RUSH: At ten minutes before 11 o’clock this morning, Eastern Time, The Politico flashed the following update: ‘A Democrat operative familiar with Martha Coakley and the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee’s massive get-out-the-vote operation says that outreach workers in and around Boston –‘ these are the people on the phones calling to get people to go out and vote for Martha Coakley ‘– the outreach workers in and around Boston have been stunned by the number of Democrats and Obama supporters who are waving them off, saying they are going to vote but they’re going to vote for Scott Brown.’
Greetings, and welcome, it’s Rush Limbaugh, and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Three fast hours straight ahead, looking forward to talking to you, 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
So imagine this. All these phone bank people up there in Boston are making phone calls, ‘We got buses, we’re going to come pick you up and take you to polls.’ ‘No, no, no, don’t bother to come, I’m going out to vote on my own, I’m voting for Scott Brown.’ That’s on the Politico. They are stunned at the number of Democrats saying that. My, oh, my, what do we have here, Boston Globe: ‘Polls Open in Special US Senate Election.’ This guy that I’m going to quote is right on the money with this comment and is expressing the popular sentiment that a majority of the Americans no doubt share. ”I’m trying to save the nation today,’ said Robert Cappello, 69, a registered Republican and enthusiastic Brown voter from South Boston who reveled in what he described as an ‘overwhelming sweep’ of momentum for his candidate. ‘This election is a lot about sending a message,’ Cappello said in an excited voice outside a polling place on H Street. ‘It’s telling Washington to slow down.’
‘In West Roxbury at St. George Orthodox Church, Phil DiCarlo cast his ballot for Coakley but noted how quickly the Brown campaign gathered steam. ‘It seems like people have short memories,’ DiCarlo said. ‘They forgot about the last eight years’ under former president George Bush. … By 9 a.m. in Boston, more than 23,000 ballots had been cast, an early turnout significantly higher than in the primary last month. In Back Bay, the crowd voting at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square far eclipsed the numbers for the primary last month.’ I’m getting stories and reports. We have spies on the ground. Lines are half a mile long. Cars, traffic backed up at polling places this morning, some people leaving the line because it’s so long, saying they’re going to come back.
I’m hearing this all over the state. I probably will be accused of electioneering by reporting what’s in the Drive-By Media today. I haven’t said anything yet that’s not in the Drive-By Media but I’ll probably be accused of electioneering and suppressing the Democrat vote today. It’s no matter, the Democrats in the media are trying to suppress the Republican vote. All night long, ‘It’s a fait accompli, it’s over, Brown is going to win, there’s nothing we can do,’ and they start insulting people and that’s designed to suppress the Republican vote making everybody think, ‘Ah, it’s in the bag, the weather is bad, you don’t need to go out.’
From the Boston Globe, here’s another story. This is Kevin Cullen. The headline here is: ‘For Coakley, Ominous Sign — Blue Hill Avenue runs like a vein through the city. It stretches for 4 miles, from River Street in Mattapan to Dudley Street in Roxbury, and a little more than a year ago there was an Obama sign on every block. There were Obama signs in Mattapan barber shops, in the windows of the apartment buildings opposite Franklin Field and Franklin Park, in the restaurants of Grove Hall, in the bodegas near Jermaine Goffigan Park. Fourteen months ago, there was a buzz on Blue Hill Ave. and the streets that run off it like caterpillar legs. This is the heart of the biggest minority community in the state, and the energy generated by the prospect of Barack Obama becoming president was palpable.
‘Yesterday, I drove the length of Blue Hill Ave. and counted exactly two Martha Coakley signs. One of them was on a fence next to the Roxbury Energy Gas station, on the corner of Moreland Street. The sign wasn’t properly fastened. It flapped in the wind, revealing a ‘Mike Flaherty for Mayor’ sign underneath. If Martha Coakley loses today,’ writes Kevin Cullen of the Boston Globe, ‘it won’t be because she didn’t put up enough signs on Blue Hill Ave. It’ll be because she failed to convince enough of the people who put up the Obama signs on Blue Hill Ave. and a lot of other avenues across Massachusetts that Obama’s ability to get anything done depends on her winning the election.’ If she loses it will be because Coakley didn’t tell voters Obama needs her. That is the opinion of a columnist in the Boston Globe. So a Coakley loss will not signal — this is the pre-spin, a Coakley loss will not signal a rejection of the Obama agenda and specifically a rejection of his health reform initiative. Oh, no, no, no. It will only mean that ‘Marcia’ Coakley didn’t tell the voters how much Obama needs her in order to get his wildly proper programs through Congress. Right. It is a crock. They’re desperate.
