First place, censure is the wrong word for what Ms. Huffington here is describing. She’s talking about censorship. We’ve been talking about this a lot yesterday, focused on it, the left wants to shut down what they don’t want to hear. They don’t want to debate people and they want to couch it, ‘Well, this is a national threat.’ A national threat that most of you Democrats don’t take seriously anyway, a national threat that most of you people are willing on the Democrat side to concede defeat to. Even now the Democrats in the House and the argument in the Democrat presidential race is who’s going to get us out of Iraq faster even if it means losing. So what Arianna is saying here, we can’t let McCain say that Al-Qaeda is going to increase levels of violence, because it doesn’t want McCain to be president. We can’t allow the Republicans to have the edge on national security in military matters, and the reason we can’t is because it’s true. They do have the edge, so we’ve gotta shut ’em up. And then she goes on to say, now, we might be able to shut McCain up, and we might be able to shut up members of Congress, but we can’t shut up Rush Limbaugh. He’s a toxic curiosity. We can’t shut him up. Operation Chaos, an unbridled success. They can’t do anything about us, folks.
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RUSH: A special aside to Arianna Huffington, here. By the way, every time I hear her, I actually don’t think of Greeks. I think of Green Acres, the TV show. Maybe we ought to go to the first seven or eight seconds of the Green Acres theme every time we have an Arianna sound bite. Anyway, Arianna, here’s a little special aside to you about the reality of Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda doesn’t want any violence until after the election. They’re hoping to push the whole concept of terror on the back burner so that Americans will think there’s no terror threat, and thus be more inclined to elect a liberal Democrat. Make no mistake about it, Arianna. Our enemies would love to see either of these two Democrats, Hillary or Obama, elected, based on what they’re saying. When Al-Qaeda talks, when Zawahiri talks, or Bin Laden or whoever’s acting as Bin Laden when they put out these tapes, what do we hear but a rehash of Democrat talking points?
Here’s Rick in Fort Myers Florida. Normally, I don’t take calls this early in the first hour but this is relevant. Rick, I’m glad you called. It’s nice to have you here, sir.
CALLER: Rush?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I want me an Operation Chaos shirt and baseball cap. Can you get me one?
RUSH: (laughter) Rick, are you clairvoyant?
CALLER: I am, sir.
RUSH: Are you calling from our fulfillment company, Rick?
CALLER: Uh, well, I can’t answer that.
RUSH: Yeah. (laughter) Folks, I assure you this was not a setup. You didn’t set this up, did you Snerdley? We don’t do that on this program. I just approved a design today. In fact, mere moments ago during the first commercial break of this program I just approved the final design for an Operation Chaos T-shirt, front and back; Operation Chaos cap; Operation Chaos bumper sticker, two bumper sticker pack. I’ll have pricing information tomorrow. Now, let me be honest with you about when I came up with this idea. I admit the idea came to me late, and I’ll tell you why it came to me late, folks, and you know this. I do not perceive myself as a huckster for my own stuff. It was a request from a listener and one of the subscribers at RushLimbaugh.com, that put the idea in my head. The first design I didn’t like, and then I got hold of the people that handled our fulfillment. Do you remember the last time we did a mug? It took 30 days! The first sample from the manufacturer didn’t work. It wasn’t right. We had to send it back and redo it. By the time the merchandise was there, the whole premise was gone. So I laid down the law today to the fulfillment people. I said, ‘If you can’t get this stuff out in two weeks after we put it on sale, we’re not going to do it, because I don’t know how long Operation Chaos is going to go.’
