RUSH: I don’t know. We’ll find out. We’re going to learn a lot on this book tour, we’re going to learn a lot about people’s reaction to her, the kind of crowds that she’s going to draw, the way she deals with people on this tour. But that’s going to be for people like you to decide. I mean if you’re looking for a Reagan in the Republican Party, what do you think?
CALLER: Personally I think she could be or should be — you know, she’s just got a positive attitude about the country. I mean it’s a Rush Limbaugh attitude. (laughing) You’re always positive and looking on the good side. But, you know, I really honestly think that she could. She’s got the conservative values, you know, the whole Reagan package.
RUSH: She is able to articulate them, there’s no question about that.
CALLER: I was very impressed with her interview with you.
RUSH: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I made a decision that I was going to just go bam, bam, bam, issue question after issue question because everybody is focusing on this soap opera stuff that is about 10 to 12 pages of a 400-page book about the campaign and some of the personalities and people in it, all that stuff is out there, it’s being discussed by everybody else.
Denise in Charlotte, North Carolina, hi. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I just want to comment on Sarah Palin as being, I think, the ideal candidate to be our next president. I didn’t always think that. And let me preface this by saying my father was in the Marines for 25 years, I grew up in Camp Lejeune, so I’m a military brat, and from that perspective I think she is the kind of fighter that we need to be in the presidency because Barack Obama certainly isn’t one. What showed me that was her interview over the last — yesterday, in her book, and, actually, her leaving the governorship which may sound strange because it looked like she was quitting, but actually she was showing what a fighter she was, that she was willing to remove herself as a target in order to disempower people who are attacking her, to conquer them, to overcome them. And that just showed me that she was smart, she was brave, and that she has a fighting spirit that we need in this country because Barack Obama is not standing up for our country. He’s wanting to put himself first, his political views first and not us. And this is a woman who is willing to disempower others even when it’s putting herself at risk for the sake of the bigger picture.
RUSH: Well, I’m glad you mentioned that. I asked her that last week in the newsletter interview, and she gives an extensive answer, but you pretty much have summed it up. In addition to what you said, she also didn’t want to derail the agenda of the governor’s office in the state of Alaska. Her lieutenant governor shares her agenda, obviously, and she was going to be stopped dead in her tracks with all these investigations, lawyers rolling around and so forth. And she said to me that she was putting the state first and didn’t want the state’s business to come to a screeching halt because she believes in her agenda.
CALLER: Well, I understand that but I don’t think people in the media and the country are buying that. I know a lot of them won’t buy anything that she says anyway because an argument could be made that the state would be fine even if she fulfilled her term, and I was even critical of her on that point. What I’m saying is I like the fiery part of it. I like that she was pissed off about it. And she almost said to these people, ‘Oh, you want to mess with me? I’m not going to give someone something to mess with. I’m willing to step down in order to weaken you, in order to overcome you.’ And I like that. That shows a lot of strength and a lot of empowerment. It isn’t about her. It was about Alaska as well. But it shows such a fighting spirit that in the context of Barack Obama being so painfully weak, and this comes from someone who is from Camp Lejeune and I go home and I see these guys going off in the military — (voice wavering) I’m sorry, this is very personal to me.
RUSH: You know, you raise an interesting point or you remind me of an interesting point and that is that some of the strongest people in Republican Party politics today are women.
CALLER: Absolutely they’re women and we need a woman, and we need this woman, we need a strong conservative women, we need someone’s who’s going to stand up and look other people in the eye and say, ‘I’m willing to sacrifice in order to succeed. I am willing to quit — what seems to be quitting — in order to fight. I’m willing to protect instead of taking care of people.’ And there’s a difference there. And I saw that especially in her interview talking about the baby of her son-in-law, or not son-in-law, but the baby’s father. She always put the baby first. She put protecting first rather than tearing other people down. And we need that. Our men in the military need that. They don’t have someone who wants to protect. They have someone who wants to cover his own butt and they want someone who wants to say he’s taking care of everybody, when he’s not. He’s stripping them of their self-esteem and of their strength, and I’m tired of it. And in Sarah Palin we have someone who is compassionate, who’s wise, who’s strong, and who is a fighter. And I want people to know that. And she is not what these stupid liberals are saying about her. They’re stupid and they’re biased and they’re going to use her quitting the governorship as something to flog her with when really I think it’s a banner of strength.
