RUSH: Grand Rapids, Michigan, first. Jack, thank you for calling. Great to have you on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, what an honor it is to talk to you. I know you hear that a lot, but I gotta tell you, I’ve listened to you for so many years, and I value you and listening to you and value your opinion.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: You know, as I’m listening and have been listening to you, Rush, about, you know, the state of our country and everything else, my first question is what do you think is going to happen in the 2010 election? I mean, are the American people really going to get it and finally start voting for the people, a Republican hopefully that not only says what they believe, but actually get to Washington and do what they say they believe?
RUSH: Well, now, wait. Those are — (laughing) — you’re asking me two different things. You’re asking me, will the American people vote a certain way in 2010, and then will people they elect go to Washington and do the right thing.
CALLER: Well, I’m so tired of them saying they’re going to do these things, Rush. I’m of the opinion that I want to see all the incumbents just voted out.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Start over.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Including Hatch and all these other long stalwarts of the Republican Party. Rush, one thing. I don’t mean to interrupt, but when I listened to Hatch speak at Kennedy’s funeral and talk about he and Kennedy bantering back and forth and then Kennedy came up and say, ‘How did I do?’ you know, ‘Awe, you did good,’ it’s like the good old boys club of Washington and it just turns my stomach when I listen to a Republican speak like that. We’re psyching out the American people, aren’t we? Good job.
RUSH: Well, I think, ‘How did I do?’ I think that’s just, you know, sometimes even I, who always know how I do will ask people, ‘So how was that, was that okay?’ Not did I fool ’em, but was I good enough? But that’s a different thing. The collegiality of the Senate is what you’re commenting on here. And it was no secret that Hatch and Kennedy were friends. I mean, they just were. Now, I understand your larger point is that people get elected campaigning for various specific things to go to Washington and somehow get corrupted and it’s all too common. So here’s my answer to your first question. What do I think is going to happen in 2010? I think there’s going to be an uprising. I think the American people are going to show up in droves. If I didn’t think this, folks, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. If I thought all this was a lost cause, I wouldn’t care so much about it.
I was out in Las Vegas on Saturday, I made the mistake of turning on the television, saw something, I don’t even remember what it was, and I thought, ‘My God, we’ve lost the country,’ and it depressed me for two hours until I was able to buck myself back up, and I know it’s hard for everybody else because you don’t have the outlet I have. You don’t have a microphone to shout to 20 million people to vent and influence them. You’re sitting there, ‘Oh, gosh, what can I do, I’m just one vote, doesn’t count,’ I know exactly how you feel. But I do think there’s going to be an uprising in 2010. I even think it’s going to happen if we have nothing to vote for. Normally I wouldn’t say that. I think there’s going to be an uprising of people voting against the Democrat Party like they can’t believe. They do not understand what’s happening to them now. Now, this will help make my point. This is Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, daily briefing today. And reporter asked him, ‘What do you think this election means to the party and the president?’ This is the Virginia governor’s race.
GIBBS: The pollsters at the Washington Post poll identified the fact that roughly 70% of the states said their vote had nothing to do with the president of the United States, that the remaining 30 was roughly divided evenly among those who wanted to use the vote to say something about the president which led the pollsters to deduce that it had very little to do with the Obama presidency. I would say the same thing, I think the same poll showed that among —
RUSH: That’s enough. I don’t want to hear this guy. At any rate, they’re in denial. They’re in denial. And I think that it’s going to be revolt and an uprising against the Democrat Party in general. You can say it’s going to be against Obama but it’s going to be against Democrats and especially if they end up passing a health care bill with as much as is now known about it, it’s going to be a bloodbath politically in 2010, regardless whether we have a national Republican agenda or not. Remember, House races are not national races, and these midterms in 2010 are House races. One of the dirty little secrets about the Republican takeover as it was called of the House in 1994 is that those House races were successfully nationalized. Newt and the boys came up with a national agenda for Republicans running for office, the House of Representatives. Contract with America was part of it. But rather than going to a campaign district and campaign against the local incumbent as having been weak on bringing home a nursing home center or a water treatment plant, the campaign said focus on this guy and his weakness on national defense, focus on his tax raising, focus on how he is creating cultural rot with his votes. Make him a national figure.
That was huge in securing victory in the House races in 1994. Right now I don’t see anybody putting anything like that together in the Republican Party. I think the revolt is going to be so stunning, it won’t even need that. It would be better if there were some national Republican Party agenda that was rooted and founded in unabashed, unapologetic conservatism, that individual House members could run on and say, yep, this is me. And who knows, it may happen between now and then. But that’s what I think’s going to happen. Now, what’s going to happen if I’m right and the winners get to Washington, I know exactly what’s going to happen, the press is going to start attacking them, the press going to beat ’em up, the Democrats are going to beat ’em up, and it’s going to come down to whether they’ve got the backbone to withstand it. Few do.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I’m reminded here that — I think this is mostly correct — the Contract with America didn’t happen until six weeks before the 1994 elections, but it was still six weeks before. It was still something people could rally around. We were coming off a lot of scandals. The House bank and the House post office and general Democrat arrogance, plus Clinton’s failed health care bill and an attempt to totally take over one-sixth of the US economy back then, so there were a lot of things. But there still was a national agenda, there was a national strategy for all of these local House races that took place back in 1994.