RUSH: Matthews, North Carolina. Hi, Neil. Great to have you with us. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, how you doing?
RUSH: Very good, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: Hey, listen, there’s an important lesson to be learned when you examine the stark contrast between Governor Scott Walker’s campaign and President Obama’s campaign.
RUSH: What would that be?
CALLER: Both men have records, but only Scott Walker is running on nothing but his record and winning big.
RUSH: And Obama can’t run on his record. Is that the lesson?
CALLER: Well, the lesson is, you know, we’ve got a campaign going on in Wisconsin that the world is looking at, the United States is looking at, and this guy is running on nothing but his record. Every time he talks he talks about what he’s done and what’s going good for him, and it’s just a great contrast —
RUSH: Well, but there’s an interesting aspect to that. He’s not lying about it, either. Here’s a guy talking about his record but it has the added benefit of being true, and people don’t have to question whether he’s telling the truth or not; they’re living it. The unions — I was gonna get to Scott Walker at some point in the Stack, but I might as well touch on it briefly. There’s a couple of stories here in the Stack about the unions losing strength in Wisconsin.
“Republican Governor Scott Walker widened his lead over Democrat Tom Barrett to 7 percentage points in a new poll.” It’s less than a week. Walker at 52. Barrett is at 45. Wall Street Journal: “Wisconsin Unions See Ranks Drop Ahead of Recall Vote — Public-employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership — by more than half for the second-biggest union — since a law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker sharply curtailed their ability to bargain over wages and working conditions.”
This Wisconsin recall election, the Democrats, this is their election. They demanded this. It’s a recall. They started it. They wanted it. It was gonna be a proving ground. It was where they were gonna demonstrate the power of unions, public-sector employees. They were gonna get rid of a Republican governor and his ideas, and the exact worst-case scenario is happening. The Democrat National Committee has pulled all money out. They are conceding already. The big risk in Wisconsin, I’ll tell you what it is. The big risk in Wisconsin is that Walker voters get a sense of complacency, think this is over, and don’t show up. That’s the biggest risk right now, and that’s what the largest concern is. But this election that the Democrats demanded, this has considerable ramifications for organized labor.
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RUSH: The lesson in Wisconsin is that conservatism works. Scott Walker has done everything that Obama says is impossible to do. He cut spending and expanded the economy while lowering taxes and laying off no one. It’s amazing.
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RUSH: I’ll tell you what’s happening in Wisconsin. I may as well stick with this. If the outcome next Tuesday is close to what the polling data indicates that it will be, the Democrats are giving every bit of evidence that they think it’s over. I mean they’re pulling money out of there; they’re not actively campaigning; they’re down in the dumps. I don’t think that’s psychological strategery. Could be. Just have to wait and see. The primary fear I think now is that Walker voters might get complacent. This is a fear that others have. I don’t. I think that there is so much energy and passion, pent-up frustration.
You look at the primary in Wisconsin, Walker, who didn’t need a single vote when the Democrats were determining his opponent, Walker got more votes than the two Democrats combined in Wisconsin, and that’s only because the Republicans in Wisconsin are sick and tired. They want to be heard. And this is their best way of being heard, is to go to the ballot box. I don’t think that there’s gonna be a relaxation or a suppression of enthusiasm, but that appears to be a major concern. What’s the lesson there? There are really a lot of them, but the big umbrella lesson is that conservatism works, and almost as important, if not more important, is the fact you need a guts-filled, courageous, unafraid conservative doing it. And that’s Walker.
The whole Democrat apparatus has been after this guy for two years. From the White House on down there have been efforts to politically and personally destroy this guy. He’s not whimpered, and he hasn’t caved, and he hasn’t backed out. His supporters have hung in with him. He’s raised more money than the Democrats have. He has not made excuses for conservatism. He’s not moderated it, modified it. He has his policies. He is explicit in explaining them. He has implemented as many of them as have been possible to implement, and they’re working. And the way to put it in proper context and perspective is to say that Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin has done everything Obama says is not impossible. Everything Obama is campaigning against, Walker has done and proved that it works.
Obama is out saying, “America has never worked. The free market, capitalism, it doesn’t matter. Supply-side economics, lower tax rates, doesn’t work.” Obama says it’s never worked. Well, we have a little laboratory here. Scott Walker has done what he promised to do. We had a caller in the last hour point out, Scott Walker’s running on his record, proudly, happily. He’s not lying about it. He doesn’t have to lie about it. He doesn’t have to cover it up, and doesn’t have to amplify it. It speaks for itself, people are living it. Unemployment rate in Wisconsin, way below the national average. Scott Walker has cut spending. He has grown, expanded the economy while lowering taxes. Nobody has been laid off.
