RUSH: Ari Fleischer was on CNN’s special Florida primary coverage last night. He was on with Anderson Cooper. They were talking about Romney’s win in Florida and Ari Fleischer said…
FLEISCHER: The fascinating thing about this race is if anybody can get Mitt Romney one-on-one, he becomes increasingly vulnerable. But Newt is blocking Santorum, Santorum’s blocking Newt. If it was Santorum, on the basis of how he did in that last debate, the exciting way that he went after Romney on health care, he took it to him on the health care issue with specifics more than anybody else.
RUSH: Ari Fleischer is saying, you know, watch out for Santorum. If Santorum ever got one-on-one with Romney, that the dynamic of this thing could really change drastically. These red-blue states, not entirely, but boy it almost always matches the right-to-work states, the right-to-vote states, the photo ID and all that stuff. You can see where the fraud’s taking place. It’s amazing how few states and counties the Democrats need to win the White House — union versus nonunion states — and it stands to reason.
Let’s move forward, sound bite number 12. This is Sarah Palin. She was on the Fox election coverage last night with Bret Baier, who said, “You said if you were a resident in Florida you’d vote for Newt Gingrich. If you lived in Las Vegas, Nevada, cauci coming up, who would you vote for there?”
PALIN: Whomever it is to allow the process to continue. I still say competition breeds success for the US, and that’s what we need in this debate. As it stands, obviously it’s Romney and Newt who are closest to being the front-running candidate, so I would continue to vote for whomever it is to allow the process, and at this point it looks like it still is Newt. You gotta continue to kind of even the playing field with your vote and evening the playing field allows that additional vetting, that additional information about candidates and their ideals and their goals for this nation and how they’re gonna reach these goals for our nation. It allows it all to continue.
RUSH: Sarah Palin is obviously not in favor of Romney. Anything that propels this and keeps this going is her objective.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis, Rush Limbaugh, your guiding light, America’s Real Anchorman, Truth Detector, Doctor of Democracy, now documented to be almost always right 99.7% of the time.
To Edmund, Oklahoma. This is Jan and it’s great to have you here.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you doing?
RUSH: Good. Thank you.
CALLER: Good. I have a comment, and then a question, if you’ll allow it.
RUSH: Certainly. I love questions. Not enough people ask me questions. Everybody calls this show and thinks they know everything.
CALLER: (giggles) Okay. My comment first is that I think if we look back at the — actually four, maybe even less than four years ago — Democratic nomination process and then the election that occurred in our country in ’08, I think that we can say that this concept that people have been talking about as far as “electability” is concerned, it really is a concept that has changed and it’s no longer what people have always thought and maybe still think it is.
RUSH: Yeah, I’ve often been dubious of this whole concept. You know, somebody in some far away capital says, “Well, you know, the only guy that can beat Obama is Romney.” How do you know? Nobody knows that!
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: On what are you basing it? The guy’s won nine out of 25 elections. I don’t mean to be critical of Romney, but where does this come from? These things just get pronounced by consultants or powers that be and everybody just accepts it. Who knows who’s electable and who’s not? Look, it’s like everybody said, that we could not nominate Newt. If we nominated Newt, the whole election would be about Newt. Well, then Romney goes out there and commits a faux pas by saying, “I’m not worried about the very poor.” Don’t care about the poor; they got a safety net. He’s trying to zero in on his concern for the middle class but he gives them something they can take out of context (which they will) and Romney becomes the focus of the campaign, not Obama.
Anybody who thinks… This is my point here: Anybody who thinks that we can nominate somebody who is not going to be the focus of a media destruction campaign is asinine. Whoever we nominate is who the campaign is going to be about, the election. It’s not gonna be about Obama. The media can’t let it be about Obama. If it’s about Obama, he’s sunk! It’s gonna have to be about what a reprobate racist, sexist, mean-spirited, heartless creep the Republican is — and I don’t care who the nominee is. It’s gonna be about that. They’re setting up Romney as… Romney is gonna be Mr. Pennybags, moneybags on the Monopoly game board. That’s who they’re setting him up to be. So I agree with you. Then they come around and say, “Only so-and-so is electable.” You know, that’s something they try to intimidate everybody into silence by saying. What was your question?
CALLER: Well, my question is if that’s the case — that electability is not what it’s all cracked up to be and what people say we should really be looking for the “electable” nominee — then why are people that can’t stomach Romney, that say, “He’s not conservative enough for me,” why are they going to Newt? Why don’t they go to Santorum?
RUSH: Well, ummm… I can only speculate. You’d have to ask every particular voter why they’re choosing Newt over Santorum, those who do. I could only hazard a guess. Why do you think?
CALLER: Well, my feeling is that they think, “Okay, Romney’s just not quite there. He’s too far left for me. I can’t trust him. Newt’s been a conservative guy. You know, as far as his stance on fiscal matters, he’s been known for that for years and years. Okay, I’m gonna go to Newt. He’s the next big name.”
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: He’s the next high profile guy —
RUSH: I think you’re on to something.
CALLER: — who could be elected.
RUSH: I think you’re on to something. It’s name recognition. It’s name ID. It’s, “What have you done for me lately?” Newt has clearly been a household name for decades. Santorum hasn’t been. I think you’re on to something there. It’s not a criticism of Santorum to say it.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: It’s also, when you look at the polling numbers, here’s Romney with 25 or 30. Here’s Newt with whatever he is and Santorum down in the tens, and people say, “Well, why should I support the guy in the ten?” Then people say, “Look at Ron Paul.” Yeah, look at Ron Paul. He’s supposedly got all of this support, got all these people that love him, and he doesn’t even run an ad in Florida. He’s at 7%. So the supposed support that Paul has, he doesn’t have.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: The illusion doesn’t match the actual number. Rick Santorum really hasn’t yet been a national figure.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Newt has been.
CALLER: But, you know, in a way we know more about Santorum as far as his public behavior, his actions, from what he did when he was a congressman and in the — you know, in Congress — than we know more about what we would do than we do know about what Obama was gonna do when he became the nominee for the Democrats.
RUSH: Uh…
CALLER: Because he hadn’t even been in the Senate for two full years.
RUSH: Yeah, but that’s a whole different set of circumstances. Ugh! (sigh) Gee. Uh, Obama had no record, which is an asset! Obama was a Democrat, which is 95% of it. He has always been a media darling, and the fact that he had the historical aspect attached to his candidate gave him Velcro. He was perfectly insulated against any criticism whatsoever that the media would follow up and echo. He had the largest team anybody could have playing defense for him. I’m glad you called. I appreciate it very much, Jan.