RUSH: Tim in Dayton, Ohio. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Pleasure to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you el mucho.
CALLER: In my mind, unemployment is the largest issue in our country right now, and I’m curious to know why you don’t think Romney is the best candidate in the Republican field to make the biggest impact on that.
RUSH: Uh, it’s about conservatism for me, and I think that anybody who thinks the government has a plan for job creation… The objections I have to Romney are not related to what he might or might not do in job creation. It’s the health care problem that he’s got and he continues to defend such things as the mandate and all that. We’ve got a serious problem. I think the great solution here, the magic — there is magic awaiting this country — is conservatism, and I just wish and hope that we have a nominee who’s not afraid to be, be pushed in that direction, because I think it’s the solution. It’s not anything personal with Romney or any of these other people. I’m an ideas guy.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: I think conservatism can win. See, when I hear people say —
CALLER: Yeah, but who’s gonna be the candidate that can best foster job creation of the people you see up there on the stage?
RUSH: Well, any of them, compared to Obama.
CALLER: Well, yeah, that’s obvious.
RUSH: Well, no. That’s not insignificant.
CALLER: No, it isn’t.
RUSH: ‘Cause that’s gonna be the choice. At the end of all this it’s gonna be one of these people versus Obama, and any one of these people is so much more qualified, so much more worth it, so much more valuable. It’s not even a contest. Santorum, Bachmann, I love ’em all, and I think this debate last night, by the way — I have not given a top-to-bottom review here. But this debate, in part, reminded me of the first one, and you remember I loved the first one ’cause it was conservatism on display from candidate to candidate to candidate, and all these people are now filling identification roles. Like Newt is Mr. Substantive, and he’s keeping the media in line and he’s getting cheers. He’s creeping up.
I mean, you put Newt Gingrich in a debate with Barack Obama, what do you think is going to happen? Remember the song in the sixties called Wipeout? Now, some of you fear that Perry would pale in a debate, or that — uh, who else? — you think Palin would do well in a debate, and you think, “I don’t want anybody that’s gonna embarrass me by sounding stupid. So let’s put somebody up there as a nominee that can win a debate.” That’s a trap. But I just think any of these people, at the end of the day, as president of the United States, would do instinctively more to create jobs than Obama could do on his best day to destroy ’em.