Remember the catcalls, the Democrats and the unions said that all Walker wanted to do was bust the union and get rid of thousands of public sector employees, public sector union employees, that his was a stealth campaign to fire people and to close schools and all of that rotgut? And that’s never what his campaign was about. Walker always said, “I’m trying to save your job. We can’t go on this way. We can’t continue to ask the taxpayers to pay taxes sufficiently high enough that you end up being paid more than they are earning! It’s not sustainable.” And the unions didn’t want to hear that.
There’s a sense of entitlement that they have. And it doesn’t matter the economic circumstances of the taxpayers who pay ’em. They’re owed. They’re union people. They’ve been given the shaft ever since the country was founded, just like Obama believes. They’ve been victimized by evil corporate bosses, evil conservatives. They’re gonna get their pensions and they’re gonna get their health care, and they’re not gonna have to work a day for it, maybe not more than a day for it. And they don’t care who’s paying for it. And Walker said there isn’t gonna be the money if we don’t institute these changes. So he cuts spending; he lowered taxes. The economy grew. He didn’t lay off anybody.
During a press conference with the Democrat candidate Tom Barrett, Barrett was asked to name one school that had been hurt by Walker’s collective bargaining contract. Name one school, Mr. Barrett, name one school that’s been harmed, and he couldn’t. Tom Barrett could not name a single school that was hurt.
Now, the Wall Street Journal again, the headline: “Wisconsin Unions See Ranks Drop Ahead of Recall Vote.” I’ll pick this up in the middle of it. “Walker’s ouster would derail the political career of a rising Republican star and send a warning to other elected officials who are battling unions.” That’s what they wanted. They wanted Walker to lose and lose this big, and that’s a national message. The Democrats are now saying it, “Well, this is a local election, the state of Wisconsin. There aren’t any coattails here. There are no ramifications for Obama. What are you, silly?” Yeah, that’s what they say now. When this all started, Wisconsin was gonna be a lesson to everybody. Wisconsin was gonna be a lesson to the Republicans. Wisconsin was gonna be a lesson to all you people who don’t want to embrace and give the unions everything you want.
They were gonna get rid of Walker, they were gonna destroy his career, and in so doing, empower the unions and send a message all across this country that this will happen to you if you oppose us. But, on the other hand, a win by Walker would amount to an endorsement of an effort to curtail public sector unions. And that’s gonna be the message that comes out of Wisconsin.
“Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — the state’s second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers — fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011.” This is according to a person who has access to the membership records of this union. A union spokesman declined to comment on this. Now, this is before the election. The ranks, the membership in this union has dropped precipitously. There is no momentum for the pro-Democrat view of things in Wisconsin. And this is a blue state. The University of Wisconsin at Madison may as well be UC Berkeley. It’s profound what is happening there, and it’s been a teachable moment, and people are living the results of this.
Now, having said that, people lived the eighties as well, and the media was able to revise what the eighties were all about in people’s minds, and the people who lived it, many of them somehow were convinced that what actually happened didn’t happen and that we could never go back to that. Bill Clinton was elected, Obama was elected after George W. Bush. So you got another chance here to etch in stone the great results of conservatism implemented properly.
That brings up the question of the Republican establishment. Oh, yeah, they’re gonna be as happy as they can be. They’re gonna be as celebratory as they can be, but this was a Tea Party victory in Wisconsin. I’m not saying the Republican Party has no role in it, but this is a Tea Party campaign. This is a Tea Party enterprise, if you will, Tea Party concepts. The Republican establishment, yeah, they’ll be happy, they’ll take this. But this also refutes some of what they believe, that you have to be moderate, have to cross the aisle, have to compromise. Walker hasn’t done any of that. He stood fast. He stood tall.
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RUSH: This is a segment from John King USA last night. The guest was TIME Magazine Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Michael Crowley. And this is all about Wisconsin and Scott Walker. And John King, the host on CNN, is just lamenting this. He’s worried; he’s wringing his hands. (summarized) “Why isn’t Obama going to Wisconsin? There’s real trouble in Wisconsin. Why isn’t Obama going there to help save the day?”
