RUSH: Here’s Brad in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Mr. Limbaugh. A pleasure to speak to you. I told your call screener there that I am an attorney. I teach law. I’m a former public official and a Republican, and I advise my clients and my students, “You can’t take legal advice from the people across the table. They’re going to give advice, obviously, that is in favor of their position.”
RUSH: Exactly.
CALLER: That sounds so obvious, why even say that, right? Well, it’s not. A lot of people don’t seem to get it, and a lot of politicians don’t seem to get that. Why is it that Republicans are always apologizing because of your what the Democrats are saying?
RUSH: Now, wait a minute. In the analogy that you used — the courtroom, for example — I think if somebody was at the defendant’s table… Are you saying that it might make sense to somebody to take the advice of the prosecutor, in the courtroom, not in the plea deal segment? If you’re actually in court, would you take the advice of the prosecution?
CALLER: It seems pretty obvious that you shouldn’t do that, right?
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: Yeah. It’s not obvious. I can tell you, it’s not obvious out there to some people, and it seems like it’s not obvious to a lot of Republicans, as you’re saying. You know, they don’t have the courage to stand up and trust the people. That’s the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Trust the people with the facts, trust the people to be able to understand policies that make sense, and you win. You can win them over. Democrats say, “No, people are stupid. You gotta appeal to their feelings, gotta make ’em feel good,” and we buy into that, making ourselves try to not look like the bad guy that doesn’t feel bad towards certain groups of certain people, that we need to be apologetic and wring our hands and be Democrat Light, as you say.
RUSH: I know.
CALLER: No. Tell the facts. Articulate and set the agenda. People aren’t stupid, and they will vote accordingly.
RUSH: It has always amazed me.
There are many examples, but I think one of the biggest tricks that the Republicans have fallen for — and this is a trick, by the way. It’s a Democrat-media created trick that was used on Republican consultants who found a way to monetize it for themselves, and it’s this: The trick is that every election is determined by how the independents vote. The trick states that 40% of voters are gonna go Democrat and 40% are gonna go Republican, and that leaves 20% the great undecided, the independents, the moderates.
“They are the people who determine who wins and loses an election, not your base.” So the Democrats and the media create that trick, and then the Republican Party consultants find a way to monetize it. The Republican Party consultants then say to Republican candidates, “I’m the guy that can tell you how to win independents. I’m the guy that can win independents for you. I’m the guy that can devise a campaign so that you will win the independents.”
Therefore, the Republican candidates are always pursuing 20% of the electorate. The consultants get paid whether the candidate wins or loses, and they get paid any number of ways. One of the ways is a straight contractual fee, a retainer. The other way is a 15% commission on all advertising that’s placed, and that’s where the big money is. That’s a lot of consultants really become wealthy.
But the trick has got Republicans, and it’s been working like this for a long time. It’s many, many years. The Republicans actually now target their campaigns for 20% of the electorate, and who are they, the 20%? They’re said to be non-ideological, “So don’t approach them with fire and brimstone,” and then the trick was completed when the media and the Democrats spread the notion that the independents don’t like “partisanship.”
Right.
They spread the notion that the independents don’t like arguing, that the independents don’t like bickering, that the independents want compromise, that the independents want no fighting at all. They just want everybody to get along, and the independents do not like strife, and the independents do not like raised voices. “The independents do not like, especially, when the Republicans of Barack Obama or any other Democrat!”
So the consultants tell their candidates and devise campaigns based on all this. Do you ever stop to think that your average Republican campaign may only be targeting 20% of the voters? Why do you think the conservative base is staying home? They’re not being appealed to. They are being taken for granted. Now, the Democrats are the authors of the trick, so the Democrats are not just pursuing 20% of the electorate. They’re pursuing it all.
So the trick is a double whammy: Republicans end up pursuing 20% of the electorate and they do it with one hand tied behind their back because they’re not allowed to be argumentative, forceful, passionate or whatever ’cause that’s gonna cause the independents to run right into the arms of the Democrats. And the Republicans, God bless ’em, believed this. I offer as proof John McCain. John McCain personifies this strategy.
(impression) “That’s right, Limbaugh! The media’s my base, and these people… The centrists, the moderates, those are the people that the election’s won on!” Right, and we see how that’s been working out. So Republicans get snookered. Here’s trick number two. Trick number two is what’s happening in immigration. They’ve already got trick one in play: Republicans are trying to win an election by appealing to 20% of the electorate. This is mind-boggling when you stop to think about this.
So 20% the electorate’s what they’re targeting, but now we move to immigration. We add something to it. The Democrats and the media are telling Republicans that the Hispanics don’t like ’em. “Hispanics do not like you! You guys, you know what? You’re never gonna win the presidency, you’re never gonna win it back — and we Democrats, we really want you to win the presidency! I mean, that’s what we’re here for.
“We want to share all this with you, but you guys are gone. You keep going the way you’re going and you’re gonna end up not being a party. You’re gonna have to come up with ways to make the Hispanics like you. You’re gonna have to open your mind on amnesty. You’re gonna have to open your mind on border security. You’re gonna have to realize that you can’t win an election again if the Hispanics don’t like you.”
So the consultants, they hear this, and they sop it up, and after they’ve got their candidates pursuing 20% of the electorate, they then tell them, “Oh, by the way, you guys had better start supporting amnesty,” and what does that do? Well, the 40% that you’re taking for granted is gonna vote for you? They split, they fly the coop, and you don’t have a prayer. All this taking place under the guise of Democrats trying to “help” Republicans.
All of us are sitting out here saying, “Who in the world could possibly fall for this, that the Democrats want to share their voters with us, that the Democrats really want to share the White House with us, that the Democrats really want us to win now and then? They’re so eager for us to do well that they’re advising us on how to steal Hispanic voters from them?” The next thing you know, the Republicans are pushing a Democrat plan that will swell Democrat voter registration to the point the Republican Party doesn’t exist.
The Republicans are all-in, and they’re doing it with a smile. We’re sitting out here saying, “Who in the world could fall for this?” Now, the trick is being played a third time on health care. “Can’t stop it. Can’t take the money out. The American people are gonna like this! We can’t be seen as opposing these subsidizing down the road. We gotta let this pass and let it implode. It can’t possibly work,” which, by the way, it can’t.
It is too massively, bureaucratically complex. It can’t work. But that doesn’t mean… I mean, what other entitlement does? So I sit there and wonder. Our caller Brad is exactly right: We are taking advice of people who are trying to eliminate us — I mean, really wipe out our existence! We’re taking their advice, under the guise that they’re trying to help us. That’s where we get to this capitulation with the Democrats as a strategery.
But I think the real trick — and this has been a brilliant, brilliant trick. The real trick has been doing it. Imagine pulling this off! This is so good, I’m surprised the Democrats can keep this to themselves. If I were The Forehead or Carville, I would be out bragging about this. I would have already written books. But they know not to. Bob Shrum, all these guys, they’ve got every Republican candidate trying to win every election by targeting only 20% of the voters.
They’ve got ’em believing that that’s where elections are won. “You gotta win a majority of those people, so that’s where you aim: For 20% of the electorate.” Meanwhile, as we sit here, the polls show that 29% of independents support Obamacare. The vast majority of independents oppose Obamacare. They never have liked it — and in this instance, for some reason the Republicans don’t care about the independents. Not in this one instance. I guess the consultants are telling the Republicans, “No, no. The independents, they’re wrong on this.”