RUSH: I’m serious.  I made this prediction, and I meant it.  It’s deadly serious, folks. Well, not deadly.  But it’s politically serious.  If I’m right about this, it’s unprecedented.  Well, slightly unprecedented.  Bill Clinton at least went overseas to rip on George W. Bush.  And Algore went overseas to rip on George W. Bush during his first term. 

But Obama is gonna stay in Washington.  He’s already bought the house.  It’s the house that was owned by Joe Lockhart.  Well, he’s renting the house.  Who knew, by the way, that White House press secretaries make enough money to buy $9 million dollar houses, with seven bedrooms and 17 and a half bathrooms or whatever it is.  Lockhart now works for the NFL, spokesman or communications director. 

Anyway, my point is that it’s unprecedented.  Presidents, after they leave Washington after one or two terms, they go to their hometowns, wherever they are, or they just slink away.  And custom has it that they shut up.  They’ve had their time, and it’s a matter of respect that the new president is given whatever honeymoon period, or what have you.  But, even beyond the honeymoon period, it’s just been SOP, standard operating procedure, that ex-presidents do not comment. 

And I know for a fact — I mean, it hasn’t happened yet, but I am as certain of this as I’ve been of anything that Obama is gonna comment on anything that happens that might lead to unraveling his agenda, and it isn’t gonna take him long at all.  And all I’m telling you is we got a preview of it yesterday in Elkhart, Indiana.  Obama is chomping at the bit to get involved in this campaign.  He can’t stand not being part of this. 

And I’ll tell you why.  It’s because the Democrat candidate is such a dryball.  The Democrat candidate may as well be an empty podium versus Donald Trump out there, who’s everything Trump is. All the pizzazz, all the excitement, all the energy, all of the focus.  Whether there’s controversy involved or not, there is lots of energy, there’s lots of pizzazz, there’s lots of showbiz, everything Obama dreams of recapturing for himself, you know, that he had in the campaign of ’08 and into his first term.  He’s just chomping at the bit. 

In fact, there was even a leak, a CNN story. An unnamed White House source, someone who apparently is close enough to Obama, leaked that “Obama was chomping at the bit to get out and ‘get people fired up’ about the upcoming election,” a White House source told CNN.  But then they said, “Obama will remain largely on the sidelines until the Democrats have a nominee. Obama expects to ‘explode onto the scene’ once the nominee is selected and ‘knows his power’ to fire up the Democratic base, the source said. ‘It’s driving him crazy’ to be mostly hands-off, the source added.”

Now, this is passed off as a leak.  Let me ask you something.  There aren’t any leaks like this that come out of the Obama White House. This was not a leak.  This was a strategically planned leak.  Somebody called CNN and said (excitedly), “Hey, I got a — I got a — I got a quick bit of news here for you!  Nobody knows that I’m telling you this, so leave my name out of it, but guess what?  Obama’s chomping at the bit!  He’s going crazy watching this campaign.  He can’t believe it! He’s looking at the campaign and he can’t believe what he’s seeing!

“He can’t wait to get out there and correct the record,” blah, blah, blah.  And it’s being portrayed as somebody has betrayed Obama. But it’s not a big betrayal, but still has spoken out of turn.  And that’s not true.  This is all planned.  Obama wants it out there that he’s chomping at the bit.  And let’s go to the audio sound bites.  And, by the way, you’re gonna find out what it’s like when somebody takes a teleprompter away from Barry.  And this is not the first time this has happened, by the way. It’s like our third sound bite coming up here, where Obama just stammers.

When the subject of Trump comes up, he can’t talk. 

He starts stuttering left and right using slang lingo that you have to look up. I had to go to the Urban Dictionary to find a definition for something he said.  So let’s get started.  It’s his usual rant against me and Fox News, his usual rant that me and Fox News are totally destroying his accomplishments. We are destroying his legacy by, of course, lying about it.  We’re lying about how bad his great economy is. We’re lying about how bad his great detail health care system is. We are poisoning the minds of people. We’ve been doing it for 7-1/2 years, and he’s sick and tired of it.  He’s had it! 

