If the Election Were Held Today Obama Would be a Landslide Loser

RUSH: Brit Hume, I think it was yesterday on Fox, joined me — so now there are two voices that I know of who are using common sense and intelligence guided by experience who say if the election were held today, Obama would lose in a landslide. He would lose and he would lose bad, and yet our old buddy Walter Williams has got this piece floating around the Internet how Obama’s reelection’s automatic, it’s already done. (interruption) Are you kidding me? Walter Williams did not write that? I cannot tell you how relieved I am to know that. Somebody stole Walter Williams’ identity? They ran a syndicated column under his name and it wasn’t he who wrote it? Well, hallelujah.

Well, anyway, we had a story last week from Larry Sabato, political scientist, University of Virginia at the Sabato Center, and he had analyzed as a political scientist all this data, and he concluded, “Yeah, if the election is held today, there’s not much the Republicans can do.” Of course he left many caveats available, but how can the November elections turn out the way they did and Obama win reelection if it were held today six months later? Would somebody explain to me how that works? “Well, Rush, the way it goes is you gotta look at electoral votes. You gotta look at the Electoral College. You gotta look at states and leaning and all this.” No, no. Elections are about things that matter. Elections have consequences and they are about issues. This notion that Obama is a shoe-in or that his reelection is easy, folks, that is one of the biggest scams that they’re trying to perpetrate on us yet.

We’re approaching five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline. We’ve got a lot of people’s homes worthless or at least underwater. We’ve got no relief on the job front. There’s not one positive thing happening. We got a guy in the White House who’s urging people and telling people how to downsize their lives and their expectations, and we’re told that this is the recipe for reelection victory. I’m sorry. But I just don’t buy this. I think Obama is a landslide loser if the election’s today, big time landslide loser. You know, I don’t understand. Well, I take that back. I do understand. Fear can cause a lot of common sense to get clouded. Fear can overcome common sense and basic understanding. But there’s nothing in the history of American politics that suggests that what’s happening here are resume enhancers. You know, a traditional question, are you better off now than you were two and a half years ago when Obama took office? No matter what question you ask, we are worse off. The country’s worse off, a majority of our people are worse off.

We got stories like I led with today, IMF, the American era, over. Sorry, that ain’t gonna happen on my watch and a president worth his salt would not let that happen on his watch. We got a president engineering it. And don’t for a moment believe the American people don’t see that. They do. Otherwise November would not have happened. Otherwise Wisconsin would not have happened in November. I don’t care, recount reshmount, the fact is that Supreme Court election, the Democrats lost it by 7,000 votes in a huge commie lib state.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, the Walter Williams’s e-mail proclaiming Barack Obama’s reelection as essentially a done deal and impossible to stop was a New Year’s Day hoax. Some are claiming that it was orchestrated by MoveOn.org. Nobody knows for sure, but it definitely was a hoax, presumably an April Fool’s article. A lot of people were affected by it. You know, Walter Williams is an occasional guest host here, and I was overrun by e-mails from people who wrote, “Oh, Rush, say it isn’t so! Walter Williams says Obama can’t be stopped!” They’re hoaxing this.

Folks, everything they do is a hoax. That’s not an exaggeration.

Global warming? It’s a hoax. Man destroying the climate and the environment? It’s a hoax — or a fraud, one of the two. So now they’ve gotta rely on a hoax to try to dispirit you into thinking Obama can’t be beat? Folks, he is politically dead meat if the election is today, and they know it in the White House. If he’s such a shoo-in, why in the hell do they run around trying to raise a billion dollars to spend on his reelection? Well, one reason is (I think) to keep Democrat challengers out of the race — and don’t doubt me on this.

I’ll bet you that in the deep, dark crevices of the secret hiding places of liberalism, there are a bunch of people toying with the idea of running against Obama. He’s destroying the Democrat Party along with the country! It’s right front of our faces. We don’t want to say it because, “Nah, nothing could destroy the Democrat Party. Nothing could destroy liberalism.” They are destroying themselves! Take a look around the world. Show for me a liberal triumph in a real sense where it gets sustained by virtue of happiness, love, joy, and contentment. The only way liberalism, socialism, communism is sustained is at the point of a gun.

I find it interesting: We are in one of the worst economic periods in this nation’s history, and there are people who think the president’s an automatic shoo-in for reelection! Gas prices are shooting up. Look, the left is paranoid about this. Audio sound bite number four, Jacob Tapper, Good Morning America today. He’s talking to George Stephanopoulos, and this is Jake Tapper in crisis because gas prices are a crisis — and why are gas prices a crisis? ‘Cause they are hurting President Obama. Stephanopoulos says, “These gas prices, they’re also knocking down Obama’s poll numbers, which is why he’s out there really every day addressing the problem.”

