RUSH: We have been told throughout this process by the media, by the conservative media, by anybody that is considered to be part of the establishment, that Perry, Bachmann, Cain, Newt, Mitt, Santorum, can’t win. We have been told over and over and over again, if Perry, Bachmann, Cain, Newt, Mitt, Santorum get the nomination, then Obama automatically wins. We have been hearing and reading this for months. Members of both party establishments say it, that the only Republican who has a prayer of beating Obama is Romney. My friends, I am here to tell you I simply don’t subscribe. It has become conventional wisdom. And you know me and conventional wisdom. When conventional wisdom forms, I go the other way. Conventional wisdom is groupthink. In other words, the Democrats, the Drive-Bys, Republican “insiders” will not admit that anybody can beat Obama.
Do you believe this to be true? Do you believe that there is only one candidate who can beat Obama? I submit to you that, if that’s what everybody thought, Mitt would be in the 70 percents. He’d certainly be above 30. But he can’t get above 30 in a Republican primary poll, outside of New Hampshire. However, in poll after poll, anecdotal story after anecdotal story, and with news now that Obama’s approval numbers are lower than Carter’s, Obama’s approval numbers are lower than Lyndon Johnson’s before LBJ stepped down. We can clearly see that Obama is in trouble.
Honest Democrat — the three or four that you can find — will also admit it, from Pat Caddell, to Doug Schoen, to this guy that we read whose story in the New Republic yesterday, it was William Galston, who did an analysis of demographics, and there’s only one group, only one demographic group where Obama leads and that’s blacks. With young people 18 to 49, Hispanics he’s under 50% everywhere, and we’re told that there’s only one guy? Sorry, this is nothing against Romney. Again, I haven’t endorsed anybody. I’m just commenting on intraparty cannibalism here, but intraparty cannibalism against everybody but Romney does not equal a nomination.
Now, there’s a story in the UK Independent today. I have that story. I was shocked when I read this, because this has not been reported in the domestic US media. In fact, just the opposite is reported in the domestic media. Here’s the headline: “Clooney, Hanks, Spielberg — the stars feted him in 2008. Now the President finds his friends out of the picture. He was young, good looking, and photogenic. He swept to power against heavy odds on the back of a heart-warming, hopey-changey message, completing a rags-to-riches journey that might have come straight out of a blockbuster movie. It isn’t hard to see why Barack Obama’s election in 2008 was the toast of Hollywood. Five-figure checks poured into his coffers bearing such blue-chip names as Hanks, Clooney, and Spielberg. By this stage in the last election cycle, the entertainment industry’s hearts, minds and wallets were already won.
“Four years later? Not so much. When they enter the polling booths, the stars and the power brokers who run this town will still put their crosses against his name. But the sense of warm, fuzzy optimism that characterised his last election has more or less vanished. Nowhere was the disillusionment more keenly felt than at the Beverly Wilshire hotel last night, as liberal Hollywood gathered for an exercise in champagne socialism.”
It was Norman Lear’s group, People for the American Way, their 30th anniversary, they had their giant big bash at the Beverly Wilshire.
“People for the American Way (PFAW) — perhaps the most influential advocacy organisation in the US — planned to celebrate its 30th birthday in style, with the cost of a table at between £3,200 and £64,000.” I didn’t bother to convert it to dollars. But it’s a hundred grand there for the big table. “The host was Alec Baldwin and the list of patrons, organisers and supporters on the invitation included everyone from J J Abrams, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jon Hamm and Martin Sheen to Barbra Streisand, Kathleen Turner, Larry Flynt and Jamie Lee Curtis.
