If the Election Were Held Today Obama Would be a Landslide LoserApril 25, 2011
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RUSH: Brit Hume, I think it was yesterday on Fox, joined me -- so now there are two voices that I know of who are using common sense and intelligence guided by experience who say if the election were held today, Obama would lose in a landslide. He would lose and he would lose bad, and yet our old buddy Walter Williams has got this piece floating around the Internet how Obama's reelection's automatic, it's already done. (interruption) Are you kidding me? Walter Williams did not write that? I cannot tell you how relieved I am to know that. Somebody stole Walter Williams' identity? They ran a syndicated column under his name and it wasn't he who wrote it? Well, hallelujah.
Well, anyway, we had a story last week from Larry Sabato, political scientist, University of Virginia at the Sabato Center, and he had analyzed as a political scientist all this data, and he concluded, "Yeah, if the election is held today, there's not much the Republicans can do." Of course he left many caveats available, but how can the November elections turn out the way they did and Obama win reelection if it were held today six months later? Would somebody explain to me how that works? "Well, Rush, the way it goes is you gotta look at electoral votes. You gotta look at the Electoral College. You gotta look at states and leaning and all this." No, no. Elections are about things that matter. Elections have consequences and they are about issues. This notion that Obama is a shoe-in or that his reelection is easy, folks, that is one of the biggest scams that they're trying to perpetrate on us yet.
We're approaching five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline. We've got a lot of people's homes worthless or at least underwater. We've got no relief on the job front. There's not one positive thing happening. We got a guy in the White House who's urging people and telling people how to downsize their lives and their expectations, and we're told that this is the recipe for reelection victory. I'm sorry. But I just don't buy this. I think Obama is a landslide loser if the election's today, big time landslide loser. You know, I don't understand. Well, I take that back. I do understand. Fear can cause a lot of common sense to get clouded. Fear can overcome common sense and basic understanding. But there's nothing in the history of American politics that suggests that what's happening here are resume enhancers. You know, a traditional question, are you better off now than you were two and a half years ago when Obama took office? No matter what question you ask, we are worse off. The country's worse off, a majority of our people are worse off.
We got stories like I led with today, IMF, the American era, over. Sorry, that ain't gonna happen on my watch and a president worth his salt would not let that happen on his watch. We got a president engineering it. And don't for a moment believe the American people don't see that. They do. Otherwise November would not have happened. Otherwise Wisconsin would not have happened in November. I don't care, recount reshmount, the fact is that Supreme Court election, the Democrats lost it by 7,000 votes in a huge commie lib state.
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RUSH: Don't forget, folks, the gasoline price is the one data point that the government cannot fudge. The Commerce Department can't fudge it. The Labor Department can't do anything about it. They can't tweak it. They can't tell you it isn't what it is. They can't say there is no inflation. I mean they can do that, but they can't tell you the gas price isn't what it is when that's what you're paying for it.
Reality bites sometimes.
CNN Money: "Drill Baby Drill Won't Lower Gas Prices." That's the theme of the story, "Every time gas prices reach record highs the call goes out for more oil drilling. This year it's no different. 'The Gulf is ready to get back to work to help create jobs and lower gasoline prices,' Washington Republican Doc Hastings... said last week," but the drilling, nah, it won't work! It just won't work. Yeah, of course, drilling now is not gonna have any effect on tomorrow's oil supply, but let's go back: How many years have we been suggesting, "Hey, let's start drilling; let's expand our drilling"? It's easily 15 or 20 years.
If we had started drilling 15 or 20 years ago "drill, baby, drill" would have been an impact, would have made an impact by now. It is intellectual dishonesty for the left to continue to say, "Drill, baby, drill" won't work. It would be no different than saying, "Let's go to the moon! Oh, we can't get there tomorrow? Okay, we're not going. Oh, okay, fine! JFK called for a plan to get to the moon, but we can't get there tomorrow. Go to the moon? That's silly!" Of course it's gonna take some time to get the supply, but what's the point? How many decades have we had to listen to elected leaders tell us we need to end our dependence on foreign oil. Do you think we mighta made a dent on it in the last 15 years of we woulda started drilling, baby, drilling?
