RUSH: No Labels. I first heard of this from some friends last week or the week before, and it is a bunch of people who just can’t seem to find a home either on the left or on the right. That’s who it 
really is, but there’s another aspect to this, too, because here are the founders. No Labels, and it is what it sounds like. It’s a bunch of people who don’t want to be called conservative, who don’t want to be called liberal. It’s basically a bunch of gutless wonders among the true believers. Not the founders. The founders have a different game going here. But the true believers are going, ‘Yeah, yeah, count me in, count me in.’ It’s a bunch of wusses, like on our side, the Frums, et al. who just can’t find a home on the conservative right, they’ve been drummed out of it or they’ve drummed themselves out of it. You know, the people who said the era of Reagan is over. The people that said conservatism’s going to have to recognize here the people want a welfare state. Conservatism’s going to have to realize that people want a big government. They want an active executive. They just want it done smarter. People who are advising the Republican Party to go that way, to come back from the shellacking they got in 2008. And you can see how right they were.
What was it that propelled the Republicans to victory in 2008? It wasn’t the Republicans. It wasn’t one position they took. What propelled them was they weren’t Democrats. What was it about what Democrats were doing that propelled the Republicans to victory? Spending, indebtedness, growing government, active executive, all of the stuff that the brains and the intelligencia on our side said the American people wanted got shellacked. Now, of course, they are rewriting history, ‘No, we weren’t talking about that kind of stuff.’ On the left you have really not hard core leftists. You have people who want to be perceived as moderates, and the No Labels crowd is made up of a bunch of people who think they are the smartest people around, smartest people in the room, they’re too intelligent and diverse, too erudite and sophisticated to be categorized by something as confining and insulting as a label, like conservative or right-wing, liberal or left-wing.
No, these people are far, far more intelligent, far, far more open-minded, far, far more sophisticated. These are the people who told us on our side the era of Reagan is over, that we need a new kind of conservatism, that it must adapt to a world where the people want higher taxes if it means a smarter government, an active, engaged executive. The American people want essentially a form of a welfare state. These people say, ‘It’s not that we do. It’s just that we recognize what the people want by virtue of the way they voted. We see what the people want.’ If the Republicans have any hope of winning, they’ve got to forget this Reagan fixation they’ve got, right? So we have the election of 2008 and who was it essentially that, independents, the precious independents and everybody else said they wanted more of? Reagan. What was it they said they wanted less of? Bigger government, welfare state, active, engaged, smart executive, i.e., president. So as far as I’m concerned, they have been totally discredited, and they know it. And they have their counterparts on the left.
So miraculously this group called No Labels has sprung up. Guys like Joe Scarborough are all for it. Joe, he’s at MSNBC. It doesn’t help him to be thought of as a Reagan conservative. And you got all these other people on the left, people like Bloomberg love the idea of No Labels. But here are the founders and as always, folks, as usual, if you follow the money, not the true believers, if you follow the money, you will find the answers to most of your questions. No Labels, founded by Nancy Jacobson who is a Democrat activist, married to Mark Penn, Democrat pollster. The Republican in charge of No Labels is Mark McKinnon, a Democrat. He’s the guy who dropped out of the McCain campaign because he couldn’t bring himself to be critical of the first black presidential candidate, Obama. McKinnon was George W. Bush’s ad guy. He was McCain’s ad guy until they started criticizing Obama. Then McKinnon quit. Before Bush, McKinnon never worked for the Republicans, but he had worked alongside the forehead, Paul Begala, for a lot of Democrats. So you had Mark McKinnon, Nancy Jacobson, oh, and I left out Kiki McLean. I think her maiden name was Kiki Moore, I’m not sure. But they’re all Democrats. The founders of No Labels are all Democrats, and our guys on the right are making tracks to join up. No Labels.
Now, what is this? Well, let’s take a look at who these people are. Mark McKinnon, Kiki McLean, Nancy Jacobson. I’ll tell you what this is about. It is about money. These are political consultants. They need candidates. They need candidates running for office for whom they can take whatever the consultant gets, 5%, 10%, what have you. All three founders of No Labels are Democrats. They would love for Bloomberg to run for president. Why? Because he is a billionaire. Get him to run as an independent, maybe even third party. You know, sucker him into an independent run where they get the money, win or lose. Whether he wins or loses doesn’t matter. They get the money. And he would lose. But there are always, as a friend of mine says, there are always political operatives who will tell a billionaire what he wants to hear, and we know that Bloomberg wants to run. He just says he’s not. He says he doesn’t want to, but we know he does want to.
‘A who’s-who of centrist and independent politicians — including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Gov. Charlie Crist and Reps. Mike Castle and Bob Inglis — will gather in New York City this morning for the launch of No Labels, a new non-profit group aimed at promoting cooperation across party lines. In a four-minute video prepared for today’s launch, a collection of the group’s founding leaders call for politicians to move beyond partisanship and focus on solutions.’ Notice how this comes on the heels of a Democrat shellacking. Notice how three Democrat campaign consultants form a group called No Labels to forget politics, to find solutions, and move beyond partisanship. Well, it’s natural that a bunch of losing Democrats would want to get rid of the loser moniker and sucker a bunch of smarter than they think they are Republican conservatives to join them under the same auspices.