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The New England news channel, channel NECN, it’s a cable channel, has been hectoring its viewers all morning. They said that turnout so far is only 7%, all these reports of a large turnout are not true. They’re quoting people who say things like: ‘Shame on the Back Bay for people not coming out to vote.’ The anchors then say ‘Hopefully turnout will go up as the day goes on.’ There’s some electioneering going on on the cable network NECN in Boston.
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RUSH: This vote turnout in Massachusetts, really the anecdotal evidence is that it’s huge. I got spies up there.
There are long lines, half a mile long, automobile lines. People are waiting to get a parking place in certain areas. There are long lines outside the polling place, so long that people are leaving, planning on coming back. And yet NECN, a cable channel up in Boston, New England cable channel, says turnout’s very light. It’s only 7% and they’re urging people to get out there and vote. Maybe it will pick up later in the afternoon. A high turnout, theoretically, benefits the Democrat. But there’s not only an arousal gap in this; there’s an enthusiasm gap that’s a mile wide. There is no enthusiasm for Coakley. There is for Brown. It’s hard to read the vote turnout, but I will say this: Getting out the vote via ACORN’s Project Vote is the only real job Barack Obama has ever had, and clearly it’s his only success. It was ACORN, under the direction of Barack Obama, that got Carol Moseley ‘Fraud’ elected to the Senate in Illinois.
If he can’t drag ‘Marcia’ Coakley across the finish line with ACORN — the one thing that he’s done in his life with experience and success: get out the vote — then you gotta really question what’s going on.
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RUSH: All right, we have an update from NECN, the Boston cable channel. They just reported that they have found most voters are leaning for Coakley in this tight race. They quoted one Brown voter and then several Coakley voters, several of whom said they voted for her to support Obama. So they’re working overtime at NECN, electioneering if you will, to get out the vote, claiming it’s close and most voters are leaning for Coakley.
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RUSH: Okay, we have an update on the New England Cable Network. These are the people that have been electioneering. They’re stoking turnout. In truth I think they are alarmed. They say turnout in the city earlier reports are 7% ‘but the cities, they vote late. Turnout is very light in the city,’ and then they did come back and say, ‘But in the suburbs a whole different matter. There are long lines out there.’ Now, the NECN channel just had an anonymous analyst on who said in a voiceover how important the election is, while all eyes are on Massachusetts. This analyst said, ‘Voters will decide if Obama is going to have a nearly successful presidency. He’s fighting two wars. This is an extremely important election,’ the analyst said.
Now, apparently, ladies and gentlemen, the analyst at this network obviously thinks the audience is as stupid as any audience in the country is. Because they’re having to tell people, ‘You know, this is a very important election.’ If there’s anybody in Massachusetts that does not know this is an important election, then they… (snorts) I don’t know what they are doing or who they are but they gotta be odd. I mean, they gotta be really, really strange if they don’t know what’s going on and how important it is. For crying out loud, the president of the United States was up there Sunday. So an anonymous analyst said in a voiceover how important the election is. ‘Why, all eyes are on Massachusetts. Voters would decide if Obama’s going to have a nearly successful presidency.’ So clearly there are problems, and the problems are clearly in the city of Boston — and there’s this from the Boston Herald’s Daily Briefing:
‘More Grumpy Coakley Operatives — News from inside Martha Coakley’s operation is not good. One operative said national Dems who flew in to rescue the flagging campaign are losing faith. ‘There’s not a high degree of confidence. Most people have given up,’ the operative said. Coakley’s campaign staffers, however, are, ‘strangely calm.’ Many big names in the political world, including Hillary Clinton’s former Iowa director Angelique Pirozzi are on hand, but there’s not much for them to do. Top strategist Pirozzi is running a phone bank, something she hasn’t done in roughly 20 years.’ Remember, we had a report earlier from The Politico that when they were calling people to get out the vote. The Democrats that they’re calling, a large number of these operatives are stunned that they wave them off and say: You don’t have to call me; I’m voting for Brown. ”At this point in the game it’s like having a hammer and a screwdriver but no nails or screws,’ the operative said. Many still have hope, though. One internal campaign poll shows Coakley up by five percent.’ So that’s the latest from the Boston Herald’s Daily Briefing and from NECN, a network up there.