I'll tell you what else would happen. There are a lot of ancillaries to drilling, and one of them is jobs. Okay, so let's say we start a policy of opening up drilling in the Gulf and in Alaska, and we do it tomorrow. Now, admittedly it's gonna be a while before any oil is produced that will have an impact on world supplies, but think of the impact that it will make on attitude. Think of the impact it'll make on positive attitude, plus the jobs that will be created. It's a win-win! But no, we can't do it. It's gonna lead to pollution and it's gonna delay our arrival at the clean energy objective that the president has.
And there is no clean energy alternative that replaces any energy supply or use that we have now. I don't know about you, but when I hear the left say, "More oil will not lower prices" (and I hear this constantly), I have the same reaction I do when I hear Obama's a shoo-in for reelection. Really? He's a shoo-in right now? It's just the exact opposite. Obama would lose in a landslide if the election were today, and everybody on the left knows it, which is why they're concocting this image -- this ruse, this perception -- that his election is a lock; his reelection's a foregone conclusion. If drilling for oil will not lower oil prices, if more oil will not lower oil prices, would somebody explain to me how "green energy" that is decades away will lower our energy costs?
I need this explained to me. More oil will not reduce the price of gas, more oil will not expand our domestic supply, but investing in "green energy" that has no payoff for 30 years will somehow lower our energy costs. It is absurd. Five years ago, folks -- five years ago, I think it was -- the Democrats fought the expansion of offshore drilling because "it would take five to ten years to see results." Now they're fighting it saying we need to invest in solar and wind which will take decades to even put a dent in our energy needs, if it ever will. And we're told, "The price of oil has nothing to do with supply and demand, Mr. Limbaugh!"
Oh, really, Mr. New Castrati?
"That's right! The price of oil has nothing to do with supply and demand. The price of oil is totally dependent on the attitudes of those greedy, selfish speculators."
Ohhhh. Well if that's true, Mr. New Castrati, how is it that our drilling for oil wouldn't put the fear of the Lord into the speculators? How long did it take for Reagan's announcement that we were going to start drilling to drive down prices back in the early 1980s? How long did it take for Reagan's talk of lower taxes to start spurring a rebounding attitude in this country of greatness, exceptionalism, positive thinking? When Reagan announced that we were gonna start drilling for oil to drive down prices back in the early eighties, the Carter oil crisis was over overnight. Yeah, we had a couple of contrived shortages during the eighties, but they were contrived. They were not actual shortages of supply.
Here's Brit Hume, by the way. This is yesterday on Fox News Sunday. It's an overused cliche but this really was a breath of fresh air because I'm sitting here literally pulling out what little hair I've got left, as I listen to the conventional wisdom say, "Obama's a lock. His reelection is a lock. He's a shoo-in, and here are the reasons why: Big business is in total support. If you look at the Electoral College here, if you look at leaning versus committed in these states -- red versus blue, yellow versus brown -- he's a lock." I said, "If Obama's a lock for reelection, how the hell did November happen, and what has happened since November to make things so much better to cancel the elections in November?"
Nothing. It's gotten worse! So here's Brit Hume. This is during the roundtable discussion when Chris Wallace was talking to him about the economy. Wallace said, "When Obama was sworn in a gallon of gas was a buck eighty-four; now it's $3.85. That's over a 108% increase. A New York Times poll this week showed how much this is hurting [Pharaoh] Obama: 70% now think the country's on the wrong track. Fifty-seven percent now disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy. Brit, those are the most negative numbers since a couple of months since Obama took office during the very depth, the low point of the recession. What does all this mean?"
HUME: People's feelings about the economy -- despite declining unemployment, despite the fact that there is now steady growth -- have not improved, and when the conventional wisdom in Washington settled as it seemed to recently on the idea the President is a sure bet for reelection, I think it's upside down. If the election were held today, in my view, Barack Obama would lose.
RUSH: Right!
HUME: He might lose big. Obviously, he's got some time.
RUSH: Yeah.
HUME: Events change.
JUAN WILLIAMS: Who's he gonna lose to?
HUME: He would lose to any reasonable nominee from the Republican Party. The Republican Party might be able to lose this election if they nominated some extremely colorful, freakish candidate.
