RUSH: I just got a note. “Hey, you know, this is a good thing that you’re talking about here, the loss of honest media, targeting anything conservative. Do you do you take any hope in people seeing what you’re talking about more and more?” Yeah, I do. Look at the last two midterm elections. I think the American people see clearly what’s happening here and they don’t like it. I think the American people are totally — those voting, anyway — are very aware of all of this. And they’re voting to stop all of this stuff. All of this stuff the American people were unequivocal about. Stop it. Bring it to a screeching halt.
And did the politics class in Washington do? The political class in Washington with this budget deal, essentially the two parties got together and they turned to the electorate, who voted in November and went (raspberry) you. That is precisely what they did. You want to know why Jeb Bush is thinking of running? I’ll give you a possibility, including the fact he may want to be president, he may want to do this. But he’s also being looked at as a savior by the big money donor class and the consultant class, the establishment of the party, to head off the Tea Party.
They’re gonna pull out all the stops to make sure that a Tea Party type conservative doesn’t get the nomination. If that means somebody like Jeb — could be a sacrificial run just to make sure that a conservative doesn’t get the nomination in 2016. There’s a whole bunch of stuff under the surface here that percolating and effervescing, and it’s all about us being the number one enemy of these people.
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RUSH: I realize I might have very quickly gone past my Jeb Bush theory and intrigued some of you. So let’s just take a little time. Jeb has announced he’s gonna form an exploratory committee, one of the biggest surprises since the moon came up last night. What about this specter, how about Jeb versus Hillary, 2016. Do you see the American people invigorated and excited? Oh, speaking of which, there is a story in the Stack today, which I will get to. I’m doing all this stuff out of order, but I’m remembering as it applies. It has to with Millennials learning something about Hillary. Oh! Oh! There’s a poll, Millennials are shocked when they learn that Hillary Clinton is 67 years old. They can’t believe it.
Now, that begs an obvious question. What in the world are they looking at? The second thing that the polling data suggests shocks young people about Mrs. Clinton is that she hasn’t driven since 1996. Hillary Clinton hasn’t driven herself since 1996, and is 67 years old. The Millennials were shocked that she’s that old. (interruption) I’m what? (interruption) I drive myself. I do, except when I’m out of town. Well, sometimes I do. It depends. But nevertheless.
Now, stop and think of this. The news about the poll suggests the Millennials are disappointedly surprised here. “Hillary, 67? Oh, my God. We’re voting for a dinosaur? Aw, gee. We’re supporting it?” And then they find out she doesn’t drive, and that manifests itself in their minds as, “My God, this woman doesn’t drive. She’s out of touch, being chauffeured everywhere?” Wait until these kids find out what she did to enable her husband abusing women, speaking of that. Wait ’til they find out that Hillary Clinton ran the bimbo eruptions unit.
This is why I say, ladies and gentlemen, that this yellow brick road to the White House for Hillary Clinton, I’m not on board with this yet. And I think, if the Democrat Party — and, by the way, speaking of that, there are couple stories in the Stack today about the disarray the Democrat Party is in. And there’s no question it is. It is a mess, but I don’t think that ought to take precedence over the absolute mess the Republican Party’s making of things.
The Republican Party has already squandered a massive landslide election win. They’ve already squandered it with this budget deal that they did. They looked at this landslide election victory and spat upon it, all to send a message to us, to conservatives. In fact, the Democrats and Republicans got together on it. The Democrats and Republicans got together on the budget, they’re getting together on amnesty, and they’re getting together on Obamacare.
I’ve had people call me over the years, say, “Rush, there’s no difference in the parties.” And I’ve always argued with those people. But in the last two weeks, you’d be hard-pressed to find any difference. I mean, they’ve all united on this lamebrain budget, this really dumb budget. Dumb for the details in it, dumb for how long it is, everything about it’s dumb and wrong. And they’re aligned on amnesty because their donors are. The donor class is running both parties on amnesty. And the Republicans are throwing in with the Democrats and Obamacare.
