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Try 3/5ths in Florida and Michigan

by Rush Limbaugh - May 22,2008

RUSH: I got an idea for you Democrats. Maybe you could do this. Maybe the Democrats could count three-fifths of each vote in Florida and Michigan. Well, it beats not counting any of the votes at all. Do you realize what they’re on the verge of doing here disenfranchising this many people? Exactly right, Snerdley, three-fifths. Well, I don’t know where you’ve heard it before. I’m sure you’ve got a great historical context for this, but I chose this number not at random, I chose it on purpose. We need to count three-fifths; Democrats count every vote three-fifths. It’s the way you used to count black votes. It’s the way the Democrat Party counted black votes, three-fifths of a vote for every black person of voting age. So maybe the Democrats could count three-fifths of each vote in Florida and Michigan.

I mean, it beats not counting the votes at all, and get a little bit further down the road here of not having a totally illegitimate nominee. Look, the Democrat Party used to support slavery ’til they were defeated in the Civil War. Let’s be honest about this. They might be familiar with this three-fifths vote concept. But as I say, three-fifths would be a compromise with the Obama campaign, which doesn’t want to count these votes at all. I mean you gotta start somewhere, and three-fifths I think is a great number. And, by the way, I agree with that lady. The cameraman ought to stop showing us Hillary’s backside. Now, here’s a funny story. There’s an interview in the Florida St. Petersburg Times. Obama believes the votes in Florida and Michigan should count as a half a vote. ‘Obama, D-Ill., called the idea of cutting Florida’s delegation in half ‘a very reasonable solution’ to the party’s standoff over how to treat a primary contest that was not sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee.’

Okay, so Mrs. Clinton can say no, three-fifths. Well, actually, Mrs. Clinton should start with every vote counts. Obama says, no, half a vote per person. Then you compromise out of tradition at three-fifths. But you gotta do something here, as I advised the Democrat Party and the superdelegates. Let me repeat this. I would encourage the Democrats to count each vote in Florida and Michigan as three-fifths of a vote just to tie it in with their historical position in a different context prior to the Civil War. Now, we Republicans, we believe in counting every vote. We Republicans, we believe in one person, one vote, even the people of Florida and Michigan. The Democrat Party, as it stands now, believes those votes don’t even count. Obama says, okay, well, half of them will count, one half vote for every person. And, hell, he doesn’t even have a slavery heritage and he’s got more understanding of this than apparently some of the Democrats do, three-fifths, half, or what have you. Three-fifths is the number.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I erred mere moments ago when I said that Obama has no slavery heritage. I was wrong. From the UK Times of March 4th, 2007, a little over a year ago: ‘The maternal ancestors of Barack Obama, the Democrat who hopes to become America’s first black president, once owned slaves, genealogists have revealed. As the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, the background of Obama, who went to a school in Indonesia, was already considered exotic. According to the genealogists, George Washington Overall, Obama’s great-great-great-great grandfather, owned two slaves, a 15-year-old girl and 25-year-old man, who were listed in the 1850 Kentucky census. Another maternal ancestor owned two older slaves. In his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, Obama referred to family rumours that his relatives had links to both sides during the Civil War, but he did not know he had slaveholding ancestors. Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Illinois senator, said it showed his relatives were ‘representative of America’.’ So now having relatives that owned slaves is a plus for a Democrat, because it shows that you have the ability to relate to all Americans from the beginning of our country’s histoire.