Troubling VP Signals from McCain

RUSH: There’s something going on with the McCain campaign here as the selection process dwindles down for the vice presidency, and it looks like McCain advisors are laying the groundwork for either picking a Democrat, Joe Lieberman, or a pro-choice Republican to further McCain’s move to the center and the left to pick up disaffected Obama voters; ’cause they’re just assuming that those of us in the base will show up and solidify — in fact, they think that’s already happened. But they think we’re going to show up and solidify because of our just fear and unacceptable attitudes toward Barack Obama, the Lord Messiah Most Merciful. I think they’re misjudging if they think they can put a pro-choice candidate on the ticket. McCain’s telling us that he’s going to go out and make sure that he picks the right kind of judges for the Supreme Court.

Well, now, one of the definitions that the conservative base has for the right kind of judge on the Supreme Court is not somebody who’s going to vote to affirm Roe v. Wade if it ever comes up. So we’re going to start doubting all kinds of things. If he’s going to go with a pro-choice — or even a Democrat who is good on the war but has just as liberal a voting record as Chris Dodd does, if he’s going to go one of those two routes — then it’s going to be reasonable for us to start doubting what he has said and promised about the right kind of judges on the courts. So the fur is going to fly on this one. The last time it flew was when somebody suggested that McCain might put a Democrat on the ticket. You know, it’s one thing for Democrats, for our enemies to say, ‘Hey, why don’t you pick one of us on your ticket.’ It’s another thing for our side to put the spear in our own heart.

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RUSH: This is Judy in Prescott, Arizona. Hi, Judy. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Oh, mega dittos, Rush. I love your show. I’ve been listening to you since, oh, my gosh, forever; and I pray for you all the time.

RUSH: Thank you very much.

CALLER: Yesterday I called up the campaign headquarters for Senator McCain. He’s my Senator here from Arizona, as you know.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: And I told the very nice staffer on the other end of the line, that I had a lot of concern about the fact that I heard that the Senator was going to put a pro-abort on the ticket with them. My concerns were this: that the Democrats always stick together no matter what. I have a pro-life friend in South Carolina that is going to vote for Obama because he’s a Democrat, but Republicans are not that way. Republicans will punish candidates if they veer from what they think (especially the conservatives) is important for them. The pro-life issue is very, very important. My own husband said, ‘That’s the last straw. If McCain puts it is a pro-abort on with him, I’m not voting for him,’ and I told the staffer that I’m very, very worried that this will just be a gateway for Obama to get in, because the base will not support Senator McCain.

RUSH: See, I think —

CALLER: The guy told me, ‘Judy, I’ve been hearing a lot of calls just like yours.’

RUSH: I think you’re exactly right, too. I’ll tell you, especially with the news that’s hit recently of Obama’s just practically criminal votes supporting the murder of babies who have been born.

CALLER: Mmm-hmm.

RUSH: Three times as an elected official in Illinois, Barack Obama voted for legislation that would allow doctors, patients to terminate the life of a baby who had survived an abortion and outside the womb. Three times. So he’s vulnerable on the issue. But here’s what you have to understand about the McCain campaign and the Republicans. The McCain campaign — the Republican Party is basically telling conservatives, ‘Yeah, you can vote for our guy. We’ll be happy if you do, but don’t think we’re going to give you anything for it because we don’t like our party being conservative. We want to ‘reach across the aisle.’ We want to go for the moderates. We want independents. We want to show we can work with Democrats. We’re gonna show we’re not closed-minded.’ They buy all the stuff that’s said about conservatives, so they’re basically just flipping us off.

CALLER: Well, Rush this is exactly what I told the young man with whom I spoke. I said, ‘Senator McCain has always considered himself a maverick. To me that means,’ well, I’m not going to say it. Screw you? Okay, ‘to the Republican Party. To conservatives, that is, and the problem is that if he does that, his advisors should know that conservative pro-life individuals will not support this man. They want to get him elected, but he’s got to reach out. I said to the guy, ‘He’s gotta reach out to conservatives and not always reach out to the left,’ and he said, ‘Judy, I’m hearing you.’

RUSH: Yeah, but let me tell you something — and follow me on this.

CALLER: Mmm-hmm.

RUSH: ‘Cause they believe that they own you and the base right now because of your distrust, dislike, and fear of the things that will happen under Obama.

CALLER: Mmm-hmm.

RUSH: Because they think that they own us, in the most crucial of earlier decisions, McCain is misjudging us. He feels he can pick whoever he wants, pro-choice Democrat running mate, and that everybody’s just going to march with him. But he figures wrong. This is going to be a close election, and it’s not going to take a lot of people sitting on their hands to lose an important state or two.

CALLER: Mmm-hmm.

RUSH: Now, Obama is out there firing up his base. McCain is trying to deflate people like you.