So, anyway, the design of the T-shirt really will go beyond whatever length of time Operation Chaos goes. Our hope… Well, we don’t hope on this program. Our desire on this program is that Operation Chaos goes all through the summer, but you never know in politics. Anything can happen. So we’ve designed the T-shirt so that you can wear it a year from now, and it will not only memorialize what has happened in the past; but it can also, as you wear it today, be relevant to the present. So as soon as I get a firm commitment that we can get this stuff delivered in 10 to 14 days after orders, we’ll take orders. We’re going to try to start taking orders tomorrow. (interruption) You can wear it when you go vote. Well, you know, some place where you go vote, Brian… I don’t know how it is here in Palm Beach County. I think they probably let anybody in down here, but in certain places if you wear clothes that are in any way said to be campaigning or pro-particular candidate in nature, they can send you out of there and they can make you go change shirts. At least I’ve heard that in presidential races. You’re looking at me, Snerdley, like this is all new. (interruption) Well, I know it could be more fun. We don’t want our people getting in trouble. In Ohio, they’re already being targeted as lawbreakers. Legal, American citizens participating in the ‘most important presidential race of our lifetimes,’ quote, unquote. Our people are being targeted.
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RUSH: There’s an interesting post at The Politico today from Jonathan Martin on his blog. The ‘What if Your Candidate Loses’ question. You know, there’s been a lot of anecdotal reporting, again on the Democrat side. It’s part of Operation Chaos. Hillary’s people say, ‘If Hillary loses, I’m voting McCain,’ and a lot of Obama’s people say, ‘If Obama loses, I’m voting McCain.’ That’s partly due to race. You know, one of the side shows of this campaign is the absolute civil war that’s broken out in the Democrat Party over race, and it’s only now been amplified by virtue of Obama’s speech. Well, somebody has actually gone out and done some polling on the ‘What if your candidate loses?’ question. It’s a Franklin & Marshall poll, and the question is this: ‘If your candidate does not win the Democrat nomination, what do you think you’ll vote for in the November election?’ Hillary Clinton supporters (there were 228 of them in the poll) said that if she loses, if she doesn’t get the nomination, 19% of them will vote for McCain. Obama supporters (there were 126 of those in this poll), 20% of them said that if Obama doesn’t get the nomination, they are going to vote for McCain.
Now, those are significant numbers on both sides — and, of course, they’re subject to change, because, again, it’s only the middle of March. You get down to October and November, and who knows how this is all going to shake out at their convention. Those numbers will probably shrink some, but I think depending on what happens with these superdelegates, if Obama ends up carrying all these pledged delegates… Even though he’s lost momentum, if he chugs into the end of the primary season, after Puerto Rico, and still maintains the delegate lead — which he will, but he will not have enough to win, nor will Hillary — it’s going to come down to the superdelegates, of course, which it always has been. If the superdelegates end up deciding that Obama’s too damaged now because he’s lost momentum, the Jeremiah Wright stuff, and whatever else happens, and they give it to Hillary, there’s going to be a riot! Al Sharpton has pretty much assured people he’s going to not be happy about this and might take to the streets in Denver. This is all part of Operation Chaos. You must understand, ladies and gentlemen, even those of you who wish Hillary were gone: If Hillary were gone, none of this would be happening.
There wouldn’t be any of this intramural squabbling going on. Neither of these two candidates — particularly Obama — would not be bloodied up politically, and we know the Republicans aren’t going to do it regardless. They’re too timid about being called racists and bigots and so forth. So we needed it to happen, and it is. Now, one of the big campaign slogans that both Obama and Hillary have been touting is change. Of course people in Obama’s crowds have been fainting over this. I know ‘change’ is a constant theme every four years. Well, every four years where an incumbent president — well, even in an incumbent president the opponent would be talking about change. It’s constant. It’s just accepted. ‘We need to change! We’re in a rut here. We’ve had the same Bush dynasty here for eight years, and Clintons for eight years before that,’ and so forth and so on. But what kind of change are they talking about? I don’t think they can see real change if they fell over it. Look at the change in France: from the America-hating Chirac to an America-loving Sarkozy. Look at the change in Germany: from the America-hating Gerhard Schroeder to the America-loving Merkel, Angela Merkel. Look at the change in Iraq, from near failure to near success. There is phenomenal change, particularly in areas the Democrats have been crying about. ‘Our reputation in the world has been forever damaged. We need to put it back together. We need to sit down and talk with the Iranians and Hugo Chavez, and so forth. We need to make sure these people like us again.’
