RUSH: Lincoln, Nebraska, Jacob, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. It’s a pleasure to be on the show. I’ve been a longtime listener and this is the first time I’ve gotten through. I was a Rush Baby, actually.
RUSH: Well, welcome home.
CALLER: I have a question, I’d just be interested in your thoughts on. You have understandably been fairly tough on the superdelegate situation with the Democratic Party. I’m not terribly well informed on it, so… I remember back in 2000 I was listening a lot then, and I remember the Electoral College and all that was — you really promoted it then, and I mean I remember that was a big deal. I was as lost in it back then, as I’m sure most of the country was when it really came to matter, and I’m just wondering if you would talk about what do you see the difference philosophically, why the Electoral College is good for American democracy but why the superdelegate system in the Democratic Party is bad for democracy.
RUSH: You can’t compare the two. The Electoral College is constitutional.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: And the Electoral College was there for the proportionality of votes around America. It has nothing to do with not trusting the average voter. It may have at its origins. They were worried about how many people were actually informed in the early days of the country, not that they were stupid. But the superdelegate thing is a Democrat Party creation, and here’s what’s interesting about it to me. It was created, it was conceived in the seventies to prevent the party from nominating another McGovern who lost in a 49-state landslide, and the superdelegates are the party elders, the supposed elites, the smartest guys in the room to make sure that the Democrat voters don’t screw it up. Of course you can look at it and say, ‘Okay, the superdelegates are the equivalent of the Electoral College and the voters are the people and the Electoral College, superdelegates come in and say, ‘Ah, ah, ah, you guys.” But that’s not true, because the superdelegates are not apportioned by virtue of popular vote. The superdelegates are apportioned by proportionality. It’s such a convoluted thing, you would not believe it. There’s no comparison at all to the Electoral College, and the Democrats aren’t even consistent on it. You mentioned 2000.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Back in 2000, Algore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College vote, and the Democrats then started talking, ‘We gotta get rid of the Electoral College! Well, this is not what the Founding Fathers intended. This is horrible. Our guy got most votes, and he’s not going to be the president because the Supreme Court chose Bush.’ You remember all that. Then in 2004, John Kerry lost Ohio by something like, what, a hundred thousand votes — and he lost the popular vote by four million. This is key. Are you still with me here?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: It’s hard to follow numbers on radio. In 2000, remember, now, the Democrats wanted to get rid of the Electoral College. In 2004, they desperately wanted to use it again because Kerry lost by four million popular votes and a hundred thousand votes in Ohio. They immediately started charging voter fraud, and Kerry’s out there saying, ‘If I could have just turned around 55,000 votes, I’d be president today.’ Oh, really? If he could have turned around 55,000 votes he would have won Ohio’s electoral votes and been elected president despite losing the general by four million votes. So the lesson here, Jacob, is that the Democrats don’t have any rules. They just have customs and traditions, and whatever it takes to win for whoever they want to win is whatever they support at the time. In 2000, they wanted to dump the Electoral College. In 2004, they were hoping to use it along with charges of voter fraud. You know, you say I ‘oppose’ the superdelegates. I don’t oppose superdelegates. I’m not a Democrat. They can do what they want. I frankly love the superdelegates situation, in the sense that it’s helping us to promote Operation Chaos.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: On Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bill Clinton at a campaign event for his wife spoke, and here’s a portion of what he said.
CLINTON: I think it would be a great thing if we had an election where you had two people who love this country and were devoted to the interests of the country and people could actually ask themselves who’s right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.
RUSH: This has caused a firestorm and is helping to fuel Operation Chaos. ‘I think it would be a great thing if we had an election where you had two people love this country and were devoted to the interests of this country.’ He’s saying, ‘We need my wife and McCain, because they’re two people that love this country.’ Now, there’s a real reason that the Clintons are out there showering McCain with all kinds of great platitudes. It’s because they know (they think, anyway) it would be a piece of cake to take on McCain because McCain is out there saying he’s going to be honorable; there won’t be any attacks on the Democrat presidential nominee, whoever it is — and that’s music to the Clintons’ ears. You know, that’s just a sign of weakness that the Clintons will just pounce on. But this has been interpreted by people as saying that Obama doesn’t love his country, and may not be a patriot out there. So the day after comparing Clinton to Joseph McCarthy, Obama supporter Merrill McPeak, that’s how he responded originally to Clinton’s statement about Obama. He said this is McCarthyesque. ‘Tony’ McPeak stands next to Obama at a rally in Medford, Oregon, and explains why he said it and doesn’t back down.
MCPEAK: President Clinton was speaking to a group of veterans yesterday in North Carolina, and he said something that frankly astonished me. Let me say first, we will have such an election this year (cheers), because both Barack Obama and John McCain are great patriots who love this country and are devoted to it. So is Hillary Clinton. Any suggestion to the contrary, is flat wrong. I am saddened to see a president employ these kinds of tactics. He of all people should know better, because he was the target of exactly the same kind of tactic when he first ran 16 years ago.
RUSH: So the Obama campaign is not backing down. McPeak not backing down. Clinton once again… People are going to ask the question, ‘Does he really want his wife to win this, or does he want her to lose?’ Nothing that happens with the Clintons is a coincidence. Never forget that. Sunday on Meet the Press, Tim Russert spoke with Jon Meacham of Newsweek about the Democrat primary race. Russert said, ‘Where we are, where are we headed? Is there a way for this Democrat Party to unify after this kind of primary? Are we in a situation where, in order for Hillary Clinton to be successful and appeal to the superdelegates, she has to win a nomination even though she won fewer elected delegates?’
MEACHAM: Depending on where you end up with the, as you were saying, the popular vote or the pledged delegates, you do have the capacity for a kind of ‘corrupt bargain’ charge, uh, echoes of 1824, which I think we should always be talking about every Easter. (giggles) Apology for that —
RUSSERT: Jon, 1824. Tell us who it was, quickly.
MEACHAM: Very quickly, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote, uh, Henry Clay threw his support to John Quincy Adams. Adams becomes president. Four years later, running on a charge — running on a campaign saying that was a corrupt bargain, Jackson takes over, founds the modern Democratic Party, and here we sit.
RUSH: So (laughing) the Democrat Party is basically founded on corruption and remains corrupt to this day. But this is Operation Chaos. These people are worried. Are the Democrats heading for Armageddon? Can they unify after all of this? And here’s the problem that they’re going to have. The problem they’re going to have unifying is Obama has become the candidate of race. There are so many people who are for Obama, who if he doesn’t get it they’re going to be fit to be tied and either won’t vote or will vote for McCain. There are a number who want Clinton to get this, and if she doesn’t get it, they’re going to be fit to be tied and either sit out or vote for McCain. All this talk of unity, here we have again… Let’s bring this down to real-life terms. We have the leading Democrat presidential primary contender Barack Obama campaigning on what? Hope, change, unity! We can all get along. We can all come together, and we can do what’s best for all of us to reach the mountaintop, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
They can’t even unify their own party! How in the name of Sam Hill (and there was a Sam Hill) are they going to unify the country? The whole thing is an illusion. I did a great, great monologue last week on the whole concept of unity anyway. I mean, for crying out loud, folks, I’m sounding like a broken record here. Obama can’t even unify his own inner circle! He’s got people in his inner circle that are fit to be tied themselves. His pastor is perennially angry. His wife’s never happy. Well, she recently was happy because of his presidential campaign. But they can’t even unify their own party. They’re worried about Armageddon. They’re worried about the party self-destructing. In the meantime, they’re running a campaign on unity for the country? It’s a pipe dream.