RUSH: I don’t see how I can do it. I’m too famous. This business about moderating Republican debates. Did you see that out there? There’s a suggestion that’s been made, a lot of people have made the suggestion. Cal Thomas has made it, that me and Sean Hannity and Mark Levin would moderate Republican primary debates. I think I’d overshadow it. I think I’m too famous. Be a tough call. It’d be a real, real, real tough call. (interruption) Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. It could get ratings, I mean there’s no question about that. It’s an idea that’s out there.

Now, some people misunderstood and thought that it was moderating debates on mainstream TV networks. That would never happen. These would be debates that are strictly for a conservative Republican media and audience.
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RUSH: Here’s Jeff in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. It’s great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER. Yeah. Hi, Rush. You know, when you said you would overshadow any candidate if you were gonna moderate a Republican presidential debate, I could think of one, actually really only one possible candidate who you wouldn’t overshadow, and that’s Sarah Palin.

RUSH: For people that are just tuning in and didn’t hear the opening of the program and are hearing you, they might be getting a little bit of a distorted idea of what I meant. So let me set the table again before we get further into your comment, okay?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: There’s a news story out there that says the RNC is considering having people like me or Sean Hannity or Mark Levin moderate Republican presidential primary debates for the 2016 election. And I simply opined at the beginning of the program, I was telling Mr. Snerdley, “I don’t know that this would work. I might be too famous to do this.” And old Jeff here is assuming that what I meant was that I was going to overshadow and dominate. I would never say —

CALLER: Well, I meant too famous as well in the sense of a star based, having their own star base or at least new attention base, so I don’t mean overshadow in that sense because frankly I think she has the facility, probably the only one that could match verbal jibes with you. I meant also the star base, the star attraction, you know, the everybody wants to see, that kind of thing. I can’t think of anyone other than her that would be a counterbalance to you that people would want to see. Otherwise you’re correct, you would kind of be more newsworthy than any candidate, except her.

RUSH: Well, see, the purpose of this would be to maybe change that. I think the thinking about this is that if you put these Republicans with, I don’t want to say “like-minded,” but put them with people who are not automatically adversarial, who are not trying to defeat them, who aren’t treating them as suspects out of the box, that they might blossom. We might get a little bit more out of who they really are rather than the defensive, don’t want to offend anybody, don’t want to upset anybody way they behave with Democrat moderators.

CALLER: But your point was I would want to see you, that Rush Limbaugh is controversial. My only point is, yeah, it is true, but if one of the candidates at the debate was Sarah Palin, she’s the only one that eyes would want to see, what she was saying, too. That’s my only point when you were saying that, oh, yeah, everybody would want to see you out of interest. Well, I think she’s the one —

RUSH: No, I didn’t mean it as — (crosstalk)

CALLER: — to you as far as interest.

RUSH: No, no, no, I meant that I would be a distraction.

CALLER: Well, there again —

RUSH: I didn’t mean it that I would be overshadowing, because I’m not running. Now, it may well be that after one of these debates people will say, “Well, why don’t you run?” I’m not running. I was simply saying that I might end up being a distraction.

CALLER: Well, any way you want to see it, if you call it a distraction as well, you wouldn’t distract from the only one I would think would be Sarah Palin, and she would probably be the only one that would distract from you. That’s my only point.

RUSH: What about Trump?

CALLER: He’s not a real candidate. He doesn’t really fire up people like — she’s a serious, you know, she’s a threat. Let me put it this way. She’s a threat to the Democrats, not Trump. She’s the only one that the Democrats were fearful of day one. And not only that, when you were talking about that Hillary Clinton would be immune as a woman from criticism, what do you think Sarah Palin — I mean, they attack her, but she remains, was, is, and will always be the one candidate the Democrats really fear is Sarah Palin. They would want anybody but her running.

RUSH: I don’t disagree that. Look, that’s just common sense. The reaction, the irrational reaction the left has to Palin — seriously, now — if they really thought she was this just glittering jewel of sheer unbridled idiocy, they would want her out front. If they thought that Sarah Palin was so bad, so stupid, so ineffective that she would automatically lose, they would want her front and center. They’d be trying to help her get the nomination, but it’s the exact opposite. I’ve always said that the left will always tell us who they fear, they will always tell us who they really are frightened of. To me, that’s just slam dunk. It’s not even arguable.

Now, when I say that Democrats want Hillary ’cause we can’t criticize a woman. We can’t criticize a liberal woman. Obviously Sarah Palin, that War on Women thing goes out the window and all of a sudden then, if she were ever to be the nominee, the War on Women would become justified. The War on Women, they’d reinstitute the draft in order to get soldiers to go to battle in the War on Women, to take her out. Bunch of punks.

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RUSH: You would not believe the staff just jumping all over me here on what they think is my reluctance to accept the role of moderator of a debate. And I’m having more fun toying with everybody on this. He-he-he-he-he. Anyway, I don’t think that it’d ever happen, which is one of the reason why I’m toying, you know, having a little fun with it here. I fully understand the value in it. Look, there’s a whole bunch of these people. When I say I’d be a distraction, I’m talking about the media reporting at the end of it more on me and trying to poke holes at me than what the candidates saying. That’s all I mean.

You know, it’s a joke to say I’m too famous. What I mean is that I’m a route for these people to discredit everybody. But all that aside, it’s not just Sarah Palin. There was all kinds of potential. We could have the first Hispanic president, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. We could have the first female president, Sarah Palin. We’re not short of potentially good candidates here. We just haven’t had — who made this point. Conrad Black. He was on that Fareed Zakaria show from the front seat of his car using the GPS on CNN. Conrad Black made the point that the candidates, the people who’ve sought the office since Reagan have been on balance disappointing. And there’s reason why.

Who wants the media anal? Who wants to be treated as a suspect and who wants to have everything about their lives destroyed by a media? I mean, it’s a common sense thing. To run for office, particularly to run for president, you’ve gotta have an ego that most people can’t possibly relate to. You have to have a passionate desire, you have to believe this country can’t survive without you. You have to have whatever it takes to put up with all that, and your family does, too. I’m convinced that it’s a roadblock to a lot of people from seeking the office. But I think, all that aside, the current roster has a lot of potential Republican candidates.

The establishment side’s trying to do everything they can to destroy the candidates you and I would look at as having great potential. Washington is Washington. Republican or Democrat, Washington is Washington. And they want people there who are going to maintain it and have it run as it is now. They don’t want people coming in and upsetting the applecart.