RUSH: "Might be able to lose if they nominate some extremely colorful, freaky candidate." I think he's talking about Trump there. That would just be my guess. But you heard Juan Williams. See, even while this is going on, I'm watching Fox earlier today, and the guru of polling and projections and election results Charlie Cook was not talking about how poorly Obama's doing. He was not talking about the New York Times poll showing 70% think the country is headed in the wrong direction.
No, no, no! They were talking about how disappointing, empty, vacant and all the that the Republican field is. While in a vacuum, in a static sense that's true (there isn't a whole lot out there to excite us) the fact of the matter is that there was a single Republican figurehead leader in the November elections, either. Those elections were, we all know, votes cast against Obama and the Democrats -- purely based on the fact that it was largely independents who didn't like what they were seeing. Anything would be better, and that's largely going to survive all the way through 2012.
It's a year and a half. There's not much that could be done to turn this around. They can lie about inflation, they can make things up about unemployment numbers and so forth, but they can't lie about the gas price, and they can't lie about food prices, and they can't change the reality of people's costs of living. They can tell people that it isn't that expensive but people aren't gonna believe it. So, now you have two people going against the conventional wisdom that Obama's a shoo-in: Me and Brit Hume. By the way, it was Juan Williams there who wanted to know who Obama was gonna lose to in the Brit Hume sound bite.
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RUSH: In support of the notion Obama is not a guaranteed lock to win, Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal last Thursday: "Obama's Likability Gap." The fact of the matter is we don't really need to get all that many votes to win. The percentages here are very narrow. Henninger says, "That historic 2008 victory came with 52.9% of the total vote and 52% of independent voters. David Axelrod recently noted "how small the margin for error is," on the Obama side. Now, Henninger points out that presidential personality is important, and it's "well inside the margin of error for 2012, but the one on display recently has not been attractive. And it's happening a lot," meaning there is a huge likability gap. The Obama running around the country now is not the same Messiah who was running around in 2007-2008, and he can't be ever again. The bloom's off that rose. Can't go back and re-create 2008, cannot erase from people's memories the last two and a half years. He's got a record and it's a dismal one, and it's gonna get even more dismal by the time the official reelection campaign and election comes up. We'll just keep a sharp eye.
Saratoga Springs in New York. Brian, I'm glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Hopefully this call will pump you up. First of all, you're absolutely right. I agree, Obama is gonna lose in a landslide.
RUSH: Well, he would lose in a landslide if the election were today.
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: We don't know what's gonna happen, but it's simply delusional to say that he's got it locked up today.
CALLER: Absolutely. No, he will lose and getting back to what you said, we have a great educational moment coming up in the presidential election, because I'm pumped, and my family's pumped, and friends, because it's an educational moment because we've got a few particular candidates, Rush, who are gonna educate the American worker and the American people about how great we are, and also I think they're gonna educate the Republican establishment.
RUSH: Well, you know, the Republican establishment is going to be every bit the obstacle here, depending on who the nominee is, as will be the Democrat establishment pretty much. If we have a genuinely conservative nominee, which we need, the Republican establishment is gonna fight that person throughout the nomination process.
CALLER: You are absolutely correct.
RUSH: But I think the real education's already taken place. Every time you go buy gas, five bucks a gallon, $4.80. Nobody needs to explain a thing. You don't have to go to class. You don't have to listen to a lecture. All you have to do is see four bucks a gallon, $4.25, whatever it is, and then turn on the TV and listen to Obama tell you you should be thankful for that 'cause we're gonna make it worse. There's nothing we can do. Oh, yeah? Well, the American people still, I firmly believe a majority, do not respond favorably to, "Hey, this is the best we can do." The best education system is reality and it's happening right before people's very eyes. And it's going to continue to happen because a sour economy is the objective to this administration, this regime. This is precisely what they want.
Don't forget how we opened the program today, folks. The very first thing that we started with today: "The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell. For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the 'Age of America' will end and the US economy will be overtaken by that of China." This is the era of America's decline, and it is being shepherded as a decline purposefully by Pharaoh Obama. It's time we learned what it's like. It's time we got paid back for all this wealth we've stolen from the poor all over the world since our founding. He's happy to see this.
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