RUSH: Hey, any of you guys in there want to come sit in my chair today? Anybody? Nobody wants to come sit in my chair here? None of you? I mean, I’m giving you a golden opportunity to speak to, what, 50 million people.

(interruption)

I can handle it. Okay, all right. So nobody wants to come sit in my chair today. Greetings, my friends. What happened? That’s what we’re going to try to find out. We’re not gotta be able to explain this away in one day. We’re gonna get close. We are not gonna be able to come up with all the answers and solutions in one day, but I want to try to take you through the night for me last night, various thoughts that I had as things happened, beginning with my getting and receiving the exit polls at five o’clock.

But first, let me tell you, small things beat big things yesterday. Conservatism, in my humble opinion, did not lose last night. It’s just very difficult to beat Santa Claus. It is practically impossible to beat Santa Claus. People are not going to vote against Santa Claus, especially if the alternative is being your own Santa Claus.

Now, everybody is jumping on Romney’s chain today, getting in his chili. Look, he may have not been the most optimal candidate, but he’s a fine man. He would have been great for this country. Mitt Romney and his family would have been the essence of exactly what this country needs. But what was Romney’s recipe? Romney’s recipe was the old standby: American route to success, hard work. That gets sneered at. I’m sorry. In a country of children where the option is Santa Claus or work, what wins? And say what you want, but Romney did offer a vision of traditional America. In his way, he put forth a great vision of traditional America, and it was rejected. It was rejected in favor of a guy who thinks that those who are working aren’t doing enough to help those who aren’t. And that resonated.

The Obama campaign was about small stuff. War on Women, binders, Big Bird, this kind of stuff. The Romney campaign was about big things, was about America. It’s mind-boggling to go through these exit polls. You want to hear a statistic that is somewhat surprising? Romney received two and a half million fewer votes than McCain did. Now, who would have called that? Who in the world would have? I think Obama’s vote tally was down ten million from 2008, and we still lost. We lost 50 to 48 nationally. We were not able to build a turnout model that looked like 2004. Very puzzling.

Something else. Just stream of consciousness here. The usual suspects are out, and they’re saying, “Rush, we gotta reach out now to the Hispanics and reach out to the minorities, blacks.” Okay, let me remind you of something. Just ask you a question. And we will be getting your phone calls of course today, you weigh in on this, 800-282-2882 is the number. Let me take you back to the Republican convention. We had Suzanne Martinez, female Hispanic governor, New Mexico. We had Condoleezza Rice, African-American, former secretary of state. Both of those people imminently qualified, terrifically achieved. They have reached the pinnacles of their profession.

We had Marco Rubio. We had a parade of minorities who have become successful Americans. And they all had a common story: up from nothing, hard work, their parents sacrificed for them. Now, why didn’t that work, folks? The answer to that is our future. Why didn’t it work? Some people say, “Well, Rush, we pandered.” No, we didn’t pander. Everybody says that we need to reach out to minorities. We have plenty of highly achieved minorities in our party, and they are in prominent positions, and they all have a common story. They all came from nothing. Their parents came from nothing. They worked hard. They told those stories with great pride. Those stories evoked tears. It didn’t work. And don’t tell me that people didn’t watch the convention or people didn’t see it. I mean, there’s a reason it doesn’t work.

I went to bed last night thinking we’re outnumbered. I went to bed last night thinking all this discussion we’d had about this election being the election that will tell us whether or not we’ve lost the country. I went to bed last night thinking we’ve lost the country. I don’t know how else you look at this. The first wave of exit polls came in at 5 p.m. I looked at it, I read the first two pages, and I said to myself, “This is utter BS.” And I forwarded the exit poll data that I had to three or four people, and my message to each of them, “This is utter BS, and if it isn’t, then we’ve lost the country.” Let me take you through some of it.

Based on early exit polls, Obama is locked in a tight race with Governor Romney. Nationally we believe the race to be as tight as it could be, and to the extent that Obama is running strong and can win, it is because they see him as someone who cares about people like them. They feel he did a very good job in the response to Hurricane Sandy. When I saw that, I thought this thing is starting to read like a Democrat campaign speech, this exit poll data. Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath and the way Obama handled that, what did Obama do? He showed up one day, he bear hugged Chris Christie, and then he left. The situation on the ground is devastating, and yet Obama triumphs in the exit polls with that.

He successfully painted Romney’s policies as caring primarily about the rich. He successfully convinced roughly half the country that his policies will favor the middle class. Now, measure that against reality. The reality is that the economy of this country is crumbling. The unemployment situation is worsening. The debt situation is worsening. Everything for the very people who think Obama’s gonna help them is getting worse, and yet they told the exit poll people that they thought Obama’s the best guy to handle
Obamacare.

