RUSH: Tom Ridge was on America’s Newsroom today with Bill Hemmer. Hemmer said, “Is this a head fake, Romney spending all this money in Pennsylvania? You think they have a legitimate shot winning at Pennsylvania?”

RIDGE: They’ve had a quiet ground game going on in Pennsylvania that nobody’s noticed. We’ve had more contacts in 2012 than we did in 2004 and 2008 together. The base is really excited, and at the end of the day, Pennsylvanians are suffering from the past four years with a lack of leadership in the White House.

HEMMER: You’re saying now that you think Romney wins your state?

RIDGE: Yes, I’m gonna go on record to say he wins it. It’s gonna be close. Very, very close.

RUSH: Tom Ridge, a big establishment Republican guy, is predicting Pennsylvania for Romney. Now, if he really didn’t think Romney was gonna win, would he say that? Would he say, “Well, I don’t really know”? He wouldn’t say that. What he would say is, “Bill, it’s too close to call. ItÂ’s really hard to say. Anything can happen. It all depends on…” He could have said that to cover himself.

No. He said, “I think he’s gonna win it.”

Now, he won’t pay a price if they don’t. Don’t misunderstand. But still, he could have gone the other way. Here’s Major Garrett, formerly of Fox, now at National Journal. He’s on CBS This Morning with Norah O’Donnell. She said, “State polls. They show Obama with a lead in Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Ohio. He has a five-point lead in Ohio. You’ve been talking to team Obama, top officials in Chicago. What do they make of these numbers?”

GARRETT: I was in Chicago two days ago, and they are supernaturally confident about the president’s ability to win reelection. That’s a normal place for the Obama campaign. The Obama campaign know their voter contacts, and if they know what they know they’re going to win. But if everything they knew was wrong, they’re going to lose. If everything we understand about this election is wrong, then we’re gonna lose.

RUSH: That’s a hell of a thing to say. “If everything that we know is wrong, we’re going to lose.” These people do have the ability to lie to themselves. That’s just a strange thing to say. Here’s Karl Rove. He was on The O’Reilly Factor last night. By the way, the Koch brothers — the evil, scheming, one-percenter Koch brothers — have a PAC, Americans for Prosperity.

I’m being facetious. I love ’em. I know them. The Koch family is a great family. Anyway, they’ve thrown $1.5 million in Pennsylvania ads. They started yesterday. All told, there’s over $6 million of Romney money in that state now, and $650,000 of Obama money. That’s not a head fake. That is not head fake. Somebody else said, “Well, you got the money. Why not just burn it?” That’s not burning the money when you put $6 million in there for the people on the ground in there.

They’ve sent people on the ground in there that were not in there. Oh, and what else did I see? What else? Somebody sent me a note. The Obama campaign has sent out a request for people to man the phones in Pennsylvania. Where did I see that? Is it Pennsylvania that I saw that? Was it…? Somewhere. Something tells me it was Pennsylvania where they’ve sent out a request for people to answer the phones.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I was right. It’s Howard Dean’s brother, Jim Dean, asking for Obama supporters to go man the phones in Pennsylvania. It’s not a head fake. My buddy Jeff Lord sent a note last night, it was on the top of my head here, Jeff Lord, the American Spectator. “Howard Dean’s brother has sent out this request for Democrats in the state to show up and help them do phone banks.” There’s no early voting in Pennsylvania. Only absentee. CBSPhilly.com: “New Poll Shows Romney with Momentum in Pennsylvania.” Pennsylvania’s a coal state. Ohio is a coal state. West Virginia is a coal state.

And there are stories — I’ve got ’em in the Stack, haven’t had a chance to get to ’em — coal miners are livid at Obama. There are quotes from coal miners. It kind of breaks my heart a little bit. They’re talking about how Obama’s actually putting them out of business. And I’m thinking, I told you guys this during 2008’s campaign. Obama said he was gonna put the coal business out of business. And he’s doing it. He promised to do it. He said, (paraphrasing) “You can start a coal-fired plant if you want to but you’re gonna go bankrupt with my regulations.” So Pennsylvania’s a coal state, big coal state. Ohio is as well. Of course, West Virginia is a coal state. Colorado is a coal state. Colorado coal miners are up in arms.

Folks, there’s so much stuff going on here under the radar that the Drive-Bys will not tell you. It’s like they won’t tell you about Benghazi. They’re not gonna tell you the problems that Obama’s got in this race. They’re doing just the exact opposite. So that’s right. That is not a head fake. You send people in to answer the phones or man the phones if you’re a Democrat.