RUSH: Geri in Tomball, Texas, you’re next. Great to have you here, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hi. It’s a woman. I’m G-e-r-i.
RUSH: Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right.
CALLER: Oh, that’s okay. Hi, Rush. It’s so nice to talk to you. I would like to know what an independent is, what your explanation of an independent is. I think it’s someone who doesn’t know what they believe and will go whichever way the wind blows.
RUSH: I don’t think that’s what an independent is. I think that’s what they want you to think an independent is. And I think that’s what the media wants you to think an independent is. An independent, in the modern era, is a better person than a partisan conservative. An independent is open-minded. An independent is not rigid and is not an ideologue and is not a bigot and not a racist. An independent decides things issue by issue, person by person, is studied, is intelligent, is focused, is sensitive, and what an independent really is, is either a Republican or Democrat afraid to say so.
CALLER: Which means they don’t know what they believe.
RUSH: No, they know what they believe. No, no. They know what they believe. They’re just afraid to say so. They don’t want controversy. They don’t want any bellyaching or complaining once they tell people what they think. Plus, they’re very sophisticated. They know —
CALLER: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
RUSH: They know that the media has elevated them. Look at what the media’s been telling us for 30 years, Geri. The independents are going to determine the outcome of every election.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Well, those independents know that. I mean, they run around and they’re proud to call themselves independents ’cause they want people to think that the election turns on them. They’ll show up at town halls and act like they don’t have any opinion on anything, and that’s open minded, and, sorry, if you don’t have an opinion on anything, you are worthless in the political arena.
CALLER: That’s how I feel anyway.
RUSH: Exactly. They go to these town hall meetings and they act like they’re open to whatever, and that they’re studying things diligently, and after all of this study and immersion in the issues and 30,000 hours of C-SPAN and whatever, they come to their conclusion and they are right because they are the precious independents. They’re alternately called moderates or independents. But I think in our highly charged political atmosphere of the day, the actual number of people who do not have a guiding ideological principle behind them is not anywhere near a majority of people. Now, that’s not to say that everybody that has an opinion about something is right or wrong, but the idea that there are that many people running around who don’t care or who have not formed an opinion, I just refuse to accept that it’s that large a number.
CALLER: Right. I could never, ever vote Democrat, ever, no matter what. Thank you, Rush.
RUSH: Well, you obviously couldn’t be an independent, right, because they’ll vote —
CALLER: Oh, no.
RUSH: — both ways either way on whatever basis they think is best after all of their study. Now, you asked this question. I could have gone about this is an entirely different way. I could have pretended that I’m a Republican. And I could have said to myself, okay, I’ve got this question, what do I think of it? I could have sat here and I could have lauded and I could have praised to the hilt, and I could have said they are the future of the country. Getting to the independents, persuading them, convincing them that I’m right, and I could have played to ’em, I could have sucked up to ’em and people would say, “Boy, this Rush guy, you know, he’s really smart. I mean, this Rush guy, he’s got an opportunity here, he’s expanding his audience.”
And I didn’t do that, did I? I just fired what I think about independents. I don’t mean it to be insulting, although I’m sure those of you who think you are independents are going to take it as being insulted, but that’s not the intention. I’m just suspicious of people who are reluctant to proclaim themselves issue by issue by issue. I don’t care what it is. Obamacare, somebody says, “Oh, I don’t know, I’m still studying.” Studying what? How can anybody still be open-minded about that? Remember, now, independents are really informed. I mean, they’re more informed than the rest of us. They really care. They study. That’s all they do, by the way. They don’t have jobs. They’re just independents. I mean, they’re the wheel. They’re the spoke for everything that makes our political system go.
What they really are is closet partisans. As I’ve said before, I think one of the biggest, most successful political tricks in the world that the Democrats have succeeded in running against the Republicans is convincing them that you do not win any election, particularly a presidential election, unless you win a majority of independents. What does that do? The independents, by definition, are 20% of the voting population, because — this is the theory — 40% are partisan Democrat; 40% are partisan Republican; and nothing you do is gonna change it. They’re gonna vote.
So Republican consultants tell their candidates, “I’m the guy that can get you a majority of that 20%,” because the independents are always the undecided bout. And the undecided, they’re a cut above, too. Oh, yeah, the undecided, they’re much more open-minded. They’re much less partisan. They’re much more open to expansive ideas, rather than these closed-minded partisans of both sides. And so the end result is, folks, that Republican consultants end up crafting campaigns aimed at 20% of the voting population. Because there’s a big assumption that they’re gonna get their base. They’re gonna get all 40% of their base.
Well, you go back and look at 2012. Romney versus Obama. And you go look and find what Romney’s margin of victory was with independents. It was profound. It was huge. Off the top of my head, I think Romney won independents by 13 points, and he lost big, right? Now, how did that happen? ‘Cause the Republican consultants tell their candidates “You gotta win the independents,” and how do you win the independents? You talk just like Governor Christie did in his speech today.
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RUSH: Now, one thing. There is a relatively new phenomenon going on regarding independents, and I was remiss in not pointing it out. (interruption) What happened to the secondhand smoke guy? (interruption) Ah, jeez. Oh, that was gonna be fun. The secondhand smoke guy hung up. Well, there was some guy on the phone that was gonna complain to me. I guess he wanted to argue with me about I supposedly said secondhand smoke doesn’t kill, and he was of the belief that it does. I was so looking forward to that, and the guy vamanos’d.
Anyway, there are a lot of independents today… I don’t know how many, but there are a lot of them. This is the best way to put this: There are a lot of ticked-off Republicans who’ve left the party and are now registering as independents. They’re Republicans who are just ticked off at the establishment, so they’re not registering. This is their way of registering a disagreement protest. They have no desire to be identified with current Republican establishment, so they’re reregistering as independents.