A majority of people like Obamacare in the exit poll. That goes against everything we’ve ever heard in any poll. Voters trust him more than Romney in an international crisis. What? How in the world can that be? In a rational, intelligent world, how can that be? “He’s running very strong with African-Americans, Latinos, and women. If he wins, this data will be consistent with stories about the changing nature of US demographics.”

And I saw this next one. This is the one that made me think this exit poll was BS. I just, intellectually, had trouble with this one. “More than half the people who voted yesterday said that they still blame Bush for the economy.” More than half the people who…? After four years! Well, now, what is the answer to this? How in the world do you deal with this? There are ways, and we didn’t do them. There were too many assumptions made about what the American people thought, about what they knew.

Too many assumptions were made. But look, I don’t want to nitpick the campaign today. That’s not the point. There are larger things here at work. “Roughly half voters want the health care law as it is or expanded, and they are voting for Obama.” Really? I haven’t seen a poll like that anywhere. Every poll — every poll! — I have seen on Obamacare features a majority and close to 60% who don’t like it, but this is an exit poll of people who voted.

“People who say they are looking for a strong leader and someone who has more of a vision for the future support Romney. Romney even wins among voters voting for ‘a candidate who shares my values.’ Voters believe the economy’s weak and Romney will be better able to manage the economy.” Now, this is for people the exit pollers say, this is the reason if Romney wins. This is why. Well, obviously, those people were vastly outnumbered, which is where we are today.

We’re outnumbered.

One of the greatest misunderstandings in this country, if you boil all this down, is what creates prosperity. The Romney campaign was essentially about that, and the Romney campaign was devoted to the traditional American view and history — vision, as well — of what creates prosperity. The old capitalism, the old arguments of hard work, stick-to-itiveness, self-reliance, charity, helping out in the community.

All of these things that define the traditional institutions that made this country great, that’s what the Romney campaign was about. It was rejected. That way, or that route to prosperity was sneered at. That route to prosperity was rejected. The people who voted for Obama don’t believe in it. They don’t think it’s possible. They think the game’s rigged. They think the deck is stacked against them.

They think that the only way they’re gonna have a chance for anything is if somebody comes along and takes from somebody else and gives it to them. Santa Claus! And it’s hard to beat Santa Claus. Especially it’s hard to beat Santa Claus when the alternative is, “You be your own Santa Claus.” “Oh, no! I’m not doing that. What do you mean, I have to be my own Santa Claus? No, no. No, no, no. I want to get up every day and go to the tree. You’re the elves,” meaning us.

You throw Hurricane Sandy in here. I must admit, I am genuinely puzzled that Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath helped Obama and hurt Romney. But it did. According to the exit polls. I mean, what they say is what they say. The polls were right on the money, as it turned out. But until people understand why and how big government reduces prosperity for all, they’re gonna continue to be fooled by little things.

By marketing, by smooth talkers, by faux compassion. So we’ll see what happens with the economy as we go forward. Some people think, “Hey, Rush, the economy is resilient in this country, and it’s gonna naturally rebound. No matter what.” There are people today scared the economy is going to rebound despite what’s happening in the stock market today and Obama’s policies are gonna get credit for it.

A bunch of libs are salivating over that. They think the economy is gonna come back no matter what, and that Obama’s big government is going to end up being the explanation for the rest of our lives as to how that happened. Just like in Japan, just like in Greece. But look, you bring up Greece and you bring up Europe, and they’re where we’re headed. Their problems are acute.

The difference is that none of those European countries are anywhere near the leading economy of the world like we are. The world depends on what happens here. The world does not depend on what happens in Spain or Greece or Italy. Not to put them down. But regardless, wherever you go… Look at Greece. Whenever necessary austerity measures are proposed, what happens?

“No, you don’t! You’re not taking it away from me!” There is no rising to responsibility. There is no accepting responsibility. There’s just a demand that the gravy train continue, and we have an administration that’s promising an endless gravy train. All you have to do to stay on that gravy train is vote. But it doesn’t matter.

The thing that’s mind-boggling is that there is no new prosperity in America. There is no improved standard of living. It’s all going down. “But Obama cares. He really cares! He cares much more than Romney. He really, really cares. In fact, he cares so much, we’re gonna give him a do-over. We’re gonna give him a second term to do what we know he wanted to do in the first term but wasn’t able to for whatever reason.”