”If we take away the labels, I think we’ll realize the folks who are in the center of the Democratic Party, the folks who are in the center of the Republican Party, probably agree with each other more than they do with the extremes of their own party,’ John Avlon, the former Rudy Giuliani adviser and centrist political strategist, says in the video. Lisa Borders, the Atlanta politician who heads the Grady Health Foundation, argues: ‘We need to find a new space where people can feel comfortable to actually just get the work done.”
Now, as I say, you’re going to find a number of so-called Republicans, former conservatives joining the group here. Snerdley just said, ‘What work are they talking about getting done?’ The end to partisanship; the end of bickering. These are people who are convinced that’s what the American people ultimately want is an end. If they did, Republicans would not have gotten one vote. We already had the Democrats in total power. I mean, the Democrats owned everything. If these people at No Labels were right and want to end the bickering and they love the Democrats and love what they stand for, then keep them in power. Keep them in the House. Give me more seats in the Senate, more seats in the House, make sure Obama’s there in perpetuity, but it just didn’t work out that way.
The bottom line is you have a bunch of out-of-work Democrat consultants who may not be, in truth, high up on the list of consultants that Democrats want to hire. I mean, when’s the last time one of them ever won a race? Last time McKinnon did he was working for a Republican. Kiki McLean is on Fox. Nancy Jacobson, I don’t know when I last saw her. And these are the three founders. So folks, it’s like everything else. As far as the founders are concerned, No Labels is about money, finding rich billionaires to run as third-party candidates and separate the rich billionaire from his money as consultants. And win or lose, you get paid. It doesn’t matter if he wins or loses. The money is what counts. So Bloomberg wants to run his own campaign. You go, ‘Yep, great idea, Mr. Mayor.’ Implement it, make sure he loses, take your money. The people that are signing onto this, what I call the dupes making up the rank and file of the group. Not the elected officials. I’m not talking about the Liebermans. Well, I might throw Crist, Castle, yeah, these are the dupes, but they are truly liberals, Republicans who want to be known as centrist and moderate, they’re truly liberals. So it’s a liberal group that a bunch of wayward conservative media intelligencia people are joining because they are drinking the Kool-Aid. They really think it’s about ending partisanship and rewarding smart people.
To answer your question, Snerdley, they really believe that this organization is where the truly brilliant in public policy and politics will go. It’s all about hanging around with like-minded eggheads, smartest people in the room, port and cigars in the club library. Except, can’t smoke now. It’s bad for you. So port in the club room. Yeah, you know, the wine and croissant crowd. But they think it’s all about the smartest people getting together, rising to power and owning everything. The three founders, it’s about getting back in the game and earning some money, pure and simple. That’s all it is.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Keith in North Palm Beach, Florida. Great to have you here, sir.
CALLER: Hey, good afternoon, Rush. While we were on hold, I heard you talking about the Giants. I’m a Giants fan and I have agree with you. The Meadowlands has no roof, so I don’t know what their problem is. But I wanted to make a comment about No Labels. I’m a conservative libertarian and at first I was pretty skeptical about the site now. But having been a member of it for a month, it actually goes back before the election a few months. There are a lot of Republican conservatives on there that are just tired of the hyper-polarization, the name-calling and all of that. They just want to get stuff done. So I wanted to… I don’t know if you were aware of that.
RUSH: No. Republicans tired of polarization?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I’m —
CALLER: Everyday people, you know?
RUSH: Yeah. Well, I’m aware of that. It’s not as many as you would think, but I’m aware of it. Yeah.
CALLER: Well, I mean, because I… You know, I go on there every day and I talk to a lot of people. It covers a lot of… I mean, you got Republicans on there, Democrats, conservatives, liberals. I mean, whatever you want to call them — and that’s really the point of this organization is to get rid of the labels so that we can get stuff done and work together instead of this constant, constant gridlock like… I mean, what do you think about the tax cut compromise?
RUSH: Wait. Now, are you asking me?
CALLER: Yeah, with them saying, ‘Oh, the Republicans are holding us hostage’ and all that. I mean, what do you think of that? Do you think that’s effective? Is that going to help anybody?
RUSH: Now, I’m not sure what you’re asking me. Are you asking me if the Republicans…if it’s saying the Republicans are holding us hostage is helpful? Or if you are saying that you think the Republicans are holding us hostage and that’s the problem? Which?-
CALLER: No, I’m not saying anybody. I’m not saying anything. I’m not saying Republicans won’t mention it. I’m talking about the other side making, you know, that statement, you know? I think that President Obama himself said that, right?
RUSH: Yeah, he did. He did.
CALLER: ‘Holding us hostage.’
RUSH: It is.
