RUSH: Now, as you know, I have been making a big deal about 2010 as a turnout model as opposed to 2008. I don’t think there’s any similarity in this election to 2008. Let me repeat again why. I mean, this is not wishful thinking. This is direct, pure analysis. I think everything about Obama has to be contrasted to 2008. Not last week or two weeks ago or six months ago, but 2008 when it comes to voting for him. In 2008, who was he? He was whatever you wanted him to be, positively. You could make him a messiah, and he was. You could make him a guy that was gonna end partisanship, and he was. You could make him out to be a guy that was gonna make the world love us, and he was. You could make him out to be a guy that was gonna end all war and close Club Gitmo and create jobs, and he was all of that.

This is, I think, crucially important to understanding the fundamentals of this election. And the polling data isn’t gonna get anywhere near this. The polls are not asking these kinds of questions. They’re not going anywhere near this. I don’t know how you can avoid it. I don’t know how you can avoid the Obama of 2008 versus the Obama of today and the 2010 election. And none of those things are factored in with anything that you see in any analysis or any polling. I could be all wet, too. We’ll find out in due course. But the Obama of 2012, in comparison to the Obama of 2008, is a giant letdown. I mean, you talk about air out of the balloon. None of what people thought he was. I mean, even the black columnist at the LA Times who wrote the piece “The Magic Negro,” not even that survives.

Not one of the positives that people attached to Barack Obama in 2008 is alive today, or survives. We know that he is a divider, not a uniter. We know that the wars are not over. We know that he’s incompetent in foreign policy, vis-a-vis Benghazi and the Arab Spring. We know that jobs are worse, poverty is up, the number of Americans on food stamps is up, and home prices dipped in September. The Obama economy continues. “Home prices slipped in September after gaining for six months in a row as values are way down by cheaper distressed sales.” There isn’t any good economic news. There isn’t one thing that Obama has done that’s improved. Everything he’s done, everything he’s touched, has gotten worse.

Now, you compare that to 2008, and, remember, you got a lot of votes, Obama got a lot of votes because he was the blank slate, ’cause anybody could make him out to be whatever they wanted. Now he’s a known quantity, not nearly as glittering, not nearly as shining, and so the votes that he’s going to get today are perfunctory. They’re votes of loyalty. They’re votes, primarily Democrats, that are gonna be loyal, but there’s no enthusiasm. There’s no energy. Obama’s crowds, I mean, even with Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z, he filled only half an arena last night in Iowa.

Meanwhile, Romney, at 11:15 in New Hampshire, has sold out of a huge venue. Now to be fair, he had Kid Rock with him. All of these fundamentals, all the externals, don’t jibe with what we’re hearing in the polls. That’s what’s so confounding about this. That’s what has people so confused. The externals — the things that you can see, the things you can feel, the things you can touch, the things that you can sense — don’t jibe with the polling data.

The polling data carries a lot of weight in people’s minds. People are afraid to go against it. People are afraid to say, “Eh, the polls are wrong.” But I’m just gonna tell you that if the GOP turns out today like they did in 2010, it’s over. It’s no more complicated than that, and that’s why 2010 matters. And is there anything that happened between 2010 and today to make the GOP less enthusiastic? What would it be?

Somebody tell me: What has happened between 2010 and today to make the Tea Party, for example, less enthusiastic? My take on it is the Tea Party’s bigger. The Tea Party is transformed now. They’re not just a bunch of malcontents at town halls. They now are deep-rooted, grassroots organizations that have gigantic get-out-the-vote operations. They’re much different. They have evolved and they’ve grown.

What has happened between 2010 and today to lessen Republican enthusiasm? By the same token, what’s happened between 2010 and today to jack up or ramp up Democrat enthusiasm?