http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/01/22/have_you_ever_seen_anything_like_it_gop_tries_to_kill_both_its_front_runnersHave You Ever Seen Anything Like It? GOP Tries to Kill Both Its Front-Runners
January 22, 2016
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Have you ever seen this? Have you ever seen a primary campaign where the two top front-runners in a party are both trying to be destroyed by that party?
JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny south Florida, it's Open Line Friday!
RUSH: Do you ever remember seeing anything like this? Forget in your lifetime, because you haven't. Or maybe you -- no. Not two. The two top front-runners, factions, different factions within the Republican Party are trying to take out both of these guys.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome to Open Line Friday on Rush Limbaugh's EIB Network, the most listened to radio talk show in America. Great to have you here, as always. The telephone number if you want to be on the program's 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
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So over here you have establishment Republicans trying to take out Ted Cruz by sidling up with Donald Trump. Over here you have conservative intelligentsia, the intellectual leading light of conservatism, National Review, trying to take out Trump. The establishment, which National Review has been plenty supportive of in recent years, is trying to take out Cruz, sidling up to Trump, while National Review is trying to take Trump out.
If Ted Cruz becomes president of the United States, I am here to tell you that there will be more knives needing to be removed from his back placed there by fellow Republicans than by any number of knives in his back placed there by the Democrats, 'cause the Democrats' attacks will be from the front, and he will see those coming.
I have never seen anything like this, where the two top front-runners are both being targeted by different wings or elements, if you will.
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originalRUSH: I've seen in I don't know how many places, Trump does not have a ground game. That all Trump does is fly in, do a great show for an hour and a half or two hours with tens of thousands of people on hand, and gets on the plane and splits the scene leaving nothing behind, no ground game.
And, again, this is what those of the standard, ordinary operating procedure, conventional wisdom American politics, this is what they're saying to comfort themselves. "Trump's not gonna win anything. You gotta ignore the polls. But, no, he doesn't have a ground game. Trump doesn't have any campaign experts. He doesn't any specialists. He doesn't have any people working the caucus area. He doesn't have people working in New Hampshire to get out the vote, man the phone banks. He's not doing any that. You wait. You're gonna see. The polling numbers don't mean diddly-squat."
People are so threatened by what's happening. Folks, in one sense a lot of this is easy to understand, easily explained from even the psychological and standpoint of human nature. Politics is like anything else. Let's call it a business just for the sake of it, just to call it something. It has its own rules. It has its own stars. It has its own wannabes. It has its own power cliques. It has its upper strata. It has its worker bees. It has its people that everybody else makes fun of. I mean, the whole gamut.
Politics is thought to be different from that, though, because we learn from the early days in school that politics is civics and it's policy and it's the best people with the best ideas, campaigning and receiving support for those ideas and integrity and character. It looks good on paper. But this business is as cutthroat -- it's like any private club. You golfers, you want to join Augusta National, forget it. You don't have a prayer. The requirements to get into Augusta National are things 99.999% of the people who play golf in this country will never, ever accomplish or qualify for.
You can dream all day long. Politics is the same way. The people who run it are not interested in new blood. They're not interested in it unless they bring the new blood in themselves and shepherd them and mentor them. But if you're an outsider and you've never been in the business before and all of a sudden you want to come in and run the show and assume the leadership, people are not just gonna back away and let you have it, no matter how great you are, no matter what you might do for them.
Let me put it this way. Forget the name is Trump. If a candidate could guaranteed fix everything that's wrong in this country the way the Republican Party thinks it's wrong, if it were a slam dunk, if it were guaranteed, that candidate will still be opposed by the Republican Party establishment. If they've never heard of him before or if he's never been in politics before, if he's not part of the structure, the infrastructure, if he hasn't paid his dues, if he's not part of the clique, they don't want him in there. It's exclusionary and it's got all kinds of people who want to get into it, who want to climb that ladder, who want to be at the top, and you just don't get there.
In many ways it's not merit based like so many other things in life are. So there is a natural enmity to outsiders, to intruders. And when an outsider or intruder gets in, gets a nose under the tent and starts making noise, then the establishment lifelong members start caucusing together to figure out how they can get rid of this intruder who might just shake everything up. When it comes time to get rid of the intruder all they know to do is what they've always done. They go to their playbook. Whatever party politics playbooks there are, they go to them.
And so when you hear a lifelong political professional, consultant, fundraiser, donor, whoever, when you say, you hear them say, "Well, you know, Trump, he doesn't have a ground game. I mean, come on, you can't win without a ground game. You can't just fly in and do speeches. Even if 30,000 people show up, you gotta have a ground game." They're trying to make themselves feel less frightened. Because what's really going on is the potential here that everything so many people have relied on that's made them rich, that's made them famous, that's given them power, is on the verge of being destroyed and turned upside down.
