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Why I’m Optimistic About the Midterms

by Rush Limbaugh - Oct 8,2018

RUSH: Don’t you love the way Democrats are now blaming Michael Avenatti? In fact, it was a CNN either assignment editor or reporter late on Saturday afternoon after Kavanaugh had passed the confirmation video that they started unloading on Avenatti, that Avenatti’s late-arriving allegations of gang rape only served to water down the serious allegations of Blasey Ford. Hey, Democrats, Blasey Ford never had anything other than allegations which could not be established. You know, that has been totally, completely ignored by people on the left because of their beliefs now the allegation’s all you need.

The nature of the evidence is irrelevant.

But still the fact that they were turning on Avenatti. Do you know there are people seriously taking Avenatti’s presidential intentions in 2020? There are people in the media seriously considering that Avenatti might throw his hat in the ring, and because Trump did it, that Avenatti might be able to pull it off. Until he screwed himself with this stuff. And then there are people wondering if Avenatti is not actually a Trump buddy, if Avenatti is not a Republican inside plant because what more perfect way to water down Blasey Ford’s lack of evidence than to throw out some ridiculous gang rape charge the day Blasey Ford is supposed to take the stand.

I’m sorry, appear before the committee.

So everybody’s waiting with breathless bated breath over Blasey Ford, who is also supposedly terrified, and then out of the woodwork here comes Avenatti and Swetnick with the charge of gang rape and red Solo Cups and Quaaludes in the punch. And now Avenatti’s supposedly livid that the Democrats are blaming him and attacking his client, and he says he’s got more earth-shattering news on Kavanaugh; just wait. In fact, Fauxcahontas says that she has additional news on Kavanaugh. Just wait.

The Democrats continue to say that they’re gonna keep investigating Kavanaugh. And if they have to delegitimize the court, they’ll do it. Because if they think they’ve lost the court then the court will, of course, become illegitimate in their minds. And every ruling on which Kavanaugh participates, which will be every one, they’ll think he should recuse on everything, by the way, because of the contentious hearings that took place. Look, I know a lot of you were terribly concerned about the midterms, and I’m not trying to provide any false hope or comfort.

Don’t misunderstand. There’s a formative experience for me in this, and it’s the Wellstone memorial in 2002. I’ve cited it before but I’m gonna cite it again. Because I like to be optimistic, folks. I’m sorry; I can’t help it. I’m not a natural pessimist, except when it comes to two things: playing golf and using weight. But other than that I am a natural optimist. And if you go back to 2002, the first midterm elections after George W. Bush, and it’s almost identical.

The Democrats were enraged that the Supreme Court stopped the count in Florida of the hanging chads. The Democrats believed that the Supreme Court handed George W. Bush the victory illegally. Never mind the Florida Supreme Court was out of control the way it was handling all the legal issues here. The U.S. Supreme Court had to step in and stop is it because it was out of control and when they did, the Democrats were fit to be tied.

And from that day forward, George W. Bush was an illegitimate president. And he didn’t stop being illegitimate, and they finally got his approval numbers down to the twenties six years later, in the middle of his second term. So we get to 2002, and it’s the first chance the Democrats have to pay the country back, to pay the Republicans back, to pay Bush back. And they are going to retake the House, and they’re going to retake the Senate, and they’re gonna reopen the Florida recount!

And they’re gonna make sure that justice is finally done and that Algore be duly recognized as a legitimate winner of the presidency, even though Algore didn’t want any part of it by that time. They were feeling so up, so sure, so confident, that when it came time for a memorial for their late, great senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, they totally blew up what was intended to be a memorial honoring and celebrating the life of Wellstone. It was about three weeks prior to the midterm elections in November of 2002.

The Wellstone memorial was hijacked by activist Democrats and turned into a pure political rally, the purpose of which was to destroy George W. Bush and Republicans in memory of Paul Wellstone. Republican senators who were friends of Wellstone’s dutifully showed up at the arena. They did this arena in a place that holds 15,000 people, if my memory serves, 10, 15,000 people. It was sometime after… Wellstone died in a plane crash, and it was sometime after that, but this was the official memorial. I don’t think it was ever intended to be a memorial.

I think it was a political event from the get-go disguised as a memorial! Anyway, Republican senators not knowing up from town, Trent Lott and the boys all day showed up thinking that they were showing up to a memorial, a religious memorial to honor their fallen colleague, Paul Wellstone. They were booed and bullied and harassed out of the place within 30 minutes of having arrived and sat down! It was identical to what we saw the way Jeff Flake and others were assaulted in elevators and the hallways of the Senate office building.