So it was yesterday afternoon in Elkhart, Indiana.  Here’s the first of three bites…

OBAMA:  So the basic story is America’s working class, America’s middle class — families like yours — have been victimized by a big, bloated federal government, run by a bunch of left-wing elitists like me.

AUDIENCE: (silence)

OBAMA: And the government’s taking your hard-earned tax dollars, and it’s giving them to freeloaders and welfare cheats.  That’s the story that’s been to’!  And I haven’t, y’know, turned on Fox News or listened to conservative talk radio yet today. But I’ve (stammers) turned them on enough over these past 7-1/2 years to know I’m not exaggerating in terms of their story.  That’s the story they tell.

RUSH:  No, it’s not.  He is substantively wrong about something in a big way in that bite, and what he’s doing is plugging in his own prejudice and his own bigotry in it, and I’ll explain what I mean by this.  “America’s middle class … have been victimized by a big, bloated federal government, run by a bunch of left-wing elitists like me.  And the government’s taking your hard-earned tax dollars, and it’s giving them to freeloaders and welfare cheats.”  That’s not what is said today.  That might have been accurate way back when. 

That might have been accurate during the eighties.  That might have been conventional wisdom in the eighties, but that’s not what people are complaining about regarding Obama today and his bloated government.  We’re complaining about Obamacare! By the way, the Obamacare exchange in Ohio has officially crumbled now.  I think it’s Ohio.  It has officially bit the dust.  The entire Obamacare health care system — by design! This is the thing.  Mission accomplished.  It’s falling apart at the state level. 

And the reason for that is so that people will panic and demand that it be fixed ’cause they can’t live, they can’t walk, they can’t take one more step unless they know they have health insurance.  And it’s dwindling away, and it’s unaffordable, even though Obama promised that it would be.  The deductibles, the premiums, it’s out of reach for average Americans.  And so, mission accomplished.  What he wants them to do is beg the federal government to take over.  You know, there’s a column.

If I may briefly depart from this just to illustrate a point and get back to this.  You know Larry Summers, the guy that ran Harvard for a while? (interruption) Yeah, former Treasury secretary. He got thrown out of Harvard because he made the observation that women are not that great in math and science and that’s why there aren’t that many female professors at Harvard. So the feminazis got in gear and took him out so forth.  He’s now… I talked to him about it at a business conference in Sacramento, by the way, some years ago. 

He was amazingly open to me about it, his feelings and everything.  Anyway, he lives in Boston, and he published a column recently, admitted that he’s a progressive.  But he made an observation many of us have made over the years. What stands out about this is that he made it, as an admitted progressive.  He was talking about a bridge over the St. Charles River in Boston that has infrastructure expenditure that the governments have been involved in trying to repair. And they’ve just made a mess of it.

It’s way over budget, it’s way over time, it hasn’t gone well whatsoever, and he makes the observation that it’s not implausible — in fact, it makes perfect sense — for people to doubt the ability of government to run every aspect of their lives when they can’t even build a 200-foot bridge on time and on budget.  If they can’t even get that done, why should anybody logically expect they could run the entire health care system or take over any other aspect of people of his lives? 

Well, that’s what we’ve been saying.  Obama’s not qualified to run health care!  He has no experience in it.  He has disdain for the private sector.  We’re not out there saying that Obama’s taking money from people and giving it welfare queens and welfare cheats.  That’s Reagan-era lingo, and that’s where Obama’s mind is in this.  Our complaints about Obama and his big-government growth are legitimate.  You know the unemployment rate? He’s bragging about that yesterday.  “My unemployment rate is 5.1%! Why it’s never been… (stammering) l-l-l-lower.”

Well, yeah, but you know why the unemployment rate’s 5.1%? 

