This Election Is Not About Republicans -- It's a Repudiation of Obama and the DemocratsNovember 03, 2014
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RUSH: I was on the golf course Saturday, and a guy, a frustrated guy, one of these... I've gotta be very careful. Most people who ask me about the elections, ask, "Are we gonna win the Senate?" as though that's it. That's all that matters. My answer to them is, "Maybe, but it may not matter." And they say, "What do you mean?" And then I have to decide: Do I really want to explain or just let it go and not get into it?
I always decide to let it go and not get into it on the golf course, because it's just a judgment that I make. But this guy that I was playing with, after asking me if the Republicans were gonna win the Senate -- and I just said, "Yeah," which made him very happy -- said, "Why can't the Republicans just say...? Why can't they just go out there and say they don't care who women have sex with and they don't care about women's contraception?"
I said, "You think that would matter?"
"Hell, yes! Why don't they just go out and say it?"
I said, "Do you know who Cory Gardner and Thom Tillis are?"
"Yeah."
I said, "Do you know that both of them have, in the course of their campaigns, advocated that contraception -- pills, whatever -- be sold over-the-counter to anybody who wants to buy them?"
"No, I didn't."
I said, "Why don't you know that? Because the media isn't reporting it and you don't live in North Carolina or Colorado, so you're not following the campaigns other than whether you think they win or lose." Next, I said, "Even though Cory Gardner has advocated that contraception be made available over-the-counter, his opponent and the Democrats are still running ads claiming that Cory Gardner is opposed to women having sex, is opposed to women having contraception.
"Cory Gardner wants women to get pregnant and not enter job market and all this. They're still saying that." I said, "My point is, the Republicans can say anything, and it isn't going to matter. Their brand has been so damaged now that no matter what they say, the Democrats and the media can easily counter it by saying they don't mean it." Here you have two candidates for the Senate, both Republicans, who have said this.
They said it as a way of just getting rid of this silly War on Women meme, just getting rid of it, just swatting it away. Nobody cares! George Stephanopoulos is responsible for this, with that question about contraception to Mitt Romney in January of 2008 in a Republican primary debate. Nobody cares! It certainly isn't a campaign issue, and it never has been. Democrats turned it into one.
Even though two guys running for the Senate have openly refuted it as best you can, "Hey, I think birth control should be available to anybody who wants it, any time they want it, over-the-counter," nobody knows. It was my way of trying to explain that there's a lot more going on here than just winning the Senate, and there's a lot more going on than just Republicans saying something to supposedly get an issue off the table.
I said, "Do you know how many times the Republicans have kicked the can of budget resolution, continuing resolution, all that? Do you realize how many times Republicans have kicked an issue down the road to get it off the table so that it doesn't hurt them, and yet it still hurts them?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, that's my point." We're up against people that will openly, willingly lie and a media that will happily expand on the lie.
This is a branding issue.
This is not a policy question.
Republicans going out and announcing whatever you want to hear them say on policy isn't gonna matter 'cause the Democrats are gonna ignore it, the media's gonna ignore it, and they're just gonna continue to lie about what the Republicans say and do. Until they come up with a way to refute that -- and this leads me into (there it is): If they had just embraced the Tea Party back in 2010, they would have won the presidency in 2012.
I am firmly convinced. Look, folks, I know the drill. You don't have to tell me. I imagine some of you are chomping at the bit to get through and tell me. I know what happens. Tea Party candidates? The establishment never, ever supports them. Tea Party candidates? The establishment openly talks about how embarrassing they are. The establishment openly tries to defeat them and harm them, their reputations and so forth.
And yet that same establishment demands that the Tea Party -- which has just been disrespected and impugned -- turn around, out of party loyalty, and support all of the establishment's candidates. It is a one-way street. I know. I know full well. I know this Politico piece is over the top, and it could well be that The Politico's made the piece up. But there haven't been any denials yet.
I'll hold out the possibility The Politico piece is wrong. Again, for you just joining us, there's a piece at Politico today which says, in a nutshell, that the Republican Party leadership is gonna be happier about the Tea Party losing tomorrow by being unable to beat the establishment than it's gonna be about winning the Senate. Honestly. Let me say that again, in case you didn't quite make sense of it.
The Politico has a piece quoting unnamed Republican sources saying they're gonna have a bigger celebration over the Tea Party losing tomorrow than they are gonna celebrate their own victory in claiming control of the Senate. Now, I'll acknowledge, maybe The Politico's making it up. Maybe they're trying to forge a wedge between Republican forces and so forth. But it hasn't been denied by anybody yet, and I know it's a one-way street.
