RUSH: In politics, Chris Stirewalt at Fox News: “Polls Show Hillary Way Underwater in Swing States.” You know, depending on where you look, the AP — and I don’t want to get in a lot of detail today because we’ve been in the weeds on this Hillary stuff all week long. It just gets complicated, legalistic, confusing. People say, “Well, who did what? What did she do? What did she not do? What’s left on the server?” The more interesting aspect of this is what it is doing to Hillary’s poll numbers.

She’s plummeting in a lot of places, while Bernie Sanders continues to skyrocket. Bernie Sanders continues to just go through the roof and draw huge, huge crowds. And the Hillary camp is telling their supporters, “Don’t sweat this! There’s nothing here. This is nothing but a low-grade fever. We’re gonna get through this. They don’t have anything. There was nothing on the server. They’ve got nothing,” is what the Clinton camp is telling everybody.

“Don’t worry about Huma! They’re not gonna be able to get Huma, and there’s no reason to gonna be able to get Cheryl Mills. Nothing is gonna happen!” That’s the Clinton message to donors and the media. But “in a poll of voters in six make-or-break swing states Hillary Clinton now trails a generic Republican opponent by 13 points,” and that’s a jump. That’s worse from last month’s eight-point deficit.

You know the old generic ballot poll where they asked people in a congressional or presidential race, “Who are you gonna vote for, Republican or Democrat?” The Democrats usually always win these things. They always poll better in generic; then you start adding names to the generic ballot questions and things change. Well, Hillary Clinton, against any Republican, is losing by 13 points.

The poll’s gonna be released later today. It was conducted for the pro-Republican group American Crossroads by the pollsters Vox Populi. It’s a telephone survey of 1,908 registered voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia. Those are the six swing states, and she is underwater in them. Now, that’s the kind of thing, even before the legal beagles get into gear, that’s the kind of thing that makes the political people the Democrat Party sit up and say, “Wait a minute. Are we about to get drowned here?”

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RUSH: Here’s Desloge, Missouri, this is Gary. Garym you’re next on Open Line Friday. Great to have you on the program. I know where you live. I’ve flown over it.

CALLER: And I know where you live, about. I went to school there.

RUSH: (laughing).

CALLER: (laughing) No, listen, I’ll get right to the point, as Mr. Snerdley said. You know, it’s difficult for me to get too jacked up about all the e-mail controversy swirling around Hillary. I mean, we hear it ads nauseam from daylight ’til dark, but my question is I would kind of like you to opine on this. There are two things at play here.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: Either there’s utter arrogance, which we know Clintons are vastly capable of that, or there’s stupidity at play here. So, you know, is she to the point where they will find something directly incriminating on those e-mails on that server, or is she just that arrogant to think she could do this?

RUSH: No, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. Wait, wait. One at a time. The server has been professionally wiped clean.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: There’s nothing to be found on the server. Your question actually, Gary, is very shrewd because what you’re saying, “Haven’t we been here before?

CALLER: Yeah!

RUSH: “Haven’t we thought we had the Clintons in the palm of our hands and they slither out of there like snakes every damn time?”

CALLER: You put the screws on ’em and they screw right out from under it.

RUSH: Right! Nothing ever sticks to them. Nothing ever ends up hurting them. In fact, you may think that we’re being toyed with again, set up yet again.

CALLER: Yep. Yep. Like I said, who knows. I mean, time will tell, but, like I said, worst-case scenario, they’ll probably find some senior staffer to fall on the proverbial sword, and that will be that.

RUSH: Well, I was beginning to opine, as you say, about a column, a little blog post here by Chris Stirewalt, who’s political director at Fox News. And it’s just the latest polls in six swing states where she is losing big time. The point is that legal… I don’t think anything is going to happen to Hillary legally, and I’ll just tell you up front. I hear people say she might be indicted, go to prison.

CALLER: Eh, nope!

RUSH: I’m sorry. Been there; done that. Not gonna happen.

CALLER: No way.