CALLER: And so I mean, do you really think that helps us debate at all?
RUSH: No, but it’s typical. I laugh it off. It’s something to make a joke of to me. I don’t… You know, I live in —
CALLER: (interrupting)
RUSH: (sigh)
CALLER: Sorry, go ahead.
RUSH: No, the reason I’m confused is you started out talking there are a lot of Republicans who think that there’s too much partisanship and, uh, they just want to get things done. So you agree with the No Labels bunch? That’s where I’m stuck. I’m still back there. Do you agree or disagree with No Labels?
CALLER: I agree with the premise of it, you know, that we need to put the name-calling aside.
RUSH: Yeah, but it’s not —
CALLER: You know, I’m a Tea Party activist.
RUSH: It isn’t possible! See, this is the thing: No Labels is not possible, and the fact that it was founded by three really-want-to-work-who-are-out-of-work Democrat political consultants.
CALLER: No, I understand that. But what I’m saying is the people who actually go on the site — not the organizers, not the leaders of the No Labels but the people like me who go on this site — it’s a Facebook application. So we can contact each other all throughout the country and we can form our own groups. You know what I’m saying? It’s not like… It’s not a party. It’s not a… We could do whatever we want. We can do what we want to do in our district, in our each individual congressional districts. You see what I’m saying?
RUSH: Yeah. Look, I think I do. Here’s what I know. What I know is that conservatism is named two-to-one when people ask, ‘What’s your ideological preference?’ it’s 40% conservative, 20% liberal. So naturally the No Labels crowd wants to come over and try to erase that. Whenever Democrats come up with a new strategy, it’s always to accommodate when they just got creamed. They just got creamed. It’s Democrats forming No Labels. So, of course, they want to come up with something that’s going to neuter conservatives and Republicans. They want to get rid of ‘labels’ because the brand names do not help them. Democrat and liberal are albatrosses, and they are doing it under the guise that there’s all these people in the middle who don’t like being labeled and so forth.
It’s a scam. It’s a total scam, and it exists because of two reasons: The founders want to make some money and also the Democrats are going along with it because their labels are not helpful. Democrat and liberal are losers right now. Pure and simple. That’s the only reason this is happening, and everybody else that goes for it is getting sucked in because they buy into the substance of, ‘Yes, we all would rather get things done and we can’t get things done because we are all held hostage to the far left and to the far right, and we are all in the middle and we think the solutions to problems comes with each issue. Not with an ideological litmus test. So we want to be free to have our opinion on every issue count.’
Okay. Fine. So you No Labels people, I have a tryout for you. An audition. A test. Show me, show us — all of you No Labels people — how to handle the abortion divide. Tell me how to get rid of pro-choice and pro-life. Where are you No Labels people on the abortion issue? If you can show me where you guys at No Labels can implement your belief and solve that issue, I would be most interested. I don’t think they can. I think that’s the test for this No Labels bunch. But, again, it’s a false premise. It’s not about No Labels. It’s about everything else.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This No Labels business, I’ve been thinking more and more about this. I just saw a guy talking about them and the guy said exactly what I imagined them saying: ‘For those of us in the middle who don’t really want to be held hostage to the far right or the far left but we have our solutions to issues, we want to be heard, too.’ Okay, fine. Somebody explain to me in what walk of life there are no labels. Religion? No labels? Business? No labels? Gender? No labels? What? Somebody tell me where there aren’t any labels. Go to the grocery store and get rid of the labels and then what would you have? Well, you’d have a lot less government because you wouldn’t have those phony ingredient labels on there.
How many of these people are registered with a particular political party? Most of them are, I bet, and most of them are registered Democrats. We know who they are. We know the founders are left-wing political consultants and we know that Democrat and liberal are labels that do not help political people these days. Of course they would want to get rid of them. By the same token, conservative is a good label. Naturally they would want to get rid of that. And naturally they would find some so-called pseudo smart Republicans who would agree with them on this. How many of these people belong to a particular religion, and why? Because of their belief system. Nothing wrong with labels as long as they are appropriate; as long as they are true; as long as they are properly descriptive. It’s called language.
So it is not possible. It’s impossible to have no labels. ‘Oh, it sounds wonderful, Mr. Limbaugh. It sounds right up the alley, Mr. Limbaugh. It sounds like it would be so sweet. It would end partisanship.’ No, it wouldn’t, Mr. Castrati. Here’s the bottom line. No Labels is founded by a bunch of people who don’t like the labels that do apply to them: Liberal, statist, fraud, Democrat, Marxist, what have you. They don’t like labels that appropriately describe them so they want to get rid of them. And as I say, a bunch of foolish Republicans, Conservatives, ‘Oh, yeah, sounds so sweet, so wonderful, get rid of partisanship.’ What we’re for here, ladies and gentlemen, is truth in labeling. The No Labels people want to do away with truth in labeling, which is consistent because liberals are confounded always by the truth. It’s no wonder they would form a group to get rid of the truth.