Tea Party candidates, I can give you names. Every damn one of them, the establishment comes along and tries to damage in some way so they don't win. But then at the same time, Tea Party people are supposed to just drop everything and support establishment candidates for the sake of party unity. I know it's a one-way street. But this election -- as was 2012, as was 2010 -- isn't about the Republican Party.
That's not me saying that. That's what the Republican Party's chosen. The Republican Party doesn't want it to be about them. That's why this Politico story is also interesting. The Republican Party's active strategy in this election has been total silence. They haven't said a word, using the theory that if your opponent's in the middle of destroying himself, stand aside and let it happen and don't distract anybody's attention.
So if the country's fed up with Democrats, if the country's fed up with Obama -- if they don't want any more, if they want a change -- shut up and don't give them a reason not to support you. So the Republicans haven't said a word. Well, I submit to you that, therefore, this election isn't about the Republican Party -- and, as much as they would like to say it, it's not about the Tea Party.
This election has always been about repudiating Barack Obama and the Democrat Party and their policies.
It may even be a protest vote, and I have said this -- you've heard me recently -- that one of the sad realities of this election is that the people are gonna vote against Obama tomorrow are doing just that and the people gonna vote against the Democrats tomorrow are doing just that. Their vote against Obama does not mean they've embraced the Republican Party agenda. And I think that's a missed opportunity. Doesn't matter. It's too late now. But that leaves the truth on the table.
It isn't about the Republican Party.
There is no agenda they've announced, other than, "We're the other guys," and so that's it. So they're not gonna have a mandate. They're gonna claim one. The media's doing everything they can to deny them a mandate. Remember F. Chuck Todd last week. We had a sound bite, F. Chuck Todd of NBC, their second choice to host Meet the Press after Jon Stewart. I don't know if Jon Stewart would have said this.
But Chuck Todd said he'd been conducting his own personal survey. He went out there and he talked to a bunch of voters and they're gonna vet against the Democrats, but they don't like it because it means they're gonna be voting for the Republicans and they don't want to vote for the Republicans. But they're so mad, they've gotta vote against the Democrats. He's calling it the hold-your-nose election. Well, the purpose of saying that is if there is a huge Republican wave, I guarantee you what the media's gonna say: it had nothing to do with the Republicans.
They're gonna invalidate this election. They're gonna delegitimize it on Wednesday morning by claiming people didn't vote for the Republicans here, gang. I can see the lineup now. I can see all the White House correspondents standing there in the early shows. I can see The View. I can then see the noon shows. I can see the afternoon and evening cable shows and all the analysts saying this was not a vote for the Republican Party. The American people, look at our exit polls; they didn't even want to vote Republican.
They're just so mad they just think we needed a change, but it wasn't a vote for the Republicans.
They're gonna deny any kind of a mandate whatsoever. They might even throw something in along the lines or exit polls might show that the voters, in voting against the Democrats, really regretted having to vote for the Tea Party or some such thing. I expect a full frontal assault on the Tea Party while the Democrats perhaps lose in one of the biggest landslides in American history. You watch, they're gonna portray this as the biggest loss for the Tea Party ever. I know how this is shaking out.
But it's gonna be just as bad for the Republicans as far as the media's concerned. They're not gonna credit the Republicans for winning. They're gonna credit the Republicans for not being Democrats. And how good is this, that the people that voted really didn't vote the way they did. They didn't want to vote the way they did. They really wanted to vote Democrat, they just couldn't, but they really hated voting Republican. F. Chuck Todd tells us this is what he found.
Have you ever heard of a landslide loss, have you ever heard of a landslide defeat portrayed as a win for the people who lost? Well, that's what's gonna happen. If we get this wave, if this is a huge Democrat loss, the media is going to spin this as anything but. And everybody's favorite target is the Tea Party. They will get the blame no matter what happens. Never any of the credit. But I really do think about what could have been if the Republican -- the Tea Party represented -- still does -- a huge majority of Americans opposed to Barack Obama, on Obamacare, on foreign policy, on taxes. If the Republican Party really wants to be a majority party, they don't have to run around and woo and whatever they're doing with Hispanics and African-Americans.
They're not gonna get enough of those anyway to create a dominant winning, governing majority. They're engaged in surface, feel-good stuff. But there was a real majority just waiting to be connected with. The problem was that the Tea Party is against Big Government, and that's what killed the deal, because the establishment of both parties thrives on a big and growing government. It's where everybody lives. It's where everybody's futures are. It's where everybody's earnings, salary, jobs, lifestyle, whatever.
Government is where their livelihood is and any talk of making it smaller, silly. Isn't gonna happen. And since that's what the Tea Party represents, they can't be embraced.
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http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/11/03/this_election_is_not_about_republicans_it_s_a_repudiation_of_obama_and_the_democrats