TAPPER: Right now gas prices are weighing heavily on people. They could be a roadblock to his reelection. When President Obama was sworn in, gas averaged $1.84 a gallon. Today, it’s $3.86 — 71% of Americans say the rising price of gasoline is causing them financial hardship. President Obama says there’s no quick fix. After all, what CAN a president do? Four-in-ten Americans say gas prices are causing them a serious economic hardship, and those Americans are much more apt to say they won’t even consider voting for President Obama’s reelection.

RUSH: Let me tell you something, folks: Gasoline prices are now affecting people’s behavior. When you start having to make decisions regarding, “Should I stay or should I go?” and then the decision more often than not is, “I should stay” (snorts), that’s not going to redound well to the president. And, hey, Jake, it’s nice to know that presidents can’t do anything about it now. That was not the fact back in 2005 and 2006, was it? No! Remember John Kerry during the campaign of 2004? Do you remember what Lurch said he’d do? What did he say he would do?

He said he’d go over there to Saudi Arabia and he’s “jawbone” those guys. He’d go over there and he’d give ’em what-for! John Kerry (who served in Vietnam and threw his fake medals over the White House fence) would go over there and he’d give ’em holy hell! Yeah, in fact, he almost accused Bush of having a sweetheart deal with the Saudis to keep the price up — or down, or whatever it was — to benefit Bush. Oh yeah! But now, now you say, “Eh, there’s nothing a president can do, damn it! Oh, gosh, this is gonna hurt his reelection! Damn it, George, what can do?”

(sigh) “I don’t know. We’ve gotta find a way to blame it on Palin, maybe Bush,” which is what they’re doing. Look at the record number of people running out of gasoline. They are afraid to pull in and fill up! They’re coaxing mileage that they don’t have. The price they pay for a tank of gas has more than doubled since Obama was immaculated. You heard Jacob Tapper here: $1.84 to $3.86. That’s more than doubled. The prices that gasoline stations display on their signs are free ads for Republicans. It’s free advertising for Republicans! I want to know where $4.09 a gallon says, “Reelect Obama.”

Where does it say that? Where does $4.10 say, “Obama’s a shoe-in!” It doesn’t. It says, “Vote Republican!” That’s what our buddy Jacob Tapper knows; that’s what they all know at the regime. When you’re used to paying 30 bucks for a fill-up and now it’s $65, that’s “hope and change” thrown right back in Obama’s face. When you’re used to paying $50 and now it’s over $100 to fill up, that’s having “the judgment to lead” thrown back in your face. Folks, I’m telling you: Forget the media spin and the burying of hardship stories about Americans who can’t afford to get to work or school. Don’t worry that the media’s not covering this.

They’re starting to now. They can’t ignore it. Every minute of every day, along American roads and highways, are signs reminding them that elections have consequences — and those signs right now are the gas price per gallon that you see as you head down the highway on the roads. Obama’s election will be reevaluated several times a day by drivers who don’t normally think about such things so far before an election. Those signs — $3.86 a gallon, $4.09 a gallon — $5 a gallon nation’s capital — equal the cost of living in Obamaville, and now they are at the top of everybody’s mind. Every time an American decides not to drive somewhere due to the price of gasoline, that’s Obamaville. Oh, they can try to blame it on Bush all they want, but it isn’t gonna fly.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Don’t forget, folks, the gasoline price is the one data point that the government cannot fudge. The Commerce Department can’t fudge it. The Labor Department can’t do anything about it. They can’t tweak it. They can’t tell you it isn’t what it is. They can’t say there is no inflation. I mean they can do that, but they can’t tell you the gas price isn’t what it is when that’s what you’re paying for it.

Reality bites sometimes.

CNN Money: “Drill Baby Drill Won’t Lower Gas Prices.” That’s the theme of the story, “Every time gas prices reach record highs the call goes out for more oil drilling. This year it’s no different. ‘The Gulf is ready to get back to work to help create jobs and lower gasoline prices,’ Washington Republican Doc Hastings… said last week,” but the drilling, nah, it won’t work! It just won’t work. Yeah, of course, drilling now is not gonna have any effect on tomorrow’s oil supply, but let’s go back: How many years have we been suggesting, “Hey, let’s start drilling; let’s expand our drilling”? It’s easily 15 or 20 years.