CALLER: He’s angering us, and I wasn’t going to vote for him. I was just not going to mark anything, but then when he pulled this — and I think, Rush, I really think — and I know you’ve done so much to get the word out. I really think that if he puts on a good, strong conservative, he has a pretty good chance of getting elected. But if he doesn’t, then the Republicans are going to say, ‘What’s the difference between him and B. Hussein Obama?’ And they either won’t vote or I don’t know, and it’s really scary and I’m worried about it. I don’t like McCain; I never have liked him.

This amnesty thing? We’re going nuts here in Arizona. I mean, I’m up in Prescott, and we’re halfway between Phoenix and the Grand Canyon, but we’re starting to see the illegals here in our little town. I am a transplant from Los Angeles, so I don’t even need to go there. You know what’s that’s like. So we’re just kind of saying, ‘Well, but McCain is going to be better than a Democrat because he’s good on defense and this and that,’ but I’m just afraid that he’s just going to be throwing off votes. He doesn’t care, and I’m worried about it.

RUSH: Well, but I agree with all that, but I take it even a little further than that, Judy, ’cause I think this is a demonstration of how McCain might govern.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: It underscores the doubts. Well, for example, he’s been saying that when asked about what kind of judges he would appoint to the federal bench, including the Supreme Court, he said, ‘Well, judges in the mold of Scalia.’

CALLER: Mmm-hmm.

RUSH: Strict constructionists. Well, okay. If you believe that you’re going to put a strict constructionist on the Supreme Court and that’s what you’re telling people, how in the world do you then find a pro-abort vice presidential running mate when one of the central issues that matters to conservatives and so forth on the Supreme Court is finding judges who might someday overturn Roe v. Wade? So you put a pro-abort VP, and you promise at the same time you’ll put strict constructionist judges, we have to doubt. It’s going to shake people’s confidence in his promise to put conservative judges on the court. And to a lot of people, throw out Russia-Georgia, you throw out Iraq. The court is central to a lot of people in terms of why they vote. Let me add another point here. This decision to put a pro-abort vice president on his ticket is a crucial one. He’s off the main field. I want to read to you a quote from a Democrat pollster who worked for Mayor Bloomberg. His name is Doug Schoen. ‘This move to a pro-choice running mate such as Lieberman could help reshape his message to appeal to swing voters. The right-wing is not going anywhere and choice is a key issue for over-40 women who voted for Hillary in the primaries.’ So a Democrat pollster is applauding the potential move of the man he does not support for president, McCain, to put a pro-choice guy on the ticket as vice president ’cause that will go… McCain has already shorn up his message for people on the left. He doesn’t need to firm it up anymore.

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RUSH: One more thing on this McCain and this vice presidential choice, it goes beyond just picking a pro-abort candidate to be his VP. Look, here’s the way that those of us who really care about this look at it. McCain has said that his model for Supreme Court judges would be people like Alito and Scalia and so forth. But Alito and Scalia would vote to overturn McCain-Feingold. So would McCain actually appoint people to overturn his significant achievement? And then you put somebody on the ticket that’s a pro-abort, a pro-choicer, it just doesn’t jibe with somebody, a candidate, who says he’s going to appoint strict constructionist conservative-type judges to the Supreme Court. It just makes you question. But there’s more to this than that. If you’re going to put a pro-choice man on your ticket, or woman, you’re putting a liberal on your ticket.

Let’s take a look Lieberman, ’cause this is about more than abortion. Lieberman’s a liberal. He’s good on the war, and he’s a nice guy, and the Democrats are going to fix to punish him. But his liberal rating is not much different than Chris Dodd’s. Would we put Chris Dodd on the ticket? The presidency is about many things, not just abortion. It’s about many things and many decisions. Now, Tom Ridge is on the list. Tom Ridge is also a pro-choice guy. He’s a Republican. But when Tom Ridge was a congressman in Pennsylvania before getting elected governor there, he was liberal on a lot of things. For example, he opposed Reagan’s SDI big time and said things about it that were very harsh and he tried to kill it. He was among the leaders of the nuclear freeze effort in Congress.

You remember the nuclear freeze effort, ladies and gentlemen? The nuclear freeze effort was a leftist idea designed to strengthen the Soviet Union. ‘Cause they wouldn’t participate in it. They’d just laugh their asses off if we signed some nuclear freeze with them while they kept building weapons. He opposed arming the freedom fighters in Nicaragua. He opposed the Strategic Defense Initiative and he was a leader in cutting funds for SDI, Tom Ridge was. So these are two of the names that have been mentioned. Meanwhile, you’ve got Huckabee out there trying to sandbag Romney as the choice with evangelicals, and of course Huckabee is denying that it has anything to do with Romney being a Mormon. He says it has everything to do with the fact that Romney is a flip-flopper on issues. But Huckabee is out there trying to poison the minds, again, of evangelicals against Romney. So you get names thrown around. Like Lieberman is on the short list. This is another thing that happens. This has been my concern all along with this, is: What does that do to the party next time around? And if we win doing this, we’re no different than Democrats. So it’s troubling. What is continually stunning to me is this apparently wanton and open disregard for the traditional Republican base that elects Republican presidents.