“Among these pillars of the entertainment industry’s liberal establishment, there is palpable frustration with the President; he has failed to deliver on almost all their pet issues, from gay marriage and climate change to human rights and social justice. In fact, … Norman Lear, an influential producer, last week responded with anger in an interview as Obama’s name was mentioned. ‘He can’t make up his mind about anything,’ Mr Lear said. ‘He just vacillates. Like Democrats do generally.'” Now, I know, these people are still gonna vote for him, as the story says. The excitement’s gone. This is not 2008. All I ask you to do, folks, if you’re asking me… Well, as it turns out, Angela was not asking me who she should trust. She was telling me she doesn’t trust me. (interruption)
Well, that’s the same thing, Snerdley, when she says she’s wondering if I’m confused. I’m just gonna tell you, I don’t believe that there’s only one Republican that can beat Barack Obama. I would say this if the house money were on Newt. I would say this if the House money were on Bachmann. If the establishment were telling us that there’s only one Republican that can beat Obama, I’d have the same skepticism. Now, I’m also burdened (sigh), ladies and gentlemen, with a blistering intelligence and common sense. Common sense has taught me to reject conventional wisdom. Common sense has taught me to spot and identify the desires and objectives of establishment political party people on both sides of the aisle.
And their objectives are status quo: Big government, government the center of the universities, government the center of the world, government the center of life. They have a universal distrust of conservative voters and conservative candidates, because conservative candidates don’t favor the status quo — and so anybody who threatens the status quo must be stopped, in either party; and when I see that it’s people who are easily identified (even with doubts) as conservatives? When I see they are the targets of the effort to disqualify them, and I see one candidate is not the target of any attack by anybody, from anywhere? Sorry, red flags go up, because it defies common sense. We’re dealing with one of the most unpopular presidents in history. That’s the truth.
We’re also dealing with one of the cagiest and most corrupt, and we are facing a campaign that is going to be dispiritingly, depressingly negative. There is no doubt about it. If you’re depressed now, the way you’re going to be in nine months? (scoffs) I hesitate to ponder it. It’s going to be brutal, because everybody knows — on both sides in the establishment, everybody knows — that the candidate-of-big government status quo is an utter disaster and it must be protected. The status quo must be protected by people who derive their power from it. The thing you have to understand, Angela, is there is not a conservative movement in the media. Fox News is not part of a conservative movement. This is not a criticism of my Fox News. It just isn’t. It’s a media company and organization.
The American people will beat the establishment nine out of ten times. The American people will defeat Barack Obama. The American people and the United States economy, which are one and the same, are going to beat Barack Obama. I, frankly — and I’ve said this over and over again. I, frankly, don’t think it’s gonna matter all that much who the nominee is. I’m at terrific odds, of course, with the establishment here. But I think it’s a referendum on Obama, and I think if the establishment on our side had any brains they would make it a referendum on Obama instead of a referendum on who our people are and what their supposed weaknesses are. I would relish it just for a couple days. Our establishment could tell us the truth about Obama the way they’re so intent on giving us all the flaws of people on our side. You ever wonder why they don’t?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: There hasn’t even been a vote cast! Not one vote has been cast, and we’re told that 99% of our potential nominees can’t win? Latest Gallup poll: “Newt Gingrich leads Mitt Romney 37 to 22% in Gallup’s inaugural daily tracking of Republican registered voter preferences for the GOP presidential nomination.” This is a national poll — and once again, it’s another poll where Romney maxes out at 22, 25. He tops out at 30% on every poll since the beginning of all this. But Gingrich is at 37. Now, coincidentally Mitt is going on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this Sunday.
He hasn’t been on any Sunday shows. Did you know that? Why should he have? When you’re the presumed nominee, everybody’s got you in the bag. (interruption) That’s right. The Bret Baier interview. Well, Romney didn’t like the Bret Baier interview, got a little flustered there, but you couldn’t do interviews when you don’t have to in the political realm, political world, so he’s going on Fox News Sunday this Sunday. 37-22. Now, again, this can change next week. This is so fluid, I can’t begin to tell you how fluid it is. That’s another reason why I just reject this notion that everybody on our side is a preordained loser. Nothing makes as little sense as that.