It’s not because new jobs are being created.  It’s because people are leaving the workforce that aren’t being counted anymore.  Come on! It’s common sense. Ninety-four, almost 95 million Americans are not working, and they want to talk to us about a plunging unemployment rate?  The middle class, the bitter clingers that Obama thinks are hanging around the VFW halls and cars in bars (that’s the next bite coming up), haven’t had a meaningful wage increase or standard of living increase in 15 years, and they haven’t had a prayer of one in the last seven and a half. 

And that’s why so much has turned upside down.  We’re not exaggerating anything here.  I don’t know what Fox News is doing, but I don’t exaggerate any aspect of the Obama agenda.  I just point out, unlike the Drive-By Media, all the failures, all the promises, all the lies, all the distortions. Even running around today portraying your economy as one of the greatest recoveries ever is just a flat-out lie!  There isn’t any evidence to back it up.  The government is growing.  You know what the national debt was when Obama took office? 

Roughly $10 trillion.  You know what it is now?  Almost $20 trillion.  The national debt has almost doubled, and he’s up there bragging about bringing down the deficit and reducing spending?  He hasn’t done anything of the sort.  The government took over one-sixth of the economy when it took over health care.  That means the private sector, where everybody lives and works and where the American Dreamers live. The American dream is not in government, folks.  Well, it didn’t used to be. Sadly, for some people it is now.  That’s another problem. 

The American dream is in the good, old-fashioned United States economy.  But it’s getting smaller as government takes more and more of it, as government regulates more and more of it.  You know, this is what it is. It’s chutzpah to come out and make this claim.  “Government’s taken your hard-earned tax dollars, given ’em to freeloaders and welfare cheats.”  No, but I’ll tell you what you are doing. 

You are letting an uncontrolled number in the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens just pour into this country who are not skilled enough and who don’t speak English and are not educated enough to hope to have any kind of a meaningful, productive job.  And yet they’re being hired ’cause they’re cheaper than American citizens living in the country, and we are giving them health care, and we are providing them all kinds of benefits.  And Obama is proud of it, and on that basis he’s urging them to come here.  He constantly reminds people, “Make sure you get your benefits! Focus on your benefits!” 

It’s Obama always talking about how corporate America is sleazy and greedy and out to screw people. 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Okay.  Next bite. Here’s Obama and letting you know what he thinks of bitter clingers and where you happen to be…

OBAMA:  Tales about welfare queens, talkin’ about takers, talkin’ about the 47%.  It’s the story that is broadcast every day —

RUSH:  No, it’s not.

OBAMA:  — on some cable news stations, on right-wing radio. It’s pumped into cars and bars and VFW halls all across America and right here in Elkhart! 

AUDIENCE: (silence)

OBAMA: And if you’re hearin’ that story all the time, you start believin’ it!

AUDIENCE: (silence)

OBAMA: It’s no wonder people think big government is the problem!

RUSH:  He didn’t get a lot of applause here, and that really upset Gwen Ifill at PBS, who wrote an angst-filled column ripping the people of Elkhart, Indiana, for not supporting Obama enthusiastically.  She wrote, “What gives?”  But here again, notice where you people who watch Fox News and listen to this program are.  You’re in cars and bars and VFW halls.  And, by the way, what goes on at VFW halls? 

They’re just a place for veterans to gather and drink and complain and whine about a bunch of namby-pamby liberals, right?  That’s what they think goes on at VFW halls.  So you idiots in Obama’s mind, you mental midgets that watch Fox and listen to this program, you get all excited hearing about welfare queens.  I haven’t used that term in 25 years.  Takers?  Can’t recall.  The 47%?  I mean, that’s Romney.  Forty-seven percent?  We are in this guy’s head rent free.  This is so indicative.  But the piece de resistance sound bite is next.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  You know, Trump is really getting under Obama’s skin, just like we have here for seven and a half years.  And eventually the frustration level reaches a boiling point and it boils over with Obama, as it did yesterday in Elkhart, Indiana. 

There’s another reason, too.  He goes to Elkhart.  Why did he go to Elkhart?  Well, because Elkhart did have some kind of a visible economic recovery, and Obama went out there to take some credit for it, because Elkhart is the place that he went in 2009 to announce his stimulus bill and all kinds of great things.  But Obama’s policies haven’t led to any economic rebound anywhere other than for the people that are in crony corporate relationships with him. 