RUSH: But what has happened, Gary, in 2008 the Democrats threw her overboard.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: There was no legal scandal back then. There was just her incompetence, her dullness, her dryballness, whatever, on parade. She’s not that popular within the Democrat Party. It’s happening again. We’ve got some guy out there who’s a reformed, aged hippie named Bernie Sanders who is just drawing crowds like flies. It’s incredible out there. Now, true, Hillary hasn’t trained all of her advertising money on him yet, and that’s going to come. He doesn’t have the slightest idea what’s gonna hit him. But the point is —

CALLER: (interrupting)

RUSH: No, stick with me, Gary. The point is that there are plenty of people in the Democrat Party who want somebody else, and this legal issue is just gonna give them more ammo. Now, whether she’s gonna get caught up with the legal system, I happen to agree with you. I don’t think they’re gonna lay a glove on her, and I don’t think that’s Obama’s purpose. I think Obama’s purpose is the drip, drip, drip that creates doubt, doubt, doubt, and question after question after question about her honesty and integrity. That’s what’s plummeting in the polls: Her credibility, her honesty, her reliability. She is in deep doo-doo.

CALLER: And the more you listen to her speak, there’s no sense of a genuine person there, in my mind. You know, just one brief point then kind of an anecdotal point. But I have a sister-in-law that lives in Cape, and Clinton made a trip there in probably ’91 when he was running for president the first time around, maybe. It could have been the second time. But she had gone to Capaha [Field], I guess, to listen to —

RUSH: Yeah, that’s where the thing was. It was a big deal.

CALLER: Yeah, yeah. She was there.

RUSH: And people said, “I wonder why Clinton chose Cape Girardeau to do a personal appearance.” In 1992, is what it was.

CALLER: ’92? Okay. She got quite close to the podium, and she was pretty much of a Clinton supporter at that point in time, and she said, “You know, you could just feel it was palpable. There was just no sense of genuine, down home, folks, you know? Being from Arkansas, you would think maybe they would know how to do that, but no.”

RUSH: No, Bill does. Wait a minute. Bill does.

CALLER: Oh, absolutely. Totally different person.

RUSH: But Hillary? No, no. Hillary’s —

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: No, your perception I think is pretty much right. Listen. Listen to this sound bite here before you go, Gary. This is F. Chuck Todd. Grab number six. This is the Today Show today. Savannah Guthrie says to Chuck, “My husband,” who happens to be a Democrat consultant. She didn’t say that; I’m telling you. Savannah Guthrie said, “My husband,” who’s a very, very popular Democrat consultant “worked for Vice President Gore in the past. How real do you think the speculation is” that Gore might actually get into the race? “Do you think Gore is really considering getting in?”

TODD: It’s hard to believe that Algore himself is considering. If you look at where the Democratic Party is, you do have some people that would like to see Hillary Clinton more challenged, to make sure that, at a minimum, all of this baggage gets litigated in the primaries a little bit and she can get it behind her if she gets the nomination. Or, worst-case scenario, it doesn’t get it behind her, but they find somebody else. Not Bernie Sanders, who some people don’t think is electable, but somebody. Maybe it’s a Gore, maybe it’s a Biden, maybe it’s somebody else.

RUSH: Okay, so F. Chuck is… They don’t have a bench, folks. They do not have a bench behind her, and that’s why this speculation of Gore and Biden and the other people. F. Chuck is basically saying the Democrats are desperate to find somebody to replace her, and there is not anybody. So they want to get this scandal stuff either out of the way now so it doesn’t hurt her if she’s elected and prosecute it now and find out, if it is gonna hurt her let it happen now so we can find a replacement. I’m just telling you there isn’t this 1,000%, “We love Hillary support! We’ve gotta get her elected in the Democrat Party.” It’s not there.

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RUSH: Now, just to finish this Chris Stirewalt piece, because it’s about the latest poll here from American Crossroads. “In a poll of voters in the six make-or-break swing states, Hillary Clinton now trails a generic Republican opponent by 13 points…” Now, I think polls this early… I’m suspect of all polls, as you know. I mean, I go back and forth on their accuracy and their impact and their purpose, even. ‘Cause I think in many instances polling data is not really being used to find and reflect public opinion, but rather to shape it, to make it.

We’re 16 months, 15 months away from the election, and I don’t know, in terms of who’s gonna win the election, what polls mean today. Now, they do have meaning in terms of fundraising. They can impact momentum and this kind of thing. So there is some relevance. But the point is, when you compare the polling data that Mrs. Clinton is racking up — and it’s not good. I mean, she’s plunging and plummeting in a lot of key areas, both attitudinal and actually voter support.