A lot of people who in their hearts know that they are irrelevant are about to have it demonstrated. In their minds, that's their fear. And so it's circle the wagons time, and the Republican Party, for these reasons and others, is really animated, motivated, energized by taking out both of their front-runners, so much so you have heard many of them say they would prefer to lose the presidency of the United States. They would prefer to lose the most powerful office in the world if it meant somebody other than them within their party that they don't like or approve of winning that office.
originalNot only that, you've heard some of them say they would even go so far as to vote for Hillary Clinton. Does anybody think that's in the best interests of the country? Does anybody think that's in the best interests of the future of the country for your kids and your grandkids? No. What is that? That's self-preservation. That is protection, trying to hold on to little kingdoms and fiefdoms and so forth. But it's certainly not what you would consider to be in the national interest.
Now, they will tell you opposite things, but that's why what's happening here is momentous. You can see by the panic, you can listen, you can hear, see, read the panic whenever anybody in the establishment phase, long there, entrenched, been working it for years and years, decades, when they react to Trump, when they react to Cruz, you can, in many of them, detect the fear.
So then learning what it is they're afraid of, to me that's interesting. What I know is that neither of these two parties, in recent years -- well, one party is destroying what I wholeheartedly, fervently believe with every fiber of my being is the best nation ever conceived by human beings. One party has set out to destroy it. They call it transforming it. Now, to me, that is a clarion call to opposition. Whatever else, they must be stopped. Whatever must happen, that has to happen.
And this I think is the primary motivating force behind people supporting Trump and Cruz. It's not about being loyal to an ideology. It's not even about being loyal to a party. Being loyal to a party hasn't worked anyway. That's gotten nothing done. Being loyal to the Republican Party with donations, votes, hasn't done anything.
Look at National Review. My memory on this, somebody's gonna have to check this for me, but it seems to me back in 2011 they ran a similar cover story or editorial that was against Newt Gingrich. You remember this, Mr. Snerdley? It was 2011, I believe. They ran a very similar anti-Newt Gingrich cover, an editorial back in 2011. Rich Lowry said back then that, quote, "I don't think we've ever done anything like this," and by that he meant gather together a group of conservative writers to try to dislodge a Republican. I don't know whether Gingrich was front-runner or -- "National Review to Newt Gingrich: Drop Out."
So this is not the first time. And who ended up being the cover-endorsed candidate? Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney's not a conservative. Mitt Romney had to fake being a conservative. He was out there, "Oh, I'm a severe conservative." Mitt Romney is the architect of what became Obamacare. We nominated a candidate who could not even criticize the number one Obama "achievement" with credibility! So people, Republican voters and donors, look at all this, and they think there's a genuine crisis happening in this country, a genuine crisis that threatens the very existence of this country as founded.
They don't see any opposition to it in the Republican Party. They see opposition to it pooh-poohed, laughed at, made fun of. To them, the people who make this country work, there's a genuine crisis for their kids and their grandkids. So when it comes to being loyal to conservatism or libertarianism or whatever, that's of secondary importance to stopping what's happening. Which, translated, is opposition to the Democrat Party, opposition to the American left, opposition to liberalism, communism, Alinskyism, whatever you want to call it.
It's opposition to Hillary Clinton, opposition to Bernie Sanders. That is what is motivating, energizing, and inspiring this. And that is not recognized, it's not acknowledged, it's not even given any respect at many areas in the Republican Party. So what are people gonna do? They're not gonna say, "You know what? I must make sure that conservatism does not get watered down in whatever..." It's way beyond that now. Ninety-four million Americans are not working. The border is wide open. Floods of unskilled, uneducated, non-English speaking people are arriving here monthly, and they will work for diddly-squat or go on the welfare state rolls.
In either case, they're squeezing the people in this country who are working, limiting their opportunity for wage increases, career expansion, and forcing them to pay tax increases necessary to fund an ever-expanding welfare state. They don't want to be part of it. To them, it's not about compassion. The Constitution's not a suicide pact to them. They love the country. They want it to survive. They don't want it being destroyed. They don't want it tampered with.
They don't want it transformed. They have thought for eight years that there was an opposition party joining them in this effort and they haven't seen it. Now, we've got this internecine fight going on over who's a real conservative and who isn't, and to me all this is so much bigger than that. It's momentous. It is profound, and I think hugely important -- and really great things can happen here in one of two different scenarios. It's not all wrapped up in just one.
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