In general the United States, you know, I’m beginning not to like this term either, private sector.  I think it sounds exclusionary.  But it is what it is.  I mean, the United States economy, private sector, everything that’s not government, there isn’t any growth.  There’s shrinkage!  There is contraction in the private sector.  Elkhart, Indiana, had some growth, so Obama wanted to go out there and soak in all the praise.  But he had nothing to do with it. 

Fracking.  Falling oil prices.  Purchase of RVs. People working at oil installations buying RVs to live in. Fracking once again, same thing that happened in Ohio, fracking resulting in falling oil prices, and Obama opposes fracking.  He doesn’t like fracking.  Obama doesn’t like oil.  Obama doesn’t like fossil fuels.  Obama thinks fossil fuels are destroying the country. 

You know, he said something about Trump, and this is another indication of just how much Trump is bothering Obama.  Obama said (imitating Obama), “Well, what magic wand does Trump have?  What magic wand do you have, Trump?”  Now, what he meant was, here’s Trump out there on the campaign trail and he’s talked about all these things he’s gonna fix.

He’s gonna kick the hell out of ISIS.  He’s gonna kick the hell out of the Chinese. He’s gonna right these horrible trade deals, gonna correct them, whatever he says he’s gonna do. He’s gonna make America great again.  And Obama’s sitting up there (imitating Obama), “Well, really?  Well, you know, there’s nobody better than me. Nobody smarter than I am.  No, nobody.  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, nobody, not even you, okie-dokes, nobody.  What magic wand does he have?” 

I’m gonna answer the question for you.  Attitude counts for so much.  It really does.  You know, the whole idea of positive thinking, can-do spirit, the attitude about something that you have going in.  Let’s compare Trump to Obama on the concept of America.  Just that alone.  Obama doesn’t even think in terms of American exceptionalism.  When the subject comes up, he acts offended. (imitating Obama) “Well, you know what, I’m sure in Norway they think they’re excellent, too.  And I I I I I’m sure wherever, everyone thinks their exceptional, too.  Nothing special about us.  What makes you think so?” 

Well, if that’s your starting point. In fact, it’s worse than that. If your starting point is America is flawed. If your starting point is America is guilty of whatever the things you think it’s guilty of, if you think it’s flawed and guilty because of the way we were founded, because of some of the elements in our past such as slavery, colonialization, as Obama would look at it, what hope does America have of being great being led by somebody like Obama who doesn’t even believe in the concept, and, furthermore, doesn’t even think it’s deserved. 

And I’m sorry to say that that’s what I think of Obama.  I think that he looks at this country as a country that is owed a little punishment.  I think Obama looks at America and sees a place that is an undeserving superpower, needs to be cut down to size, needs to find out what it’s like to live in the rest of the world, that we have come by our superpower status in ill-gotten fashion.  We have conquered and we have appropriated resources and we have firebombed foreign governments, and we’ve overturned duly constituted governments, you know, the anti-CIA attitude. 

The point is, regardless of specifics, if your attitude about America is that it’s not great and doesn’t deserve to be, and on the other side here’s Donald Trump, who believes the exact opposite. Who believes America is great, can be again, will be again, should be again, and is gonna do everything he can to make it great again, it becomes crystal clear why Obama would say, “What magic wand do you have?”  All Trump has is an attitude.  All Trump has is a belief, and so does everybody else. 

This is not exclusive to Trump.  I have it.  You have it.  We all want America to be great.  We all don’t like the view of America that has been created by this Regime.  We don’t like a leadership that feels the need to apologize or make excuses for this country all over the place, or bow down to every foreign leader he meets.  It’s not that we think we’re better than anybody else, but we know we are stronger. We know we have more potential. We are the engine of freedom for the world.  We do what we do for good, or we want to. 