If you liberals out there really want change, then change is up to you. You have to agree to change the strangle hold on our schools. You have to free them from the teachers unions that are securing educations that are subpar for people that are graduating from these schools. You gotta change the bashing of our industries. Obama is joining Hillary. You really can’t separate these two much policy-wise. Obama is now targeting the oil business and telling people what he’s going to do with it, and how he’s going to run it. None of it includes increasing our own sources of oil. None of it. It’s calling for higher taxes, more regulation, exactly the kind of thing that will stunt the oil companies and send ’em off to around the rest of the world even more business there than they do now to escape the regulations of Hillary or Obama. Hillary said she wants to take their profits. Now Obama is getting in gear. You know, change the tenure of professors in universities. You want some change? There’s some definite change that you could make, and it’s happening all over the place. There are good things happening all over the place. They don’t want to see ’em, don’t see them, don’t want to recognize them. Because, of course, they are relying on the fact that we need people as depressed and gloomy as possible in order to ‘vote for change.’
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RUSH: Jill in Lakewood, Ohio, I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: From the backward liberal (unnintelligible) otherwise known as Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
RUSH: By the way, Jill is one of my all-time, top-ten female names.
CALLER: Is it?
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: Excellent.
RUSH: What is the noise emanating from your phone connection? Do you have a cell phone?
CALLER: I’m driving. Yes, I am.
RUSH: Oh. Just have an accident? I heard a lot of noise.
CALLER: Oh, maybe I switched cell phone towers.
RUSH: Okay. It was just line noise. Anyway, I’m sorry, what did you call about?
CALLER: Well, I was calling, first of all, because, you know, we right-thinking people in Cuyahoga County couldn’t imagine things getting worse after Dennis Kucinich won reelection in the Democratic primary, until of course we hear the story that Cuyahoga County Board of Election actually — I’m a little nervous — might be prosecuting voters.
RUSH: It’s an empty threat. They have to prove people lied. Look, this is just a bunch of Democrats reacting to tricks played on them like they play on everybody else. They’re just lashing out with threats. I wouldn’t worry about it.
CALLER: Well, actually, I just wanted to call our local board of elections to express my concern about that and told them that if they were going to be looking into voters who, you know, might have crossed over, that they also should look at the presidential candidates urging them to do so. As a registered Republican, I was getting phone calls from both Senator Obama and Clinton urging me to vote for them. And so I contend that —
RUSH: In these phone calls did they say because the Republican primary is now over, and Senator McCain is the presumptive nominee, did they say please join the Democrats? Did they say that in those push phone calls that you got?
CALLER: I can’t say that I listened to the whole thing, but I would probably say no.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: But they were definitely urging me to vote for them.
RUSH: Well, that’s an excellent point. So if Hillary and Obama were making phone calls, then they can also be targeted for encouraging people to, quote, unquote, break the law. And Obama is running such radio ads now in Pennsylvania, trying to counter Operation Chaos.
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RUSH: John in Somerset, Pennsylvania, I’m glad you called, sir. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Rush, mega Army dittos.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: I’m a Pennsylvania Republican, and I considered your idea of crossing over to vote in the Democratic primary.
RUSH: I know what you’re going to say. I know what you’re going to say, but there are too many important ballot elections on the Republican side to sit them out.
CALLER: Right. I have a very important election in my district for state representative, and there’s a couple RINOs that are running, and then there’s a conservative, and I want to make sure the conservative is the one that wins.
RUSH: Well, I understand that. I understand that. That’s a concern for some people in North Carolina, too —
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: — where there are some Republicans they want to get elected on the down ballot before they get to the presidential primary. I understand that. Look, that’s why these are not marching orders. That’s why you are not a mind-numbed robot. You are free on this program. Even though I am a benevolent dictator, you are free to choose your choice in life.