Ted in Muskegon, Michigan. Hello, sir, and it’s great to have you here on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Hi. I’ve got a question. Yesterday I was part of a phone bank with Mitt Romney. I’m really kind of troubled, and I want you to set me straight. You’ve spoken so much about Newt today, you’ve spoken so much about Trump over the last two weeks. When Mitt Romney had a sensational fundraiser, and he is conservative, this fundraiser was an unprecedented success, but you have not spent the time talking about that, and I want you to set me straight and tell me why.
CALLER: Well, then, what do you attest for that? A good conservative sweep across the country —
RUSH: You think I got some animus toward Mitt?
CALLER: You know what, I’m gonna say this. There’s something wrong here, Rush, because I listen to you faithfully, enjoy you, but what am I missing about Mitt Romney that isn’t conservative across the board? Set me straight and I’ll move on to another candidate, but I cannot see one thing about Mitt Romney that you cannot love.
RUSH: I’m not trying to talk you off another candidate.
CALLER: Fine.
RUSH: I’m not trying to talk anybody onto a candidate.
CALLER: You seem excited to talk about Trump. I don’t know if it’s because Trump is kind of a fun character to talk about —
RUSH: No.
CALLER: You talk about Palin —
RUSH: I’ll tell you why.
CALLER: Why?
RUSH: Trump is the only guy on our side taking it to Obama. Trump’s the only guy acting unafraid of Obama. Trump’s the only guy willing to tell the truth about what this Obama regime is all about. Everybody else on our side, everybody’s scared to death of being called a racist, or they’re scared to death of being criticized by the media or what have you.
CALLER: Do you like Mitt?
RUSH: Yes!
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I know Mitt. Mitt came to my 20th anniversary party. I sat next to him for a while at the dinner at my 20th anniversary party. Mitt’s been to my house.
CALLER: I’m almost concerned that because you don’t talk about him enough that there’s something that you know about him that we do not.
RUSH: No!
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Not a thing. I just think he’s gonna have problems with Romneycare.
CALLER: Okay. Well, then that’s all I need to hear, Rush. Thank you. I’m glad you’re a guy that likes Mitt.
RUSH: I have not made a choice here. And, by the way, I think I’m on record as saying I didn’t think Trump was gonna run from the get-go as well, but that I still thought he had value as showing the way.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, let’s go get the Democrat media point of view on the Republican presidential nomination. Last night CNN’s In the Arena hosted by Eliot Spitzer. The IMF guy in jail is on the bench for that show. I mean, CNN’s got the perfect guest host for when Spitzer can’t get there: Dominique Strauss-Kahn. They David “Rodham” Gergen on to discuss the Republican presidential field, and Client No. 9 said, “First Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan. Intensely unpopular; and now Gingrich and Romney have said conflicting things about Obamacare, Romneycare. Is the Republican Party flubbing on an issue they thought would be their path to victory?”
RUSH: Trump was never really in, so I throw that out. Huckabee? If you remember — I don’t know about this — Huckabee steered the nomination from Romney to McCain. It all started in West Virginia in their strange primary there. After the first ballot, nobody had enough to win. So the Huckabee crowd was thrown to McCain, and that took Newt out. Then they got down here to Florida, and they arranged with Charlie Crist to endorse McCain, and that was it for Romney. But nevertheless, Gergen says that there’s a commonality here between Huckabee supporters and Romney; now that there’s no Huckabee to support, that those supporters are all gonna go to Mitt. And he continued with this…
GERGEN: If Mitch Daniels gets in from Indiana, and Governor Huntsman from Utah gets in, that could really begin to, uh, build a serious national conversation around jobs and around government spending that we haven’t yet had among the candidates. I actually think it might strengthen the whole Republican sense of gravitas.
RUSH: Right. Mitch Daniels and Huntsman will add weight. Right now, everybody else in this race is kinda lightweights. But this is the conventional inside-the-Beltway thinking that Mitch Daniels… Remember we had stories last week: “The Obama regime, they’re really worried about Daniels. Gosh, that’s the person giving the biggest problem, would be Mitch Daniels.” Last night on Hannity, spoke with Dick Morris, Hannity said, “We have some exciting stuff here, the big news is that Trump and Huckabee are out. How does that impact the field?”
MORRIS: My polling showed Romney at 22, Huckabee at 20, Trump at 15, and Gingrich at 11. So the second and the third candidates pulling out is a big deal, and obviously the big winner is Romney.
RUSH: And Morris then continued…
MORRIS: I think the person that really could shape up this field right now is Michele Bachmann. The evangelicals and the Tea Party people are 70% the same people. With Huckabee out of the race and Palin perhaps not running, Bachmann really has the capacity to roll up a lot of that vote.
RUSH: It’s interesting. We’ll see. It could become some conventional wisdom.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I would add, Dick Morris left out a name here when you start talking about appealing to the evangelical crowd, and that would be Rick Santorum. You know, don’t discount Santorum. He had a very great showing in the first Republican presidential debate couple weeks ago, or last week.
END TRANSCRIPT
*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.