There’s none of this “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”  No, no, no.  We’ve done enough for our country.  We’ve been savaged, and we’ve been sabotaged, and we’ve been cheated.  JFK wouldn’t have a home in the modern day Democrat Party.  They might let him in ’cause he was handsome, but outside of that, ideologically, he wouldn’t have a home in the modern day Democrat Party. 

I don’t care who they nominate, Crazy Bernie.  Crazy Bernie thinks this country’s guilty.  Crazy Bernie thinks this country is filled with injustice everywhere, just like Obama does.  This country is just littered with injustice and bias and hatred and bigotry and racism and homophobia and transphobia and all the other phobias that he can come up with.  This country is anti-female, it’s anti-this, it’s anti-that.  They don’t have one shred of a positive outlook on this country except as it’s related to transforming it. 

So I can totally understand why Obama would frustratedly say to Trump, “What magic wand do you have?”  There isn’t a magic wand.  It’s a spirit.  It’s an attitude.  It’s a desire.  It is a vision.  And it’s accurate to say the Democrat Party vision today does not have in it a great America, a victorious America, an exceptional America.  The view of America in the Democrat Party today is one of shame and guilt and unfairness and racism and bigotry and all these other things that they obsess over. 

So Trump doesn’t have a magic wand.  He just has the famous time-honored American can-do spirit.  And matched up against somebody like Obama (imitating Obama), “What’s your magic wand?  You think you can just come in and make all this stuff happen, huh?  Well, let me tell you, it’s not that easy.  I’ve been trying.”  That’s the point, he hasn’t been.  In Obama’s world, America needs to admit it’s flaws.  We need to stop preaching to the rest of the world about the way they treat their people because we got nothing to talk about. The way we’ve treated our own people, it’s so bad, who are we to talk about how people are treated in China?  Who are we to talk about how people are treated in Cuba?  Who are we to talk about how people are treated anywhere in the world?  We got nothing to say.  We have nothing to stand on because we’re just as guilty as all of these despots that we see.  That’s the Democrat Party attitude of America today. 

Another reason why I think a genuinely upbeat, positive can-do, America-great-again campaign can triumph, ’cause I, frankly, think there are vastly more people that want that America than the one that we are being transformed into.  I don’t think there’s any question about it. 

Okay, here’s the piece de resistance sound bite.  This is where Obama finally loses it.  This what happens, no teleprompter, he finally got to Trump, he got around to talking about Trump.  He’s unloaded on me. He’s unloaded on Fox News.  Now it was time to unload on Trump.

OBAMA:  If we turn against each other based on divisions of race (pause) or religion (long pause) —

AUDIENCE: (silence)

OBAMA: I-i-i-if — i-i-if — if — if — if — if — if — if we — if we fall for, y’know, a — a — a bunch of (pause) okie-doke —

AUDIENCE: (smattering of laughter)

OBAMA: — just because, i-i-i-it… (gagging) Y’know, it, uhhh… (gaggling) y’know, i-i-i-i-it — it sounds (pause) funny or the tweets are (pause) provocative, then we’re not gonna build on the progress that we started.

RUSH:  That’s incoherent.  Forget the stutters.  It’s incoherent.  Let me read it to you without the stutters.  “If we turn against each other based on divisions of race or religion, if we… if we fall for, you know, a bunch of okie-doke just because, you know, it — you know, it sounds funny or the tweets are provocative, then we’re not gonna build on the progress that we started.”  What in the world is he talking about?  Well, I know what he’s talking about ’cause I know liberals! I know this guy.  Then you thrown the stutters in there.

He is livid that Trump is so creative on Twitter.  He’s jealous as hell of it, and he’s angry that people respond positively to it.  I told you yesterday. I told you yesterday, there’s all kinds of jealously. One of the reasons that Trump has got some opposition, is there are people jealous.  There are all kinds of people in politics, in the media — you name it elsewhere — corporate America, jealous.  They would love to be Trump.  They would love to experience what Trump is experienced.  They would love to be the focal point and the recipient of all of this positive energy, massive crowds.