You can’t find a lickspittle bit of difference. You can’t. On those three issues. I tell you, this is all done, this unity is all aimed at those who are considered the enemy, in a domestic sense, and that’s conservatives. That’s the Tea Party. The Ted Cruzes, the Mike Lees, pick a name. Throw Palin in there if you want, but that’s what this is about. So in the midst of all this, here comes Jeb announcing that he’s gonna explore, via a committee, the idea of running for president. And he’s gonna do it in a unique way. He’s going to do it by ignoring the base.
Jeb Bush is out telling donors, potential donors, CEOs and the like that he is not gonna compromise his principles like others have in order to get the nomination. Meaning, he’s not gonna pander to the Tea Party. Nope. He’s not gonna pander to conservatives. He’s gonna show that you can win the Republican Party nomination without securing the base. And one of the things that I think is really going on here, I think that the Republican Party — it’s true of both parties — the Republican Party is dominated now by what is called in the parlance of the day, the donor class.
You’ve got the political class, the establishment, the consultants class, but the donor class, it’s just the donors. The big, big donors, I’ll tell you who they are. If I had been paying attention I would have realized what was happening 20 years ago. Remember this dinner party I’ve told you about over and over again at the Hamptons? I’m out on the deck after dinner, this guy, big donor, comes up to me and says, poking me in the chest, “What are you gonna do about the Christians?” Remember that story? Well, this guy’s the perfect example of what I’m talking about, the donor class.
He’s not a conservative. He is a Republican probably on fiscal issues, may even be pro-life, I don’t know, but he certainly hates social issues, wants them to be no part of any campaign because his wife nags him about it. He doesn’t like going to conventions with a bunch of hayseed, hick pro-lifers. But this guy and who he represents was a forerunner of what’s going on now. This happened to me, had to be around 1992 or 1993, and it was my first time at the Hamptons. I mean, I would love to tell you the names, but I didn’t get permission to do that, and it’s enough to know that you would know them.
Some were administration officials at the time. Some were former. But it was heavy hitters, and big, big donors. And I remember when this guy came up to me and said, “What are you gonna do about the Christians?” I was taken aback. I was very young, naive, still in the first four years of this and still not really understanding what’s happening, and certainly not knowing who my friends are yet or not. Although I thought I did. I was wrong about that, too. But when this guy starts poking me, I thought he’s teasing me. It was venomous. He was really mad. And I said, “What do you mean, the Christians?”
And he started in on pro-lifers. At the time, the moral majority or the Christian right, I forget the term he used, whatever was popular back then. And I said, “Well, I don’t know why you think I have –“
“They listen to you. You’re one of them. They listen to you.” So right then, if I’d have known, if I’d have had the presence of mind I would have understood that even back then I had been tagged as what the Tea Party is to these guys today: a problem. A potential friend, if I can see the light of day, but if I stayed the way I was, I was gonna be a problem because I had inroads to the Christians.
I tried to stand my ground. I said, “Sir, they’re 24 million votes. You can’t win the presidency without ’em.” And that’s what they’re fed up with, folks. That’s what they’re tired of. And so when you hear Jeb or anybody else seek the Republican nomination and start talking about doing it without winning the base, they’re trying to all come up with a way to win the party nomination without owing anything to the Tea Party. Their wildest dream is to render the Tea Party conservatives an irrelevant factor. One of the primary reasons for that is that that’s what the donors want. The donors rule the roost. The donors are the big money.
And the donors determine in large part what the party — clearly that’s what happened here in this budget deal. It’s clearly what’s happening with amnesty. I’m not so sure the donors are responsible for Obamacare, but in some ways it may be, depending on which donors you’re talking about. So I think that a lot of this talk about the Jeb candidacy is an attempt to see if they can actually, once and for all, in a primary setting, relegate the Tea Party and members of it who are elected, such as Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, impotent. And I think that’s the objective that they have.
