RUSH: Let’s get some of the other sound bites. This is Terry Moran at ABC. This is where Nightline says I’m slandering Obama supporters.

MORAN: So how will Republicans react?

RUSH ARCHIVE: Hey, any of you guys in there want to come sit in my chair today? Anybody?

MORAN: A shell-shocked Rush Limbaugh offered one option: contempt for Obama supporters.

RUSH: 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.

MORAN: That old slander, that Americans who support Obama are all somehow moochers and takers, it’s become bedrock belief for many Republicans.

RUSH: Okay, contempt for Obama supporters. Did you hear any contempt yesterday? Slander? I didn’t use the word moochers. This guy did. Look, when Santa Claus visited my house, I didn’t think of myself as a moocher. I looked at it as Santa Claus, that’s his duty. They don’t see themselves as moochers. It’s what they’re entitled to. How many people say, “Santa, don’t show up, I don’t need it.” Everybody accepts a visit from Santa Claus. Why, you’re entitled to it. It’s a national holiday getting stuff on December 25th. With the Democrats, it’s every day. I didn’t call ’em moochers. (laughing)

(interruption)

No, the Obama phone lady is not a moocher. No, no, no. That’s what America is to her. Let me ask you a question, folks. Let me put this question to you. The worse things get economically, the more layoffs that occur, what do you think people are gonna say? You think they’re gonna call here, “Rush, we need more free market capitalism. We need more people willing to go to work.” Or are they going to say, “Well, thankfully, President Obama will take care of me, if those rich, greedy Republicans don’t stop him.” What do you think? As the economy worsens, what are the Obama voters gonna say? “I’m not worried, Obama gonna take care of me, if those rich greedy Republicans don’t stop him.” Or are they gonna say, “Man, you know what, we need more free market capitalism. I’m worried about the ratio of GDP to the national debt.” Are they gonna say that?

Okay. Jonathan Karl was on Good Morning America today. He used to be a good guy, but the left has totally co-opted him now, I think. He may still be a good guy. When he was at CNN, we all thought that Jonathan Karl might have been a stealth conservative in there. He’s doing a report about Obama’s reelection.

KARL: Rush Limbaugh almost seemed at a loss of words when describing the Republican defeat.

RUSH ARCHIVE: I went to bed last night thinking we’re outnumbered. I went to bed last night thinking we’ve lost the country.

KARL: Even as returns were rolling in, Sarah Palin seemed stunned.

PALIN: Unfortunately, we know what we will get with four more years of Obama. This really is a catastrophe setback to our economy. It’s a perplexing time for many of us right now.

RUSH: Folks, was I ever at a loss for words yesterday? I didn’t hold anybody in contempt. I didn’t call anybody moochers, and I was not at a loss for words. I never am at a loss for words. I know exactly what I’m going to say, I say it, I love hearing myself say it, oftentimes so much I repeat it. But I’m not at a loss for words. But they can’t help themselves. They just can’t.

And here on the Today Show today, Matt Lauer was talking to Haley Barbour. This is just one example of, apparently, what went on all day yesterday, last night, and some of this morning.

LAUER: How do you reach out? I mean, Rush Limbaugh said, “How do we reach out and include more of those people without changing our ideology?” What’s the answer to that dilemma?

BARBOUR: Well, certainly donÂ’t have to change the ideology. Ronald Reagan used to say, “At the end of the day, good policy is good politics,” and good policy on immigration in the United States is: We are in a global battle for capital and labor, and we need to have what is good economic policy for America on immigration because we do need labor. We not only need PhDs in science and technology. We need skilled workers, and we need unskilled workers. And we need to have an immigration policy that is good economic policy.

RUSH: Okay. We shouldn’t change our ideology, but, see, we need an immigration bill. We need an immigration bill. That immigration bill needs to send the signal to the Hispanic voters that we’re gonna be maybe looking the other way at the border. But it isn’t about that. Again, folks… What is this business, we need labor?

We’ve got 23 million people in this country out of work! What is this, we need labor? We need subminimum-wage labor. (laughing) I know some of them won’t do farm work. But regardless, the point is, the Hispanic vote… Republicans, if they don’t realize this, it’s sayonara. The Hispanic vote is not tied to the Democrat Party because of immigration policy. It just isn’t it. It never has been and isn’t now.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We’re staying with the sound bites just for the levity of this whole thing. Yesterday on this program, I was explaining the outcome as best we had data yesterday. I said, “Either we’re vastly outnumbered and we’ve got serious problems, or this is the greatest theft of an election ever.” It was a throwaway line. To Jennifer Granholm, I accused the Democrats of stealing the election. Here she is. This is on… Well, why the hell are we even watching this for? Current TV? They got an audience of five.

Oh, well, we’ll play it anyway.

GRANHOLM: Rush Limbaugh, he went even further, saying that there was no way voters could have rejected their poisoned ideology. So the vote must have been rigged.

RUSH ARCHIVE: We’ve suffered a setback, folks, but we have not given up on our principles. And that’s important. Nobody is giving up. But we are facing reality here. We are either outnumbered and are losing ground or one of the most outrageous thefts of an election in the history of elections has taken place.

RUSH: Now, I threw that last line in there because I had a bunch of people e-mailing me thinking that’s what really happened, and I was just trying to acknowledge ’em and make ’em feel better. I have people that really think that. You wouldn’t believe the crap I get every day and have to deal with. I try to knowledge it just keep people happy. I don’t believe it. (sigh) It’s just part of the daily rundown.

Howard Dean wanted to get in on this. He was on NPR’s Talk of the Nation with Political Junkie columnist Ken Rudin, who said, “Governor Dean, when you were the Democrat national chairman, you made a point of making this a 50-state strategy and the reasons it is Democrats did so well in ’06 was because they did well in all these states. Do you think in our lifetime this presidential race will go beyond seven or eight states and the rest of the country can participate in it as well?”

DEAN: If you want to knit the country together, you’ve got to will your ideas to them. That was the whole feeling behind the 50-state strategy. You need to be everywhere. I know we’re not gonna win in Utah any time soon. But if you don’t go out there and show the respect that the people deserve — whether they’re gonna vote for you or not — and be the spokesman for your own ideas instead of letting Rush Limbaugh do it —

RUSH: (laughing)

DEAN: : — then of course we’re gonna be a bitterly divided country. So I do think the Electoral College has something to do with our divisions, and I’m hoping that that will essentially not be the way we elect presidents after a few more years.

RUSH: It’s just funny. No matter where you went in the media, the left was bouncing off of me. So since they’re bouncing off of me, let me repeat. Three million Republicans, mainly white voters, didn’t vote. This election result was not the result of a major demographic shift, and it did not happen because the Republicans lost on a major demographic shift. I’m not denying demographics are changing in America.

The Republicans didn’t get their vote out.

Pure and simple.

And the Republicans are in the process of making a huge tactical error if they believe that the way to get the Hispanic vote is to moderate their immigration policy, because it is not immigration policy that makes Hispanics vote for Democrats. It’s not about that. Why does anybody vote for a Democrat? The Democrat Party is the party of stuff. The Democrat Party is the party that takes care of you when you don’t work. The Democrat Party is the party that’s gonna punish the people who do work with higher taxes.

Why does anybody vote Democrat?

It is not Democrat immigration policy.

I defy anybody to tell you what it is anyway.