RUSH: She’ll overcome that. When she did quit — and that was the mantra, the conventional wisdom, ‘Well, that’s it for her, I mean nobody quits and then goes on to higher office, it just doesn’t happen.’ And I never go along with the conventional wisdom. There were a lot of reasons why she quit in addition to those that you mentioned. If she does have a political future, if she does desire that, she can’t compete against the people that she’s going to be competing against while in Alaska.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I didn’t see The Oprah interview because I do not watch The Oprah show.
CALLER: I don’t, either. I don’t, but I did yesterday.
RUSH: Okay. I have had e-mails from people who did and they said, ‘I was kind of uncomfortable with it because it was all chick questions, it was all chickified stuff and they edited out any and all Oprah audience applause.’ Normally Oprah’s audience is constantly applauding and Oprah encourages that, but there was none. Is that right, is that what happened yesterday?
CALLER: Well, it definitely wasn’t policy driven, it was more chickified which is what her setting is, people need to remember that when she starts endorsing people like Obama. But that’s okay, because I think that people do want to know what kind of person she is, and I think she showed herself in so many ways to be a steady, wise fighter, even in that interview. I wish she had talked more about how she’s been derailed against because of her sex, but she didn’t talk so much about that.
RUSH: Well, you know, I’ve read her book, she’s not a navel gazer. I think that’s one of the reasons I said yesterday that the intellectuals don’t understand her, don’t like her. She doesn’t analyze herself. She doesn’t analyze her thoughts. She just has them and expresses them. In that way she’s not one of these self-analyzing personalities, always focused on herself. At any rate, Denise, great call, I really appreciate that you got through, I’m glad you got through.
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RUSH: Dallas in Roseburg, Oregon, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. You know, I was just calling and I was listening to the last caller, at least I believe it was the last, the gal that called in who she said she was the Army brat and whatnot, and how we need a woman and specifically Sarah Palin to lead this country, you know, a Reaganesque personality. And, you know, I’ve grown up in a very conservative town here in Roseburg, you know, I’ve had great role models, both male and female alike, most of which my dad and my grandmother. My dad is a former all-American athlete who became, you know, a very well-known businessman in the area. He taught me a lot of strong principles and morals growing up and how to be a leader and whatnot and how to keep my cool in tough situations. And then on the other side my grandmother has just always been such a wonderful soft face for me to, you know, be comforted and to just have a lot of good memories with.
But, you know, they would both say that we need a strong — and a lot of women aren’t going to like this, and a lot of men aren’t going to like this, but coming from me, I’m 24, I’ve had to grow up in the feminist movement, and it’s an oppressive thing. I have not had a lot of great experiences under female leadership, whether it’s in business or school or whatnot. Now, on the flipside, men can be ding-dongs, too, I’m not going to lie about that, but it’s been my experience in life that I have a lot more confidence and a lot more comfort under a strong, honest, dedicated male leadership, male person in leadership rather than the flip side there, and I just don’t think, you know, it really bothers me more to hear the conservative people say we need Sarah Palin when she’s a conservative for president than it bothers me to hear people say we need Hillary Clinton, because she’s a liberal, and that doesn’t bother me because I expect that of them. I mean, if a 24-year-old like me isn’t comfortable with a woman being president, and I’m a conservative, I think there’s going to be a lot of people on the conservative side that aren’t going to be all that hopped up to go support Mrs. Palin. Now, I have a lot of respect for her —
RUSH: Why? Wait a second, just because she’s a woman?
CALLER: Well, yeah, see, I have real traditional values —
RUSH: You see, folks, let me tell you something. I knew that someday — this is the feminist backlash, this is what was destined to happen. I’m sorry that you feel this way, because in the case of Palin, I think the people are reacting to her because she happens to be the most prominent, politically connected oriented conservative voice out there. There isn’t a man out there articulating this stuff —
CALLER: I agree.
RUSH: — and this is about saving the country. We are at a crossroads here in saving the country and you have been affected. I heard what you said. Look, when I was your age and younger I was in the full-fledged early days of the feminist movement mode. That’s when you couldn’t compliment them on their looks without insulting their brain. You couldn’t open the car door for them. You couldn’t do anything manly because that was disrespecting them. So I know where you’re coming from here but the danger here is that you’re painting with a generalized broad stroke saying that women can’t lead. Have you ever heard of Margaret Thatcher?
