RUSH: This is Toby Harnden from the UK Daily Mail. This is unbelievable, but I believe it. “Obama ‘Believed he had BEATEN Romney’ in Denver Debate.” He walked off that stage thinking he had won that debate. I think the guy lives in an alternate universe. He is a narcissist. He’s incapable of losing these things, in his mind. He’s a legend in his own mind. I have no problem believing this at all.
However, there are people on the Democrat side who are shocked at this, including Axelrod. David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist and the quasi-president while Obama’s out on the campaign trail, “was stunned that the president left the stage feeling that he had won the debate. … Obama believed he’d got the better of Romney as he walked off stage to the dismay of his aides, according to a Democrat close to the campaign. The president failed to prepare properly, opting instead to visit the Hoover Dam the day before …”
He complained about being kept inside. He complained about having to read. He complained about having to prepare. He said that it was “a drag.” The Democrat that is the source here for Toby Harnden, the writer of the story, said that Obama “was so disdainful of Romney that he didn’t think he needed to even engage with him.” The story says that he “had one-liners on 47% prepared but chose not to use them.”
So this story in the UK Daily Mail would ask us to believe (and I do) that Obama thought he cleaned Romney’s clock when that thing was over. He walked off the stage thinking he won. And the reason? He hates Romney. He has such disdain for Romney that he thought all he had to do was just stand there. He thinks everybody else sees Romney the way he does: a rich, distant, insensitive boor.
There have been stories in the past six weeks, maybe two months that have gotten into a little detail on how much Obama really dislikes Romney personally. He dislikes Romney personally, and he dislikes what Romney stands for. Romney, to him — and I believe this, too. Romney to Barack Obama personifies what’s wrong with this country. In Obama’s view, Romney is an example of the wrong kind of people winning.
And the reason why people need to get a fair shot is because when dull, boring, dryballs like Romney do well, there’s something wrong. I believe all of this. I believe that Obama is so cocky and so arrogant and so condescending, he thought he won. He is such a narcissist. Can you imagine, he walks off that stage and he has to hear how he got shellacked? Can you imagine being the guy that had to tell him that?
Can you imagine him walking off the stage and actually thinking he won? You see, I can, because I know these people. I hate to keep saying it that way. I’m not bragging. I’m trying to tell you: It’s easy to know these people. All you have to do is understand liberalism. I’m sorry for saying that so much, too, but it’s all you have to do. If you just understand liberalism, if you’re willing to admit what it is and who liberals are, the rest is easy — and it always works.
It never fails.
Because liberals are what they are.
From liberal to liberal, person to person, that’s who they are.
It’s amazing for some people to hear, I’m sure, that Obama thinks he won that thing.
But don’t doubt the story that he does.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is from The Daily Caller. “The presidentÂ’s top campaign staffers changed his re-election strategy while he was still on the debate-podium during his losing debate against Gov. Mitt Romney, according to an article in The New York Times. ‘On the conference call convened by aides in Denver and Chicago even as the candidates were still on stage Â… they reversed a longstanding strategic decision,’ without the presidentÂ’s involvement, according to the Oct. 8 article. ‘At the start of the campaign they had decided to attack Mr. Romney as a committed conservative rather than a flip-flopper, but now they decided to use his debate statements to argue that he was reinventing himself,’ the article said.”
They really believe that — folks, this is breathtaking to me. I don’t know how to say this any more emphatically than I have, and I’m sorry to be repetitive on it. They really believe that the Romney who showed up was a fraud. They believe that the Romney in the ads that they’ve created is who he really is. Now, every time I say this, Snerdley gets on the IFB here, “Come on, they don’t really believe that, they’re just –” they do believe it! Obama doesn’t like Romney. He has a personal dislike for Romney and a generic dislike for what Romney is and how Romney became what he is. Romney’s everything about America Obama despises or resents. But they think Romney’s the biggest fraud on earth. And by the way, listen to Obama. Grab sound bite number nine. Last night San Francisco at a fundraiser, here’s Obama telling his audience about Romney.
OBAMA: After the debate, I had a bunch of folks come to me, “Don’t be so polite, donÂ’t be so nice.” But I want everybody to understand something. What was being presented wasnÂ’t leadership; that’s salesmanship.