And then you remember that it’s happened before in 2008. That’s not insignificant, folks. It’s amazing, in fact, how it’s replaying itself, here. Now, Bernie Sanders is no Barack Hussein O, which makes this even more incredible, if you ask me. Now, you heard F. Chuck Todd say in the sound bite we played, in his own words, that Bernie Sanders is not gonna be the nominee. In fact, F. Chuck… Let me find his exact words on this. “Not Bernie Sanders, who some people don’t think is electable, but maybe Gore.

“Maybe Gore. Maybe John Kerry gets back in, maybe Biden.” But the real key here is: It’s not gonna be Bernie Sanders, “who some people don’t think’s electable.” Well, why do some people think that? Bernie Sanders is the only excitement the Democrat race right now. Bernie Sanders is the only guy drawing any crowds. Bernie Sanders is the only guy whose crowds are energetic. And here you have the powers that be in the Democrat Party, led by Chuck Todd of NBC News, basically writing him off.

It’s a tantamount admission that whatever’s going on with Bernie Sanders is irrelevant, but Bernie Sanders is causing a world of hurt to Hillary Clinton. For a guy that’s “unelectable” to be causing her so much polling data trouble, what in the world must it say about her? Do not doubt for a moment that in the bowels of the Democrat Party where the polyps and all that stuff are, there is panic galore over this, and I don’t think it’s strictly about this e-mail controversy and server.

It’s over these polls that show she’s not popular, she’s not trusted, she’s not liked. And that’s a repeat of 2008. So is what’s happening Bernie Sanders, except, as I say, he’s not Obama. Nobody said Obama’s unelectable. I’ve explained on previous occasions why Bernie Sanders is not electable. Bernie Sanders, it’s not that he’s not electable. He’s not gonna get the nomination. The Democrat Party, if they have to run their own ads against him, is not gonna let Bernie Sanders get the nomination.

They’re not gonna let Bernie Sanders win the nomination. And the reason is very simple. One of the grandest illusions in politics today that survives is that the Democrat Party as in solidarity with The Little Guy, and the Democrat Party is out to get Wall Street and the Democrat Party is out to get corporate America. The Democrat Party is the friend of The Little Guy and the enemy of Big Business.

Well, Bernie Sanders believes that. Bernie Sanders is out campaigning on that. But the secret is, the Democrat Party is in bed with probably 80% of the major CEOs in this country. Democrat Party is in bed with over 80% of Wall Street and its money. The Democrat Party is so immersed in cronyism with big corporate and big money everywhere that there’s no way they’re gonna let Sanders get the nomination.

Because Bernie Sanders really believes the old school thought that the Democrat Party stands for the little guy, that the Democrat Party is there to punish all of these rich CEOs and corporate chiefs and Wall Street. The Democrats are not gonna let Bernie Sanders get anywhere near tearing apart the relationships they’ve built up, and this grand illusion. Besides that, Mrs. Clinton hasn’t even started her ad campaign on the poor guy yet. He has no clue what’s ahead of him.

He really doesn’t.

I mean, he’s gonna be hit from so many fronts, all sides. He’s not gonna know what happened about a day after it starts, and his supporters are gonna be ticked off. ‘Cause it’s gonna be… They’re gonna take him out. But they’re not happy with Hillary. And the polling data here pretty much says that this e-mail scandal and the server stuff, I don’t think anybody’s worried she’s gonna get indicted or go to jail or any of that

But all of this is adding up to the same doubts and the same fears and concerns that existed in 2008, and what happened in 2008? The Democrat Party happily threw her under the bus. I’m just saying, it can and probably will happen again. No matter how adept she is at escaping the lockjaw of scandal. No matter how adept she and her husband are at slithering out of these things. There are other things that are going to stand in the way.

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RUSH: Now, Fox is running it. “Report: Democrats in Panic Mode Over Clinton E-mail Controversy,” and they have a picture of Biden up there and Algore, as the Democrats’ bench. Wall Street Journal, Kimberly Strassel: “The Clinton Ship Takes on Water.”