They would love to know what that’s like, and they think they could do it. They think they could do it if they just had a chance, but Trump’s out there, and they’re jealous and they’re envious, and Obama, especially. As somebody built on PR, pizzazz, buzz, and Greek columns, I guarantee you this is driving him crazy. If George Bush had spoken like this once, we would still be hearing the sound bite every time George Bush’s name came up. We’d still be hearing the sound bite.  Play it again.  Play it again, Sam!  I want to hear this once more. 

OBAMA:  If we turn against each other based on divisions of race (pause) or religion (long pause) —

AUDIENCE: (silence)

OBAMA: I-i-i-if — i-i-if — if — if — if — if — if — if we — if we fall for, y’know, a — a — a bunch of (pause) okie-doke —

AUDIENCE: (smattering of laughter)

OBAMA: — just because, i-i-i-it… (gagging) Y’know, it, uhhh… (gaggling) y’know, i-i-i-i-it — it sounds (pause) funny or the tweets are (pause) provocative, then we’re not gonna build on the progress that we started.

RUSH:  There isn’t any progress!  There isn’t any progress.  We are at war with each other like we haven’t been since the Civil War.  Americans are divided and at war with each other by design.  Obama’s not been a unity president.  He’s been divisive on purpose.  By the way, do you know what okie-doke is?  I went… Well, I’ll tell you in a minute.  I went to the Urban Dictionary.  That’s where you have to go to find what okie-doke means.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okie-doke.  I went out there and I looked it up.  The Urban Dictionary: “Believing a lie, falling for a scam, a con game, untruth, fraud, et cetera.”  Now that you know that, listen to audio sound bite number three again. When he says “okie-doke,” he’s talking about how you believe lies, fall for scams, things like that.

OBAMA:  If we turn against each other based on divisions of race (pause) or religion (long pause) —

AUDIENCE: (silence)

OBAMA: I-i-i-if — i-i-if — if — if — if — if — if — if we — if we fall for, y’know, a — a — a bunch of (pause) okie-doke —

AUDIENCE: (smattering of laughter)

OBAMA: — just because, i-i-i-it… (gagging) Y’know, it, uhhh… (gaggling) y’know, i-i-i-i-it — it sounds (pause) funny or the tweets are (pause) provocative, then we’re not gonna build on the progress that we started.

RUSH:  I’m telling you, this is instructive.  The guy’s really irritated.  He’s one of these people that expects nobody to ever doubt him — and, when somebody does, there’s something seriously wrong with them.  I’m telling you, these people have inflated egos like you can’t believe, a sense of self-importance that’s way beyond unhealthy, a narcissism that is almost off the charts.  And the stuttering here, Trump was in his head there. He’s losing it — and this okie-doke business?

But, you know, he’s well-known for stuttering. Not to this extent, but when he doesn’t have that prompter, he stutters.  The LA Times way, way back in 2011 published an op-ed explaining saying that no, no, he’s not stuttering.  That’s what is called “an intellectual stammer.”  I have explained this to you, by the way, in my previous impersonations of how intellectuals speak. 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Chris in Charleston, South Carolina.  Great to have you on the program.  You’re up first today, sir.  Hi.

CALLER:  Thanks, Rush.  My comment is about the president’s speech.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER:  I remember when George W. Bush used to speak, people would constant bash him for his stammering or his inability to articulate his thoughts. But I would always defend him and tell people: When George W. Bush was speaking, he was speaking in front of the media, and that’s basically like speaking in front of the enemy who are looking for any reason to rip him.  It would be very difficult to focus and articulate if you know that your audience literally basically is looking for you to fail. 

Obama’s always had a smooth ride when it comes to speaking to the media or his handpicked crowds, but I think what we saw was a meltdown. Because as he’s looking out over this crowd, they’re not buying his applause lines, they’re looking at seven years of his past presidency and his blaming others for his failures. It’s just not selling anymore, and it’s almost like he was looking out over a crowd that was seeing that the emperor literally has no clothes.