CALLER: Oh, yeah, I’ve heard a lot of her.
RUSH: Well, would you have been pleased to be governed by her?
CALLER: I’m not going to be a fool and say that there aren’t exceptions out there and Sarah Palin might be an exception. I personally am very — and, you know, I’m very passionate, extremely passionate about politics, I’ve been listening to you since George W. ran the first time. I voted for him the second time he ran around because I was 19 at that age, I believe is when it was. You know, so I’ve been listening to you since I was 15 years old, enthusiastically. I own my own landscaping business in the Roseburg area here, actually a sod farm if you’re familiar with what turf is, and I’ve been listening to you when I drive my tractor every day, you know, that I’ve been working since I graduated in 2004 from high school. And I’ll agree with you, there’s a bunch of softies in the conservative movement that are just not saying what needs to be said on the male side, yes, I can agree. As far as saying what I like to hear, believing what I believe, she is the best candidate. I just think there needs — I mean I just feel like if there’s guys like me who want to be president someday, I’m 24 and I’m going to do my absolute damnedest to be president someday and I just feel like if there’s guys like me out there at 24, there’s got to be somebody who’s of age to be president that we can find in the next several years —
RUSH: How long have you been listening to today’s program? Did you hear me recount the details of the post on the Huffing and Puffington Post today? They’ve got a whole section there on why women are unhappy. And the guy posts today that in the case of the gender wars, women have won. A dirty little secret here: Women are undefeated, folks, throughout the history of time. Women do not lose, but this guy’s point was that men now think exactly like women. They don’t think like men used to 30 years ago. And that’s what you’re encountering. What you’re encountering is the wimpification of men. There are some women out there who like manly men, but there are fewer and fewer of them. But you gotta understand that the Sarah Palin phenomenon is not about gender at this stage. It’s about a void, about a vacuum being filled by somebody in a political party that has nobody else speaking that way. Thanks for the call.
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RUSH: Joe in Atlanta, I’m glad you waited. You’re next on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Rush.
RUSH: Joe.
CALLER: This is Joe from Atlanta, Georgia. I just want to say thank you for what you’re doing. And I want to comment about Sarah Palin. I have to tell you, I have been hopping mad for a while, but certainly after last evening and then to hear her, I think this lady is a lady that we can get behind and that we can actually trust leading our government. We need speak that we can trust.
RUSH: What were you so mad about last night?
CALLER: Well, I was mad overhearing this issue about the drug companies raising the prices of generic drugs in anticipation of, quote, unquote, Obamacare possibly cutting it so that they can actually talk about how they’re going to reduce the price of generic drugs once the patent runs out.
RUSH: Wait, wait whoa, whoa! Wait just a second. I can understand on the surface you get mad at that. But if you’re the drug company, and you’re being targeted for destruction, if you’re an insurance and you are being targeted, if you think that this administration is gonna whack you, you gonna get as much of your money as you can before this whole monstrosity hits. This is no different than Michael Eisner selling $193 million in stock options one week before Clinton’s tax increases went into effect.
CALLER: Well, that’s very true. I mean, we don’t need this drug bill, this health care program at all. And for, you know, and I can appreciate that they’ve gotta try to increase the costs, but all of this, what they’re trying to do is just doing nothing but further hurting us. And it just needs to be stopped and, you know, all of this has got me to a point where I’m going to be as vocal, more so than ever before, to stand up for what the difference between what’s right something wrong for this country.
RUSH: I don’t want to defend the drug companies here but I will. None of what you’re mad about would be happening if it weren’t for Obama’s policies.
CALLER: You’re absolutely correct.
RUSH: So if you want to vent, if you want to direct your anger somewhere it’s gotta be at the Marxist-socialist policies, fascist policies that this guy seeks to implement. I saw a story the other day, the AP trying to gin up economic activity. The wealthy are starting to spend again! Oh, this is wonderful news for the holiday season. And they totally miss the point. People who have money are gonna spend it before Obama can take it away from them. It’s just that simple. And that’s what people think is headed for them down the road. Everybody thinks that.