You look at the way they went after Ted Cruz when he stood up and tried to get a vote on whether or not what Obama was doing is unconstitutional. He only got 22 Republicans to agree with him on this notion that Obama was acting illegally, outside the Constitution? Only 22 senators voted with Cruz on his point of order? Wouldn’t you think, just in a normal ebb and flow of the day, given what you’ve always thought party politics was, wouldn’t you think that this current bunch of Republican senators, who have to be fully aware that they’re gonna be the majority next month, the current crop of Republicans in the Senate, they’re gonna have a majority because the people that won are gonna be sworn in in January.
They’re gonna be part of a majority. You would think that they could have taken this vote and established for the party, “Yes, President Obama is acting outside the Constitution.” And only 22 senators voted for this. In effect, they sided with the Democrats on this, saying, “No, President Obama is not acting outside the Constitution on this executive amnesty business.” I had people e-mailing me, “What does this mean?” Folks, it can only mean one thing. What Cruz offered was a simple point of order.
There wasn’t even any oompff behind this. It was just go on record stating a belief. If they’re unwilling to do that, I don’t think you should expect — maybe you don’t already — I wouldn’t expect the Senate to do any serious battling with Obama, even after they’re sworn in. I mean, it has to be what this means.
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RUSH: By the way, I didn’t think I needed to say this, but 20 years ago when the guy pokes me in the chest and says, “What are you gonna do with the Christians?” it’s not just abortion and the social issues today that have the Republican establishment aiming at us, opposed to conservatives. Folks, it’s all about limited government, too. They do not want a smaller government. They want a big government that they run. They claim they’re gonna do it smarter, they’re gonna do it more efficiently, but they want the power. I mean, hell, if the government’s gonna play crony socialism, the Republicans want in on the fun.
It’s a danger of precedent setting. You’d think principled people roll back all these destructive things, and that’s not what’s gonna happen. All these crazy things Obama’s done, some Republicans say, “Hey, you know, I want some of that action. It’s power, man, it’s power.” And the power of the federal budget, being able to dole out goodies to your friends in business who have spent a lot of money getting you elected, so it’s quid pro quo. It’s not just about abortion.
It’s become much more than that. It’s what it was, as the animating factor, but now it’s still the social issues, but it’s also the fact — and look at this budget. This is not my opinion. This is not theory. Based on the vote on the budget, I don’t think anybody could honestly claim that the modern incarnation of the Republican leadership is at all interested in reducing the size of government. And that has a practical meaning. Individual freedom and liberty are directly related to the size of government. Bigger government, the less freedom and liberty we all have. Undeniable.
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RUSH: Hey, look, I don’t know. I mean, people say, “Hey, Rush, would you explain something to me? Jeb Bush is telling Republican donors that he’s gonna get the nomination outside of the base. He’s gonna do it without the votes of the base. How’s he gonna do that? I mean, nobody wins their nomination without the base.” Look, folks, right now I don’t have an answer. I can give you a wild guess of what I think.
It’s not so much a wild guess. It’s just paying attention to what they say. If somebody had a gun to my head and said, “You give me a credible theory here on how the Republicans think they can win without the Tea Party voters,” I’d say, “Here’s what it is: Remember, they are devoted to the concept of ‘he who wins independents wins it all.'” They’re devoted to that, number one. Especially now they love the independents, ’cause they are not ideologues.
These establishment, big government, whatever Republicans just don’t like ideologues because they associate ideologues with Tea Party and conservatism. I actually think… This is probably more of a general election strategy than primary, but I think that they believe that they can win with a coalition of independents (who they believe, by the way, hate conservatives as much as everybody else hates ’em) and Hispanics. Do not forget how devoted to the potential Hispanic vote Republicans are. It’s the sole reason they want to do amnesty.
I think they think they could put together a coalition of independents and Hispanics to go along with the average Republican voter, who’s not a conservative or Tea Partier. Romney did it. Here’s the problem with it: Romney won the independents big time. The problem is Republicans got fooled by a trick run by the Democrats all these years. The trick is, “He who wins the independents wins the election.” The reason that was a trick… I’ve said this over and over again.