RUSH: Okay, I think we’ve got a talking point preview, I think maybe an indication here of what Obama’s going to do in the next debate. Just accuse Romney of being disingenuous, accuse him of being a fake. (imitating Obama) “You’re not the Mitt Romney everybody knows. It’s just salesmanship. Everything you’re saying, there’s nothing genuine about what you’re doing. You’re not engaged in leadership.” All of this simply buttresses my point. They don’t have the courage to admit that Romney is who he is, because they’re living in this bubble, they’re living in this alternate universe. If it weren’t Romney, it would be whoever the nominee is. No Republican, no conservative, is genuine. We’re all mean-spirited, extreme, racist, bigot, sexist, homophobe, whatever.
But to me, folks, it’s astounding that they are able to do this. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live lies like this. I mean, Obama, I know exactly who he is. I don’t make it up. I don’t pretend he’s something he’s not in order to make myself feel better. And I’m gonna tell you, if this keeps up, if they continue to behave, campaign, and act as though the real Romney is a fraud, they’re gonna lose this thing bigger than anybody imagines. Mark my words. Now, to her credit, Soledad O’Brien isn’t buying it, either. This is this morning on Starting Point on CNN, and she had as her guest Dick “Turban,” the senator from Illinois. She said, “The headline is ‘Did Obama Just Throw the Entire Election Away?’ And it gets worse from there. Tell me a little bit about if you think, in fact, that this falling that you’re seeing in the polling is literally due to what happened that night in the debate.”
DURBIN: Disappointed with the debate, but believe the president understands, uh, his challenge now. He was shocked and surprised. Many of us were. Mitt Romney came on that, uh, set at the first debate and said things which completely contradicted what he’d said in the campaign before. I think it caught the president a little bit b-by surprise. He won’t be surprised again.
RUSH: See? See?
Romney didn’t say anything different.
What Romney did was say some things for the first time.
What did Romney do for the first time? He took it to Obama! He said (summarized), “You and your policies have killed X-number of jobs. What you’ve done has resulted in this. No, Mr. President, that’s not true. The truth of the matter is X.” What Romney did was challenge Obama for the first time. Well, I guess they’re believing this idea that Romney said, “Obama’s a nice guy, but he’s just in over his head.”
Romney threw away the nice guy business and he just said, “Look, not only are you in over your head, you’re unqualified and you’re wrong!” So they might be seeing that in Romney for the first time, but we know he’s right. We know that’s who he is. We know that’s what Republicans and conservatives believe in a generic sense. But even Dick Durbin here is saying, “We didn’t know this guy who showed up! I mean, that’s a fraud. Romney was a fraud,” and Soledad O’Brien is not buying it.
O’BRIEN: You cannot tell me that his poor debate performance was he was sitting there stunned in front of the American public as opposed to presenting at least his side of the argument. People have talked a little bit about the air pressure.
DURBIN: (nervous snickering)
O’BRIEN: People have talked about a lack of practice. It certainly can’t be, “I was just stunned standing there listening.”
DURBIN: I’ll just tell you, uhh, that the president understands the challenge of the debates.
RUSH: Really? So she said (paraphrased), “Look, Senator Durbin, I know I’m a member of the liberal media and I’m not that bright. But I’m smart enough to know that your excuse is full of it. Are you trying to tell me that the president of the United States, the guy that we’re telling everybody is the smartest guy that’s ever lived, was so stupefied by the Romney he saw that he had a brain freeze and he didn’t know what to do?”
Not even Soledad O’Brien is buying it! That’s how absurd it is.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Tommy in Springdale, Arkansas. I’m glad you waited, Tommy. It’s great to have you on the program. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I’ve been a lifelong Democrat. Since I’ve been listening to you, you’ve kind of shown me the light. I’d like to thank you for it.
RUSH: When did that start happening, Tommy?
CALLER: About two years ago.
RUSH: Two years ago. What was it? Do you remember anything particular or was it a slow, evolving kind of process?
CALLER: It was just slow and evolving, just basically opening my eyes to look in different directions to see what was really the truth and what wasn’t.
RUSH: Truth.
That’s the key.
Okay. That’s cool. So it was the truth. The truth is a powerful thing, and that’s what Obama can’t deal with. That’s what the Obama campaign can’t deal with is the truth of who Romney is and who we are, and that means they are ripe for the picking.