RUSH: This is Madeleine in Cleveland. Hi, Madeleine. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for all the work that you do. My brother’s birthday was this past Sunday, 55, and we got him a book, your latest book about Rush Revere and the Pilgrims.

RUSH: Yeah, thank you.

CALLER: I hope he’ll lend it to me. But, anyway, I guess I have a question, a short comment. I volunteered in —

RUSH: Wait just a second. Wait, wait, wait just a second.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: We’ll get your name and address. I’ll send you one because if he lends it to you, you won’t give it back, it’s that good. So we’ll send you a copy, so you can have your own, okay?

CALLER: (laughing) Well, thank you very much.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: I appreciate that.

RUSH: You’re welcome. It’s my pleasure.

CALLER: But anyway, yeah, you’re probably right, he wouldn’t lend it to me.

RUSH: No, if he did, I’m saying you wouldn’t give it back, it’s that good.

CALLER: I know, and he has two kids who are waiting in line to read it, too.

RUSH: Exactly right.

CALLER: Anyway, I just wanted to say that I volunteered in 2004 as well as 2012 elections, and my statement is just that in Ohio we did not have boots on the ground. And, you know, I was there. I was in the trenches. I was in a little hole-in-the-wall on Richmond Road, actually Governor Romney —

RUSH: What do you mean boots on the ground? You didn’t have people getting the vote out —

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: — phone banks, what do you mean?

CALLER: We didn’t have it. It simply was not there.

RUSH: Well, now, wait. In Cleveland?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Well, maybe —

CALLER: And in Cuyahoga County. I was in Cuyahoga County.

RUSH: Could it be that Romney just wrote that off? I mean, isn’t that a big —

CALLER: Probably.

RUSH: — big blue county and city?

CALLER: Probably.

RUSH: That’s a problem, but I mean that may be the reason they did it. ‘Cause I hadn’t heard that about all of Ohio.

CALLER: Well, and if you looked on the news, you know, which I did, I don’t know about the youth vote. I understand what you and other people have said. Who knows. But at Ohio State they had film of the young Republicans with a little tent, and then juxtapose that image with another image of these huge buses with rock stars on them taking kids out, getting them food, and taking them to vote. I mean, we just looked at the difference, just banging our heads, like what is going on? And that was in Columbus. I don’t know about the youth vote, but maybe you’re right. But I have to tell you, there was a difference in 2004, even in Cuyahoga County, you know, there was a grassroots ground movement that was amazing for President Bush. And there was —

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: — so much energy.

RUSH: Now, I don’t doubt you at all, particularly in Cuyahoga County, Cleveland. I don’t doubt you at all. But this statewide difference that you saw between Bush 2004 and Romney in 2012, what would you attribute it to? I mean, it’s one thing for the party to get people out, but if people are energized, they don’t need the party to get ’em out. You got people volunteering, they want to be involved. Sounds like that’s what was not happening.

CALLER: I think that you had first McCain, you know, as a candidate, and then Romney. I sort of got to know Romney and got behind him and got behind the cause because I knew what Obama stood for was kind of scary as we’re seeing because I’m a nurse, my husband’s a doctor, okay, so we were really afraid of this whole Affordable Care Act thing, and my husband’s with —

RUSH: You guys get to play doctor every day. (laughing)

CALLER: Oh, it’s difficult under the best of circumstances. Yes, there has to be economizing, there has to be a way to spend. Redundancy is a problem. You know, but remember, Obamacare is about insurance, not health care.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: Okay, and control of the economy, a big portion of the economy. I think people have to remember that. We aren’t even talking about health care, improving health care, or seeing who gets health care and who doesn’t get health care yet. That’s down the road. But I was also a volunteer for ORCA, which never happened. I think you mentioned it once on your show. It was this big computer program that was supposed to take place the night of elections around the country —

RUSH: Yeah. I think there was some overconfidence. I’ve talked with people since, and I think there was a lot of… oh, man, could I tell you a story. Yeah, I think I will. I think I will. Yeah.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah, this ORCA business. It was many things. It primarily was a get-out-the-vote website for Romney, and it was a metrics website. They were going to be able to determine on Election Day where they needed to get people going, and it didn’t work. It was a website. It didn’t work. It was a website that was not tested beginning to end. It was a website put together by politicians and consultants and damned if it just didn’t work. Strange how that happens.

No, this story is not that big a deal. In fairness, there’s a hacker group out there called Anonymous. They run around wearing the Guy Fawkes masks and all that. They claimed that they kept ORCA from working. Or, as they say, they claim they kept Karl Rove from stealing Ohio. But Romney was polling ahead in Ohio, only lost it by two points, people remember. Anyway, the story’s not that big a deal, folks. I ran into somebody, a ranking Romney official not long ago who asked me if I’d ever heard of Saul Alinsky, and was surprised when I said I had. There was a little regret that they didn’t know who he was sooner, but…