Except this was at the memorial. And this with Democrat voters going up to where the Republicans were seated and getting in their faces and pointing fingers at ’em and booing at them. They thought they were there to participate in a solemn occasion. They got up and they walked out and they left. And this memorial turned into a hate fest, a hate-fest aimed at George W. Bush, a hate-fest aimed at George W. Bush’s policies.

They couldn’t even set aside what had happened on 9/11 for this memorial. This memorial took place about 14 months after 9/11 took place. So then the midterms occur. I remember I was invited… It was this the last time this happened. I was invited for election night coverage on NBC. Tim Russert asked me to join him and Tom Brokaw. I dutifully accepted, and I went. I was not on camera all night. Maybe four or five times while they cycled other people through. And they brought me in after it was clear that the Republicans had gained seats!

It’s unheard of! The Democrats, just like now, were supposed to win big! Because the Democrats told it: Everybody hated Bush. Everybody resented the way the Supreme Court stole the election for Bush, that Algore had won the popular vote, just like Hillary did. And that the American people felt betrayed by Bush and the Supreme Court and 9/11 and Bush’s general stupidity and incompetence and as such could not wait for the Democrats to take back control of what is rightfully theirs, Washington, D.C.

Except it didn’t happen. The Republicans gained seats. Tim Russert was great. Brokaw brought me out, “So what do you think happened here?” I said, “The Wellstone memorial. The Wellstone memorial is what happened.” And I went on and told ’em why in a truncated version of what I just said to you. They were shell-shocked. They were shell-shocked. This just not in the formula. The party in power does not pick up seats in midterm elections, the first ones after a new president is elected. So that’s a formative experience for me.

And if it’s… I’m like Pascal. (paraphrasing) “If it’s happened once, it can happen again. Something that hasn’t happened before probably won’t happen, but if it has, then it can happen again.” And this is a replay of that, except this is a replay of even more outrageous behavior. The Wellstone memorial took place on one night. The Democrat Party has been insane on display for two full years. And actually longer than that. But in context of Trump’s election, it’s been two consistent years of public derangement, public insanity, psychological disorders on display, childlike tantrums.

By the way, I, too, have sat in the Senate gallery. As a young boy, my parents took my brother and me to Washington, D.C., one summer. And the Senate was in session. And I remember Barry Goldwater was among the senators speaking when we were there. He was speaking on the farm bill. I was 14 or 15. And I remember being in the gallery, and I had a… It was a pamphlet or a book, some kind of a manual explaining what the Senate was and what was going on. And I was turning the pages.

A Senate page came and grabbed that book away from me and said, “You’re making too much noise. I’ll give you this back after you leave.” Just turning a page was not permitted. The gallery could not do anything more than breathe. You were not allowed to chew gum. People were chewing gum, and the pages said, “You’re leaving or else you’re putting it in a piece of paper and tossing it. You’re not staying in here chewing gum.” They would come whisper this to you. They took my little pamphlet away. I felt like the Gestapo had just come.

And then I’m watching this thing the other night, and these women are going batty sounding literally like they are infants out of the womb and they don’t want to be there, and I couldn’t even make out what they’re saying. It sounded… Like Christian Adams said, it sounded like we were in the middle of an asylum in there. Mike Pence was saying over and over, (imitation) “Sergeant-at-arms! The sergeant-at-arms will restore order in the gallery. The sergeant-at-arms will restore order in the gallery.”

The sergeant-at-arms is having a hell of a lot of trouble restoring order in the gallery.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, folks, another thing for you to remember about the midterms coming up. If the Wellstone memorial analogy doesn’t do it for you, there’s one thing else you need to keep in mind, and that is Donald Trump. We have Donald Trump on our side.

And that’s one of the biggest equalizers going. And it is completely undersold, underappreciated by the American left and the Drive-By Media. Trump’s got four rallies alone this week. And they are not national rallies; they are intended for local consumption. Do not discount anything in which Donald Trump is involved. I’m just saying.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The Washington Post is pushing a big poll they’ve got today: “Survey of Battleground House Districts Shows Democrats with Narrow Edge.” It’s the Washington Post-Schar School survey. “The survey of 2,672 likely voters by The Post and the Schar School at George Mason University shows that likely voters in these districts favor Democrats by a slight margin: 50% prefer the Democratic nominee and 46% percent prefer the Republican.”

It’s a generic ballot poll.

But here’s the thing.

John Fund of National Review dug deep, because the Post is really heralding this thing. They’re singing its praises. “The poll sounds like it had a lot of people in it, but it didn’t. It had an average of 39 respondents per district,” 39 respondents. As Mr. Fund said, “This is not social science or polling science. It’s darts.” In 69 House battleground districts, the Democrats lead 50-46? Well, yeah, you only speak to 39 people district? That’s what the Washington poll is. Thank you, Mr. Fund, for that.


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