RUSH: I just saw a story quickly. I scanned it because I didn’t have a chance to print it out, but it’s about people literally abandoning public schools. They’re just leaving them. Enrollment in public schools nationwide — I think the number I saw was down 10% and it’s increasing. In big cities, which means that’s inner city kids. We’re not talking whites. Schools are decaying and Obama, the Democrats, are keeping those schools open in fealty to the teachers unions and for a whole bunch of other reasons. I have people ask me, and I’ve asked myself all the time, too, although I must say I have the answers. So my questions to myself are rhetorical. People say, “I don’t understand how African-Americans just keep voting Democrat.”

You make a mistake if you try to answer that policy-wise or intellectual-wise. It’s not about that. There’s no reason for anybody who cherishes success, liberty, and freedom, to be voting for Obama, but a lot of people are going to. I talked about this within the past month, and I hate to say it comes down to something like this, but it is one of many relevant factors, and it boils down to cool, and in a sense marketing. In fact, let me illustrate it this way. I’m reading some of the highbrow intellectuals on some of the so-called (they think) highbrowed blogs. And they’re highbrow analyzing the election, and the highbrows have got a theme going on some of these discussions. The theme is this.

Is the decay of the country, is the status of the economy and the worsening of everybody’s standard of living, is that enough to get rid of Obama, or is Romney gonna have to do something other than just be Romney? Because there is a comfort in knowing who you’ve got. People are actually speculating and suggesting that people might, in the midst of all this decay, nevertheless choose to stay with Obama because the other guy might be worse. This is what the highbrows are postulating out there. I think that’s a crock. Now, I do think that Romney’s gonna have to do more than talk about the economy, and I do think when he talks about the economy he’s gonna have to get specific, and it wouldn’t be hard.

Mitt, tell us what your economic policies are gonna be and what they’re gonna mean. Tell us. All you gotta do is articulate conservatism. Tell us how you’re gonna make the economy grow. Tell us. Give us your policy. And that’s not hard, folks. Conservatism takes care of that. Free market economic policy, takes care of that. It will happen. It’s been proven. But in the midst of this decay, the schools are being abandoned, and that’s just one example. There are countless others. People think their country’s falling apart. Scares the heck out of ’em. And yet, when you specifically talk about blacks. How can they still vote for Democrats after what the Democrat Party has done.

All the Democrat Party’s plans, I mean for 50 years, the race hustlers, the Jacksons, the Sharptons have been complaining and moaning and whining about the same stuff for 50 years. None of it’s getting better. And yet they keep voting for the people who have assured them, “We’re gonna take care of you. We’re the ones that are gonna protect you from the racism and from the discrimination, from all the other stuff, all those horrors that await you out there. We aren’t racist, and we don’t discriminate, and we’re gonna protect you.” And yet their lives don’t get better. They’re relying on these people, not themselves, they’re relying on these people to make their lives better. The Democrat Party isn’t happening, and yet they keep voting for ’em.

And I don’t think it’s that they’re voting for ’em. I think it rather has to do with what the image of Republicans is, or the image of conservatives is. In some cases it could be said, ah, they’re just not cool. Obama’s cool. Romney’s not cool. He’s stale white bread, not cool. Hollywood, that’s cool. You don’t see any Republicans there. You don’t see conservatives where the cool stuff is. Cool stuff happens on Entertainment Tonight or MTV or Comedy Central. You don’t see conservatives. You don’t see conservatives anywhere where cool is, do you? In fact, it’s such that if a conservative is someplace where it’s cool the conservative looks like a guy from Mars portrayed as something that really doesn’t belong where cool is. That’s what I think a lot of this is wrapped up in.

It’s no individual’s fault. It’s not that Romney isn’t cool, for example, or it’s not that George W. Bush wasn’t cool, any of that. It’s just the power of pop culture media for decade after decade shaping people’s minds. But I think you go nuts if you intellectually try to explain or policy-wise, even, try to explain why people would stick with losers. Why do they stick with people and policies that are harming them. Then you realize, that’s not what they think they’re doing. They don’t think they’re voting for people that harm them. They don’t think they’re voting for people that are responsible for the decay in their neighborhood or in the country. They don’t see it that way.

They see it getting bad out there, and these guys trying to stop it, the Democrats trying to make it better, but they really are afraid what the Republicans would do if they got back in power, because of all the lies and distortions that have been told about Republicans that haven’t been properly refuted. Hell, hadn’t even been attempted to be refuted in many ways. August 1st is our 24th year, and for each of these 24 years, I’ve had phone calls from African-Americans, “Rush, it’s changing. More and more blacks are tired of the Democrat Party. It’s changing.” And it never does. Twenty-four years. The Democrats still get 92, 93% of the black vote, no matter what. And these people do call and they do offer these testimonials. And yet, the percentage of the vote doesn’t change. If it did change by 5%, it’d be huge. If, for example, Obama were to get 88% of the black vote, or 85%, that would be an earthquake, if the others voted for the Republican.

And every year I’ve been hearing a transformation’s taking place, and yet the percentages stay the same. And I’ve looked at it intellectually, 50 years, the 24 that I’ve been doing the program, chronicle the decay, the destruction, the breakup of the black family, and it’s all brought about by big government policies. It’s all brought about by the Democrat Party, and yet they keep getting the votes. (interruption) The last Republican to get a big percentage of the black vote? You mean presidential candidate? I can’t name one. Oh, well, wait a minute, now. You misled me with the question. I thought you meant a majority. Nixon got 30% of the black vote. But that was because Sammy Davis Jr. endorsed him down there in Miami. Well, it was a factor. It was a factor.