TODD: Bill in Arnold, Missouri. Bill, you’re on the Rush Limbaugh program. It’s Todd Herman filling in. Hi, Bill. My family also hails from “Missour-a,” by the way.

CALLER: Yeah, Todd, nice listening to you. I was talking to the producer earlier, and I was talking about how Rush Limbaugh changed me from a staunch Democrat to a conservative Republican over the years. I had the honor of talking to Rush about 15 years ago. I tried to get on the show before Rush passed away and hadn’t had the honor of doing so.

I miss him dearly, and what he helped instill in me was a conservative believe. I’m wondering why the Republicans today aren’t using his strategies. I talked to the producer and told him that Roy Blunt isn’t listening. Neither are the 37 previous Republicans we elected that quit in 2018, and the five that already announced are quitting for 2022.

Instead of holding onto their office with their credentials and turning it into another Republican while they retire in office, it seems like nobody’s paying attention in the Republican Party to Rush Limbaugh. He had a strategy of getting under the skin of the Democrats where the Republicans don’t. Point in point was when Mitch McConnell was taking his campaign in Georgia and said that he wouldn’t back the $2,000 stimulus plan at that time.

TODD: Yeah.

CALLER: Well, the Democrats did, and they bought a lot of votes.

TODD: Yeah.

CALLER: They bought quite a few votes, okay?

TODD: Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. Because I want to make sure we’ve followed this train of thought, that you’re talking about Rush’s lessons to Republicans. If you’re embarrassed of something, do you do it in public?

CALLER: No.

TODD: No. And if there’s things you do about which you’re embarrassed, you’re probably not gonna call national radio and admit it, are you?

CALLER: No.

TODD: Okay. So I will tell you this. There are Republicans who find you and me, Bill… They find us embarrassing, and they find our belief… I’m just assuming that you might believe in God. They find that embarrassing. They find that we continue to have a stubborn belief in limited government embarrassing, because Republicans who’ve gotten to the point where Republican is simply…

I talk about shirts versus skins. That’s the shirt they put on for work. It’s the tie they put on for work, and when we speak of things like… For instance, let me give you an example, just a real-life example. When the original Tea Party came to town and my wife went. She said, “Todd, you gotta come and see this,” and I said, “I will. I’m at work.”

We had actually one of the founders from the Tea Party in, and no one from the party would meet with her. No one. She brought a hundred, 200,000 people to D.C., she and her partners. I could only get one senior staffer to come and meet with her. They considered her the enemy, and there were people — there were people, Bill — who wanted to audit the Fed at the time.

What Rush has told us so often about D.C. bureaucrats was very, very true, even at the party. They were embarrassed at the very idea of auditing the Fed. I remember this comment. I’ll never forget it. I’ll remember it to the day I die. All they were saying is, “Hey, let’s audit the Federal Reserve,” and I heard someone — a Republican, a good man, but a Republican, a professional Republican.

He said, “We can’t do that. That’s hour nation’s banking system!” He helped audit the Republican National Committee’s financial statements. But he’d become such a creature of D.C. “Wait. These crazy people want to audit the Fed.” There’s a divorce, and what I think we need to do, Bill, is remind the Republicans who were in D.C. that we’re aware of the divorce.

We’re going to vote only for and back only candidates who are from the people — that is, that they live amongst us. They have not become creatures of D.C. There’s some who can stay in D.C. and not lose their soul. It’s a very hard thing to do. I don’t know how Rush did it, honestly, maintained his grounding as a worldwide celebrity.

Bill, I appreciate the phone call, and I’m glad that you got through. I’m glad. I’m sorry that it’s after Rush passed and I just appreciate you making the effort today. Thank you very much for calling today.