RUSH: This is Phillip in Raleigh, North Carolina. Great to have you, sir. I’m glad you waited.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Longtime listener, first-time caller. Mega dittos.

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: Like you, I think I’ve been very worried as well about our future, and listening to that speech today, it provided so much hope. I think he’s energizing, he’s motivating. He articulated in sharing conservative ideals, whether it’s taxes, health care, defense, protection of life, decreased regulation. And I’m finally motivated. Somebody that didn’t have the typical Republican apologetic tone in the speech.

RUSH: No, there was certainly none of that.

CALLER: No.

RUSH: There were no apologies. There were no apologetics. There were no excuses offered. There were no qualifiers in any way offered by Ted Cruz as an excuse for what he was saying or what he believes.

CALLER: Yeah. I think you can motivate the base. I think the independents will come on board.

RUSH: Well, we’ll see. I’ll tell you one thing that’s gonna happen here. I would have to think — I could be wrong — the exact opposite could happen. But I think the reaction this is gonna get — and, by the way, you’re gonna think this is funny. Do not, folks, discount the fact he didn’t use a teleprompter. Now, I know it sounds ridiculous, but the fact that he didn’t use a teleprompter is causing the Drive-Bys as much puzzlement as anything he might have said. It’s not supposed to be possible. What it’s gonna mean: He really believed it, this guy is serious.

Now, one of two things is gonna happen in the Republican field. This announcement today is either gonna force a whole lot of potential Republican candidates to move to the right, maybe further right than they intended to in order to compete with this. Or, I think more unlikely is, that some of them might decide to abandon going right at all and go more to the center in order to differentiate themselves because they might conclude that there’s no way they can out-Cruz Cruz on the right. So it’s gonna be interesting to me to see what the other candidates now do because of this and what happens the next day.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The interesting thing to me right now is what will the rest of the Republican field do in response. It is entirely possible — and, by the way, I say this with some firsthand experience of things like this. It’s quite possible — I’m not predicting it. I don’t know for sure it’s gonna happen. But it’s quite possible that Cruz was so effective today in articulating conservatism, and then coupling that with what his conservative agenda would be, and then coupling that with what his vision for America is, and his recitation of what is wrong with the current president, the current leadership, the current Democrat Party, it may be that other Republicans decide there’s no way they can get to the right of Ted Cruz and there may not be any way they can actually compete with him on that stage.

It’s quite possible. I don’t know if it’s gonna happen. I’m just throwing out possibilities here. We’ll have to watch and see. But it’s possible that a number of Republican candidates might say, “You know what? He owns it. Ted Cruz is the conservative in this. I’m gonna have to stake out unique territory.” I’ve seen this happen in none other than the media. So it could well be — and I doubt very seriously that you’re gonna have a lot of Republicans abandon the right because Cruz was so good at it today, but it’s possible. I don’t expect it to happen, but if it does, I won’t be surprised.

But they’re gonna have to differentiate themselves from him somehow. And the tough question is gonna be, “Okay, how do I do conservatism better than Ted Cruz does it? Can I do conservatism as well as Ted Cruz and win because I have a more likable personality, ’cause I have a better looking family, do I look better on TV, do I sound more competent? Or can I be as conservative as Cruz and articulate the same stuff and do I have a leg up because I’ve actually done something? I’ve actually implemented an agenda.”

These guys are gonna be asking themselves all these questions. And I think this is great. You contrast what exists on the Republican side with the vanilla that’s on the Democrat side, I don’t care who you pick, Hillary, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, take your pick of any of them over there, and all you’ve got is Chairman Mao Jr. I mean, you don’t have any diversity on the left whatsoever. You’ve got far left, extreme left, and nothing else. Mrs. Clinton cannot come anywhere near Cruz in likability, presentation, energy, articulation, any of that. She can’t get anywhere near.

Elizabeth Warren can only out-anger people. Joe Biden is a walking joke, a walking gaffe. So in that sense the Democrat bench, I think, is somewhat thin, but there certainly isn’t any diversity. The Democrat base is so ridiculously, radically, genuinely insane. I was talking in the last hour about all of these people who have been voting Democrat for all of these years believing that’s the ticket, and they’re angrier than ever, and they’re more unhappy than they’ve ever been. It’s understandable. Everything they’ve been voting for and all the promises cannot possibly be kept.

The prosperity and all the other things that are promised cannot possibly be delivered. Even after $18 trillion in spending money this nation does not and has not had. Eighteen trillion, we ought to have 10 utopias for that and we’re not even close to one. So the rage and anger that’s on the left, in one sense, is understandable. It’s exacerbated and even inflamed with additional rhetoric by politicians on the left. That base has to be accounted for.

You have to deliver hate-filled, extreme radical leftism in order to have the barest chance at winning the Democrat nomination, which does not bode well for diversity on the Democrat side, versus, again, all of the different personalities and concepts and themes and variations that do exist on the Republican side.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Daniel in San Antonio, Texas. Great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hi from Texas. The reason why I called in is, I’m really excited about Ted Cruz running. Being from Texas, I voted for him in the primary and I voted for him when he was running in the general election. Listening to him gives me a better outlook on the future. I have a 11-month-old baby at home, and I’m excited that he won’t get more opportunities if Ted Cruz would be elected opposed to like Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, or any of the others.

RUSH: I understand that. I think probably what excites you and a lot of other people is the realization that there is a Ted Cruz, that there is at least somebody out there who can do this, that there’s somebody out there willing to do this. We finally have somebody that’s willing to articulate conservatism proudly, happily, cheerfully, with no excuses whatsoever. In fact, just the opposite of that. I can see how that would be inspiring and reassuring.

So have at it.

I think it’s totally justified.