If we had started drilling 15 or 20 years ago “drill, baby, drill” would have been an impact, would have made an impact by now. It is intellectual dishonesty for the left to continue to say, “Drill, baby, drill” won’t work. It would be no different than saying, “Let’s go to the moon! Oh, we can’t get there tomorrow? Okay, we’re not going. Oh, okay, fine! JFK called for a plan to get to the moon, but we can’t get there tomorrow. Go to the moon? That’s silly!” Of course it’s gonna take some time to get the supply, but what’s the point? How many decades have we had to listen to elected leaders tell us we need to end our dependence on foreign oil. Do you think we mighta made a dent on it in the last 15 years of we woulda started drilling, baby, drilling?

I’ll tell you what else would happen. There are a lot of ancillaries to drilling, and one of them is jobs. Okay, so let’s say we start a policy of opening up drilling in the Gulf and in Alaska, and we do it tomorrow. Now, admittedly it’s gonna be a while before any oil is produced that will have an impact on world supplies, but think of the impact that it will make on attitude. Think of the impact it’ll make on positive attitude, plus the jobs that will be created. It’s a win-win! But no, we can’t do it. It’s gonna lead to pollution and it’s gonna delay our arrival at the clean energy objective that the president has.

And there is no clean energy alternative that replaces any energy supply or use that we have now. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the left say, “More oil will not lower prices” (and I hear this constantly), I have the same reaction I do when I hear Obama’s a shoo-in for reelection. Really? He’s a shoo-in right now? It’s just the exact opposite. Obama would lose in a landslide if the election were today, and everybody on the left knows it, which is why they’re concocting this image — this ruse, this perception — that his election is a lock; his reelection’s a foregone conclusion. If drilling for oil will not lower oil prices, if more oil will not lower oil prices, would somebody explain to me how “green energy” that is decades away will lower our energy costs?

I need this explained to me. More oil will not reduce the price of gas, more oil will not expand our domestic supply, but investing in “green energy” that has no payoff for 30 years will somehow lower our energy costs. It is absurd. Five years ago, folks — five years ago, I think it was — the Democrats fought the expansion of offshore drilling because “it would take five to ten years to see results.” Now they’re fighting it saying we need to invest in solar and wind which will take decades to even put a dent in our energy needs, if it ever will. And we’re told, “The price of oil has nothing to do with supply and demand, Mr. Limbaugh!”

Oh, really, Mr. New Castrati?

“That’s right! The price of oil has nothing to do with supply and demand. The price of oil is totally dependent on the attitudes of those greedy, selfish speculators.”

Ohhhh. Well if that’s true, Mr. New Castrati, how is it that our drilling for oil wouldn’t put the fear of the Lord into the speculators? How long did it take for Reagan’s announcement that we were going to start drilling to drive down prices back in the early 1980s? How long did it take for Reagan’s talk of lower taxes to start spurring a rebounding attitude in this country of greatness, exceptionalism, positive thinking? When Reagan announced that we were gonna start drilling for oil to drive down prices back in the early eighties, the Carter oil crisis was over overnight. Yeah, we had a couple of contrived shortages during the eighties, but they were contrived. They were not actual shortages of supply.

Here’s Brit Hume, by the way. This is yesterday on Fox News Sunday. It’s an overused cliche but this really was a breath of fresh air because I’m sitting here literally pulling out what little hair I’ve got left, as I listen to the conventional wisdom say, “Obama’s a lock. His reelection is a lock. He’s a shoo-in, and here are the reasons why: Big business is in total support. If you look at the Electoral College here, if you look at leaning versus committed in these states — red versus blue, yellow versus brown — he’s a lock.” I said, “If Obama’s a lock for reelection, how the hell did November happen, and what has happened since November to make things so much better to cancel the elections in November?”

Nothing. It’s gotten worse! So here’s Brit Hume. This is during the roundtable discussion when Chris Wallace was talking to him about the economy. Wallace said, “When Obama was sworn in a gallon of gas was a buck eighty-four; now it’s $3.85. That’s over a 108% increase. A New York Times poll this week showed how much this is hurting [Pharaoh] Obama: 70% now think the country’s on the wrong track. Fifty-seven percent now disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy. Brit, those are the most negative numbers since a couple of months since Obama took office during the very depth, the low point of the recession. What does all this mean?”

HUME: People’s feelings about the economy — despite declining unemployment, despite the fact that there is now steady growth — have not improved, and when the conventional wisdom in Washington settled as it seemed to recently on the idea the President is a sure bet for reelection, I think it’s upside down. If the election were held today, in my view, Barack Obama would lose.

RUSH: Right!

HUME: He might lose big. Obviously, he’s got some time.

RUSH: Yeah.

HUME: Events change.