What it effectively does, is it makes the Republicans run a campaign aimed at 20% of the populace. It assumes that the base is gonna vote for you no matter what in the general. It assumes that the basis is gonna vote for you no matter what. So you got that 40%, and the Democrats have their same 40%. The key, therefore, is the remaining 20% independents. So the Republican consultants tell their candidates (and, by the way, make their sales pitch to get the job from each candidate), “I’m the guy can get you the independents! I’m the guy that can devise a campaign where you’ll win the independents!”
Romney won independents going away. Lost the election. But they’re still wedded to it. It’s a nostalgic thing. They still think it’s key. Because I think they’d love to win with independents. I actually think they would love to win and be able to say afterward that conservative Republicans were not a factor in the victory. That’s… (interruption) Reagan won everything. You don’t win 49 states without everyone. Reagan won practically everything. I don’t know what the demographic breakdown back then with Hispanics and all that was, but he had two landslides.
But, see, they don’t go back and look at the Reagan years as the example. They go back and look at Goldwater. They associate conservatives and Tea Party with Goldwater landslide loss rather than Reagan. Anyway, I’ve been through all of this. I just… (interruption) Snerdley wanted to know how you win without the base. I don’t know. I really don’t. But I know they’d love to. They would love to. Their dream… Let me tell you what their dream is. Their dream is to win the White House and be able to say afterwards that they didn’t need a single Tea Party vote to do it — and the Democrats will do anything to help them, in that regard. Not win the White House, but the Democrats will do anything they can to help them render the Tea Party vote impotent or irrelevant. That’s their objective. It can’t be anything else. I mean, maybe it is. I don’t see it.
I think it’s pretty obvious.
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RUSH: Just a couple things more on this whole business of the establishment of the Republican Party targeting Tea Party candidates, Tea Party itself for defeat. There’s no question in my mind that the Republican Party would love to win the presidency and have it be said in the aftermath that they didn’t need any Tea Party votes to do it. That’s their dream.
Now, I don’t know what their strategy is gonna be for 2016 to win the White House ’cause I don’t know who the nominee’s gonna be, but what if the strategy in 2016 to win the presidency is a repeat of their strategy in the midterms of 2014, i.e. don’t say anything. Don’t say anything controversial. Don’t have any agenda. Don’t lay out any agenda items you’re gonna do. Don’t make yourself a target. Just run and be Republican and just have people get angry at Democrats, vote for Republicans for no reason, other than they’re not Democrats.
Well, look, I know it sounds crazy, but they really do believe they pulled off a brilliant coup here in the midterms. The Republican establishment thinks it was brilliant to not have an agenda. They knew the American people were fed up with Obama and fed up with Democrats. Who wouldn’t be? The country’s a mess. So they vote for the Republicans as an alternative and they may be thinking, let’s do that again in 2016. Well, to you and me, it doesn’t seem like it can work. I’m just throwing an idea out there. I mean, none of what they’re doing is — (interruption) It depends.
Yeah, but normally whoever’s at the top of the ticket defines the agenda. But what if whoever’s at the top of the ticket doesn’t announce an agenda, other than we need a change, other than I’m not Obama, other than I’m not Democrats. Just platitudes. Restore American greatness, blah, blah, you know, just don’t make themselves a target is — (interruption) That’s what I’m saying. If they do it right, it could end up working.
Now, what’s fascinating about these people to me is they go back and say, “No, the Tea Party will kill us. Look at Goldwater. Look at the last time a Republican, my God, it was a landslide.” They never look at Reagan, but what’s interesting, they never look at the candidates they nominate. McCain got shellacked. Romney got shellacked. Whoever they nominate is gonna get shellacked, but they never look back at their own active choices losing elections as something from which to learn a lesson.
They always go back to 1964 and say, “Well, look at that, conservatives, I mean, my God, it’s such a small minority, it’s a landslide, we’ll get creamed! We can’t have another Goldwater.” And that’s what Cruz would be, well, hell, anybody that’s not Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, who else are they thinking about? McCain, he won’t do it again, will he? But the noise is Romney’s thinking about doing it again. We’ll just have to wait and see.
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