RUSH:  I think you’re exactly right.  I think that’s what happens when Obama shows up before what turns out to be an unfriendly or unreceptive crowd that doesn’t respond as the narcissist expects.  There isn’t the constant adulation. The applause lines were missed.  You are exactly right.  He was frustrated, and he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have the prompter, and people weren’t reacting. So he had to vamp, trying to be funny. 

To really, I think, emphasize your point, Gwen Ifill, PBS NewsHour host, took a few digs at the people of Elkhart, Indiana!  She really criticized the people that showed up at Obama’s event for not giving him any credit for the drop in unemployment, for not being enthusiastic. “For crying you had loud, Barack Obama campaign to Elkhart! Couldn’t you at least show some enthusiasm?  What gives?”  That’s exactly, almost exactly what she said.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Kevin in Elkhart, Indiana, where Obama was. We have an eyewitness here.  Welcome, sir, to the program.  Hi.

CALLER:  Greetings from the RV Capital of the World.

RUSH:  RV Capital. Yes, sir.

CALLER:  Yes.  Yesterday we had the bumbling idiot-in-chief come to the town and say how his policies brought back the RV industry. Back in the day when gas prices were $3, $4 a gallon, nobody was buying RVs. But soon as fracking came into play and brought gas prices down, that’s when the RV industry saw a boom.

RUSH:  And what caused that?  Fracking is what caused that in large degree!  Now, Obama went to Elkhart in 2009, as soon as he was promoting… He’d either signed it and was promoting it or getting ready to sign the stimulus, the Porkulus package. He was making the claim that Elkhart was exactly the kind of place he was talking about was gonna benefit from this massive, massive spending program. It was gonna resuscitate the economy. Yesterday, he went back to taking credit for having made it happen, and you’re saying he had little to do with it.

CALLER:  That’s right, and a lot of the RVs went to North Dakota where the fracking was being done ’cause, you know, they’re fracking out in the middle of the nowhere. They needed a place to stay, so they bought up all the RVs here, sent ’em to North Dakota, and they were living in them on site.

RUSH:  Yeah.  They were having to build little towns because where the fracking was booming. Where the oil was discovered and the retrieval was going on, nobody lived there.  They had to actually create towns, infrastructure, and the RVs were the simplest way to do it.  So it was fracking that brought it all that about. It’s the same thing that happened in Ohio, largely.  But it wasn’t… Your point is that it wasn’t government spending that revived Elkhart.  Were you at the event yesterday?

CALLER:  No.  I had to work.  I work afternoon shift, but —

RUSH:  Congratulations on having a job.

CALLER:  Yeah, we actually supply the RV industry with tubing for their chassis.

RUSH:  Wow.  Cool.  Okay, but were you close enough to know? Gwen Ifill of PBS really, really knocked Elkhart for not applauding Obama, not supporting him, not showing any enthusiasm.  Did you see any of that or hear about any of that?  Not her but —

CALLER:  No.  No, I didn’t.  I don’t pay attention to PBS or anything they say.

RUSH:  No, but I mean, are you aware that the crowd was not all that hepped up about Obama?

CALLER:  Oh, no.

RUSH:  Well, they were.  In fact, I’ve got… Yes.  Grab audio sound bite number 25.  Thanks for the call, Kevin.  Here’s the actual evidence.  Gwen Ifill last night was on the NewsHour — formally with Jim Lehrer, now hosted by Gwen Ifill — and she had this reaction about Obama and his trip there…

IFILL:  This marks the president’s fifth visit to the once-and-again RV Capital of the World, a small city where the unemployment rate hit 19.6% his first year in office and now has dropped to about 4%.  But this White House isn’t getting any credit for that turnaround.  Residents here voted for Ted Cruz in this year’s primaries and Mitt Romney by two-to-one in 2012.  Even when President Obama won Indiana in 2008, just as economy was crashing, Elkhart went with John McCain.  So what gives?

RUSH: (impression) “What gives?  Why don’t they like Obama?  He’s saving the town.  He saved the RV industry! He saved the American economy.  Why don’t they like Obama?”  Yeah, it’s tough getting out of the DC bubble and seeing real life.