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RUSH: To the phones to Kerry in Worcester, Massachusetts, or Woosta’. Nice to have you here. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, what a pleasure to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I’m calling you from a state that I’m fairly confident the second American Revolution will start today with a Scott heard round the world.
RUSH: The Scott heard round the world. I’ve seen that line referenced. Good for you. So you really feel that confident about it?
CALLER: Absolutely. I witnessed two events over the weekend. One was Martha Coakley and one was Scott Brown in Worcester.
RUSH: And there was no enthusiasm for the Coakley event?
CALLER: It was a Clinton event. Martha Coakley happened to be there.
RUSH: Yeah, and it was an Obama event where Coakley happened to be on Sunday —
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: — at Northeastern.
CALLER: On Sunday I was with Scott Brown and the difference was night and day. There was no enthusiasm on Friday at the Clinton event. She was the first one out of the rope line. She was the first one out. It was very telling.
RUSH: What do you mean the first one out?
CALLER: Well, usually they shake hands, I was like third in front of the stage. And Bill Clinton came down and shook hands. Martha Coakley was the first one to leave.
RUSH: Oh, she didn’t shake hands.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: She just split.
CALLER: Yes. That told me a lot.
RUSH: She was probably ticked off. I heard that Clinton made the event about him.
CALLER: It was. It was about mostly Haiti.
RUSH: Yeah. He said the line that appearing for ‘Marcia’ Coakley, and not going to Haiti, aid for Haiti, is two sides of the same coin, thereby confirming my point that it’s been politicized, as this administration politicizes virtually everything. Kerry, thanks much. Happy to have that on-site report. We have a lot of spies reporting to us via e-mail, what’s going on in Massachusetts today.
Scott in The Dalles, Oregon, great to have you on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, good to talk to you.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: Been listening to you since day one. I was just going to bring up a point you made a few months ago and it needs to be reiterated today that if you want an example of how to run a campaign and take back our country, Scott Brown’s done it. Massachusetts has, what, 51% independents? And they’re just flocking to him because of his message.
RUSH: 69-28, independents are breaking — that’s in a preelection poll. I don’t know if it’s actually going to break that way, but the pollsters maintain that their polls are right on the money, margin of error two to three percentage points. So we’ll see. I forget who said this to me today, but somewhere someone on some cable network, it is being said that if Scott Brown wins, it is a repudiation of me because Scott Brown is not conservative and he’s a RINO, that he’s a Republican-in-name-only. This is how far off the beaten path the left and the media is having to go. If he wins, to say it’s a rebuke of me because the guy’s not conservative, he’s a Republican-in-name-only, holy moly, how in the world can a Republican winning the Ted Kennedy seat be a rebuke of me or anybody? I didn’t even get involved in this race until last week, on purpose, by strategeric design. Thanks, Scott.
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RUSH: There are no exit polls in the race today because nobody thought this was going to be a close race, so some of the accouterments that normally attach themselves to close races are not in place. This is by John Fund at the Wall Street Journal: ‘Why There Won’t Be Exit Polls in Massachusetts — One out of four Massachusetts voters think ACORN will try to steal the election. … [Scott] Brown’s surge was so sudden that many of the usual accoutrements of closely-contested elections are missing in the Bay State. One is exit polls. There will be none tonight from Massachusetts, disappointing journalists and political scientists alike. As Mike Allen of Politico.com reports, the consortium of news outlets that normally organizes such surveys didn’t bother when the race was expected to be a blowout and now ‘wasn’t confident a reliable system could be built so fast.’
