RUSH: Birmingham, Alabama. This is Orson. Orson, thank you for calling. I’m glad to have you with us today. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s good to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I just wanted to make a confession to you. I voted for President Barack Obama, and I happen to be a black American. I’m also a conservative. And I voted for him because he was black. I know that may offend some people, but it wouldn’t be realistic in my opinion that a minority could ascend to the presidency. So I would have voted for the first minority whether he’d been Jewish, or Asian, or Hispanic.

RUSH: I understand.

CALLER: So he had my vote.

RUSH: Orson?

CALLER: But when I look at it now —

RUSH: Orson, I totally understand that. You don’t have to apologize or make excuses for that. Everybody’s aware of the historical nature of that election, particularly for black Americans. That’s totally understandable. The question is: Are you gonna do it this year?

CALLER: Absolutely not. I mean, that decision was made a long time ago that he was not getting our votes again, mine or my wife’s. Because we talk about everything together, and we’re small business, and he’s been a lousy president. I mean, that’s just the fact of it. And we don’t have the option for on-the-job training. So we need someone who really understands and knows what they’re doing on the first day they take office.

RUSH: Orson, let me ask you a very serious question — and I’m asking this because I really want to know. I’m trying to learn here. That never stops with me. At what point, for you, did the fact that the president is black stop being a factor for you?

CALLER: Oh, when the economy just continued to get worse. When we’re right at the debt that we cannot pay. I have — we have — a small business, my wife and I, and we can’t run a business that way. We can’t incur bills that we have no hopes of paying and no way to get out of this. We don’t have the income coming in, so we can’t keep running a massive deficit. And he turned down the pipeline and —

RUSH: Well, you’re still… In terms of that kind of thinking, you’re a minority. But it does appear that at least according to polling data in North Carolina, that Obama is losing some support that he had from black voters in 2008. There’s no question. A lot of white people voted for Obama in ’08 because he was black. They were hoping it would be the end of racism and all the acrimony.

But I’m glad you called.

Great to have you in the audience, Orson.