CROWLEY: Unfortunately, I think that may be an indicator of what their polling is telling them. I think that doesn’t look good.
KING: So if it doesn’t look good, you don’t go? That’s courage?
WOMAN: …race to worry about. (giggling)
CROWLEY: Sometimes you don’t want to board a ship that —
MARY MATALIN: And he needs to worry about it.
CROWLEY: — that’s gonna sink, and — and the larger problem is that this could, uh… This could embolden Republicans. I believe Republicans haven’t carried Wisconsin since 1984, and it will put some wind at their backs, give them some momentum, make them feel like that they can pick one off that the White House wasn’t hoping to defend. So the White House might want to start that defense now. But, for the moment, they don’t want to be associated with what looks to them like a losing cause.
RUSH: Okay, that’s Michael Crowley at TIME Magazine. That’s who you heard. You heard John King say, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Okay, so you’re losing and it doesn’t look good; that’s why you go! (sobbing) Where’s the courage? (sobbing) Why’s Obama giving up? (sobbing) We’re doing everything we can! (sob) We’ve done everything we can! We got the memo on Wisconsin, and we’ve done everything we can. He won’t even go help us? Why? Is he gutless?”
Well, you know, you keep your powder dry, John. We gotta marshal our forces for a little bit later on. We don’t want to be associated with what looks like a shellacking right now!
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RUSH: Madison and Sandy. Hi. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, what a thrill. Just talking about the possible complacency. I think as equally dangerous is the fraud. Just with the past elections, with Judge Prosser, I truly believe that if those votes that had kind of been under the radar had been known, I think they would have found dead or whatever voters they had to get, to win that election.
RUSH: Wait a minute. What are we talking about?
CALLER: Well, just the recall election here.
RUSH: But what fear, who’s afraid of what in Wisconsin?
CALLER: I personally, just with what is happening, we have reports of high school teachers loading up high-schoolers, taking them to the early vote —
RUSH: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. You say the fear is not complacency. You’re worried about vote fraud in Wisconsin.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Oh, oh, okay. I got it well, well, we’ll talk about it when we come back.
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RUSH: Let’s examine this caller from Wisconsin, not complacent, she’s frightened, voter fraud. What is this based on? Well, first a realization that voter fraud occurs on the Democrat side. There’s no question about it. The resistance to a photo ID to vote is all the evidence that you need, and it’s very true. Tuesday, the Democrats said, Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz said Tuesday is gonna be a dry run for the Democrat Party machine’s get-out-the-vote fraud, too. She didn’t say that, but she said two things in the same day. When she went to C-SPAN, it’s gonna be a dry run for the presidential race and later that day she said, no, the two are not related.
It is a dry run and the fear is because all of us know they cheat, all of us know they engage in fraud. They use early voting, that’s a recipe for cheating, that’s one of the reasons it exists. But we always assume that they succeed at it. Now, if this fear leads to a big Republican turnout, I’m all for it. Normally I don’t like fear because fear paralyzes, and fear sometimes is an indication of pessimism and negativism, and I think there may be some of that here. “Well, we can’t overcome. They’re gonna cheat. We don’t have a chance. We can’t possibly win.”
I just, folks, do not think that they are that smart and that good. And if we are capable of knowledge like this, if we’re capable of this suspicion, then we’re capable of beating it. But it can also work against us. I reject the notion that they never make a mistake, that even when they’re losing by eight points it’s part of a grand plan that we’re not smart enough to figure out. Yes, I’ve got a gut feeling about how it’s gonna go. But I’m not gonna sit here and predict it because I don’t want to lead to complacency myself. Look, the Walker people are not sitting down. They’re still raising money. They’re acting like they’re a start-up, which is good. They’re acting like nothing’s in the bag. They’re doing everything right. The Walker side’s doing everything right in this. They’re not running around celebrating anything yet; there’s nothing to celebrate.
I’m fully aware the Democrats could be sandbagging on all this stuff. But then I live in Realville, and it is as bad. How do you explain the Wall Street Journal story on union membership plummeting in Wisconsin? How do you explain the low unemployment rate in Wisconsin and a lot of other states run by Republicans, by the way. And how do you explain everything Walker’s doing working. Is that part of the Democrat plan, too? No. It’s not. The fear is the result of decades of conditioning, combined with a lack of confidence in Republican leadership. But I am profoundly confident of Scott Walker and the people he’s got working on this. So we’ll find out. It’s gonna be next Tuesday, five days from now.
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