‘Another casualty of the expectation that the race would be a cakewalk for the Democrat will be an absence of absentee ballot fraud, the preferred method of putting an illegal thumb on the scale in a close race. Applications for absentee ballots had to be submitted by last Friday, providing little opportunity for those with ill intent to organize such an effort once they realized the race had tightened up. … When asked whether ‘ACORN will try to steal the election for Martha Coakley,’ a surprising 25% of those surveyed in Massachusetts said ‘yes.” So no chance to tamper with the exit polls because there aren’t any, and no chance to tamper with the absentee ballots because the deadline for getting them in was last Friday and not enough time for chicanery to take place.
I’ve gotta read this in more detail, but I just got a flash that a group in Washington, DC, is making phone calls to voters in Boston claiming to be a pro-life group opposed to Scott Brown because of his stance on the health care bill. This is from LifeNews.com. ‘Behind in the polls to Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown, supporters of pro-abortion candidate Martha Coakley have evidentially reached into their bag of dirty tricks. A Washington, DC-based company is making calls to Massachusetts residents pretending to represent a prominent pro-life group. The calls, from [an area code 202 number], a Washington number registered to a company called SOOH, claim to be from Massachusetts Citizens for Life’ when somebody answers the phone. ‘The caller claims the pro-life group is opposing Scott Brown because of his stance against the health care bill, but as [the pro-life group] told LifeNews.com late Monday, the opposite is true.’ So dirty tricks are underway. If you’re in Massachusetts and you’re getting phone calls from a pro-life group, those are phony, fake calls coming from Washington, DC, and it’s not a pro-life group that’s calling you and Scott Brown is not being criticized genuinely by this group. It’s all made up.
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RUSH: Well, it turns out, ladies and gentlemen, that there will be an exit poll tonight. Scott Rasmussen has stepped up and will pay for his own exit poll. The Rasmussen Reports operation will pay for their own exit poll and fill in the gap that the Drive-By Media left because (A) they are either too cheap to do it or (B) things were too chaotic and they didn’t think it was going to be a close rate so they didn’t set the progress bar in motion, or (C) they just don’t want to know what really happened to liberalism in Massachusetts. That from John Fund — and I wouldn’t discount C as a reason they didn’t do it at all: Not wanting to know what really happened to liberalism in Massachusetts.
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RUSH: Okay, John McCormack. This is the man that one of Coakley’s operatives, Meehan, knocked to the floor, knocked to the sidewalk last week. He has a piece in the Weekly Standard. ‘Massachusetts Election Results: What to Watch For — Assuming that the Massachusetts election results page doesn’t crash due to a tremendous amount of traffic, what should one be looking for after the polls close at 8:00 p.m. and numbers begin pouring in? The Cook Political Report’s election whiz David Wasserman writes in an e-mail to The Weekly Standard: ‘1) Western Mass – Coakley needs a huge margin out of what I call the ‘Rachel Maddow Belt’ — the Berkshires, where she has roots, and the Pioneer Valley. She probably needs a 5,000 vote lead out of Amherst and high turnout in places like Springfield, Pittsfield, and Northampton.
”2) The I-495 Ring — This is Brown’s bread and butter, and he needs to rack up big leads in towns like Haverhill, Dracut, Marlborough, and his home area near Wrentham and Foxborough. These are the places where Mitt Romney broke through to win the governorship in 2002. 3) The Cape and Southeastern Mass — The Kennedy belt. Barnstable and Plymouth Counties are presumably the places where Kennedy’s memory ought to rescue Coakley in the eleventh hour” if it’s to happen. ”Brown will probably narrowly win the towns of Plymouth and Barnstable, which are usually bellwethers. If Coakley carries either, she will probably be on her way to winning statewide. If Brown wins both with more than 55%, watch out. 4) The 8th CD — The heart of liberal Massachusetts needs to come out in a big way for Coakley if she is to have a shot.
”Cambridge should turn out dependably, but will the Boston machine crank out votes at the same rate as other places in the state? … 5) The Catholic south shore — Will working class Democrats stick with their party or defect to Brown? This is the key area to watch in that respect. Brown will probably win Braintree and Weymouth, but the town to watch is Quincy. If Coakley can’t hold onto Quincy, she will probably lose. 6) The ethnic cities — Does Coakley get at least half of Obama’s votes in each of Worcester, Fall River, New Bedford, Lowell, and Lawrence? These are places that will vote Democratic 2-to-1 or more, but where voters need lots of engagement to mobilize.” So that’s what to look for, and of course Scott Rasmussen now does have plans to do exit polling on the way out of the polling places.