JUAN WILLIAMS: Who’s he gonna lose to?

HUME: He would lose to any reasonable nominee from the Republican Party. The Republican Party might be able to lose this election if they nominated some extremely colorful, freakish candidate.

RUSH: “Might be able to lose if they nominate some extremely colorful, freaky candidate.” I think he’s talking about Trump there. That would just be my guess. But you heard Juan Williams. See, even while this is going on, I’m watching Fox earlier today, and the guru of polling and projections and election results Charlie Cook was not talking about how poorly Obama’s doing. He was not talking about the New York Times poll showing 70% think the country is headed in the wrong direction.

No, no, no! They were talking about how disappointing, empty, vacant and all the that the Republican field is. While in a vacuum, in a static sense that’s true (there isn’t a whole lot out there to excite us) the fact of the matter is that there was a single Republican figurehead leader in the November elections, either. Those elections were, we all know, votes cast against Obama and the Democrats — purely based on the fact that it was largely independents who didn’t like what they were seeing. Anything would be better, and that’s largely going to survive all the way through 2012.

It’s a year and a half. There’s not much that could be done to turn this around. They can lie about inflation, they can make things up about unemployment numbers and so forth, but they can’t lie about the gas price, and they can’t lie about food prices, and they can’t change the reality of people’s costs of living. They can tell people that it isn’t that expensive but people aren’t gonna believe it. So, now you have two people going against the conventional wisdom that Obama’s a shoo-in: Me and Brit Hume. By the way, it was Juan Williams there who wanted to know who Obama was gonna lose to in the Brit Hume sound bite.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: In support of the notion Obama is not a guaranteed lock to win, Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal last Thursday: “Obama’s Likability Gap.” The fact of the matter is we don’t really need to get all that many votes to win. The percentages here are very narrow. Henninger says, “That historic 2008 victory came with 52.9% of the total vote and 52% of independent voters. David Axelrod recently noted “how small the margin for error is,” on the Obama side. Now, Henninger points out that presidential personality is important, and it’s “well inside the margin of error for 2012, but the one on display recently has not been attractive. And it’s happening a lot,” meaning there is a huge likability gap. The Obama running around the country now is not the same Messiah who was running around in 2007-2008, and he can’t be ever again. The bloom’s off that rose. Can’t go back and re-create 2008, cannot erase from people’s memories the last two and a half years. He’s got a record and it’s a dismal one, and it’s gonna get even more dismal by the time the official reelection campaign and election comes up. We’ll just keep a sharp eye.

Saratoga Springs in New York. Brian, I’m glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Hopefully this call will pump you up. First of all, you’re absolutely right. I agree, Obama is gonna lose in a landslide.

RUSH: Well, he would lose in a landslide if the election were today.

CALLER: Correct.

RUSH: We don’t know what’s gonna happen, but it’s simply delusional to say that he’s got it locked up today.

CALLER: Absolutely. No, he will lose and getting back to what you said, we have a great educational moment coming up in the presidential election, because I’m pumped, and my family’s pumped, and friends, because it’s an educational moment because we’ve got a few particular candidates, Rush, who are gonna educate the American worker and the American people about how great we are, and also I think they’re gonna educate the Republican establishment.

RUSH: Well, you know, the Republican establishment is going to be every bit the obstacle here, depending on who the nominee is, as will be the Democrat establishment pretty much. If we have a genuinely conservative nominee, which we need, the Republican establishment is gonna fight that person throughout the nomination process.

CALLER: You are absolutely correct.

RUSH: But I think the real education’s already taken place. Every time you go buy gas, five bucks a gallon, $4.80. Nobody needs to explain a thing. You don’t have to go to class. You don’t have to listen to a lecture. All you have to do is see four bucks a gallon, $4.25, whatever it is, and then turn on the TV and listen to Obama tell you you should be thankful for that ’cause we’re gonna make it worse. There’s nothing we can do. Oh, yeah? Well, the American people still, I firmly believe a majority, do not respond favorably to, “Hey, this is the best we can do.” The best education system is reality and it’s happening right before people’s very eyes. And it’s going to continue to happen because a sour economy is the objective to this administration, this regime. This is precisely what they want.

Don’t forget how we opened the program today, folks. The very first thing that we started with today: “The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell. For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the ‘Age of America’ will end and the US economy will be overtaken by that of China.” This is the era of America’s decline, and it is being shepherded as a decline purposefully by Pharaoh Obama. It’s time we learned what it’s like. It’s time we got paid back for all this wealth we’ve stolen from the poor all over the world since our founding. He’s happy to see this.

END TRANSCRIPT

*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.