I was kind of looking forward to there not being any just to, you know, actually have to wait until real votes are counted to have an idea of what’s going on. We trust Rasmussen but some of these other people… The consortium of exit polls is put together and paid for by the big networks (cable and broadcast) and they all get the same data. They all get it in waves: Two o’clock, four o’clock, seven o’clock. There are three or four waves during the day, and you remember during the 2004 that the people that were releasing exit poll data gummied ’em up, jimmied ’em up and had John Kerry winning in Florida and Ohio and so forth. Then votes started being counted and the exit polls were worthless.
They were nowhere near accurate, so much so that the Democrats started charging fraud, that the real vote had to be wrong! ‘I mean, look at the exit polls! The exit polls said Kerry won those states and they didn’t. There’s fraud here. Somebody tampered with the real vote,’ they said. So now we will have exit polling data from Scott Rasmussen’s group, but it would have been interesting to actually have to watch an election without an exit poll, to watch real votes being counted as the first sign or indication perform of course exit polling data, the early releases at two and four o’clock before polls close, they can also be used to suppress or get-out-the-vote, whichever the Drive-By Media consortium that pays for those exit polls wants.
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RUSH: I think this is today in Massachusetts. It’s at a Martha Coakley campaign office where they’re melting down out there, and it’s an exchange between two unidentified men and unidentified female reporter and an unidentified male cameraman about the reporter’s presence in the Coakley office.
WOMAN: What does that mean?
MAN: It means we’d like a free, unbiased press.
WOMAN: And we are unbiased.
MAN: Get out of our office!
MAN: (Unintelligible) in here.
MAN: — I’ll call the police.
MAN: You do that.
MAN: And you’ll be arrested.
MAN: It’s illegal to film on private property —
MAN: We could have you arrested.
MAN: Freaking paparazzi.
MAN: Away from the door. This is private property.
WOMAN: We’re on the city sidewalk.
MAN: Public sidewalk.
MAN: I’m going to call the police if she continues to film me on private property in violation of my rights, my civil rights.
MAN: Hi. How are you?
MAN: Which we still have in spite of Nazis like you.
RUSH: That’s Coakley campaign workers calling reporters filming them, videotaping them, Nazis. Paparazzi. Melting down out there in the Coakley campaign. I’m not sure when this is. I just got the link today but I don’t know when it actually happened, I think today in Massachusetts. Now, this afternoon, Washington, the White House daily press brief with the brilliant Robert Gibbs. Jake Tapper: ‘Does the president think that the fact that it’s so close is any reflection at all on him or his agenda or his governing style?’
GIBBS: I think there is obviously — and this isn’t something that’s known simply because there’s an election in one state — I think there’s a tremendous amount of upset and anger in this country about where we are economically. That’s not a surprise to us in this administration because, Jake, in many ways we’re here because of that upset and anger. That upset and anger, quite frankly, dates much farther back than simply the 2008 election. We have seen an economic downturn and collapse that we haven’t seen since the 19 — the late 1920s and the early 1930s. It’s — I think that is going to be the source of, rightfully so, a lot of frustration.
RUSH: Okay, so there’s Gibbs saying the anger in Massachusetts is anger at Bush. Now, they’re in denial. Or else he knows he’s lying and spinning the press. The anger is at Obama. The anger is at health care reform and all of the spending. The anger is there are no jobs. The anger is that Obama is doing nothing to create jobs, only destroy them. That’s what they’re mad about, Gibbs. I’m not sure that they actually know that. Their arrogance and ego may prevent them from delving into reality.
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RUSH: From the ABC News Boston affiliate WCVB: ‘Secretary of State William Galvin said he will not delay the swearing-in process if Republican Scott Brown is elected to fill the Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy, but would only announce an unofficial winner if the results are decisive.’ He will only announce an unofficial winner to Congress before the results get certified if the outcome is decisive. So if it’s close, all absentee ballots will be counted which could take up to ten days.