Lintball dukes it out with a caller over last night's victories... [View All]

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_110905/content/truth_detector_2.guest.html

RUSH: Here's Stephen in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Nice to have you on the program, sir.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, thank you very much for taking my call. With all due respect, I believe you can spin all you want, this is a referendum. People are rejecting Bush's policies. He is not a powerful president as you said last week.

RUSH: Steve, Steve, Steve --

CALLER: Look at Virginia, the rest--

RUSH: Steven, Steven, can I ask you a question?

CALLER: Go ahead.

RUSH: You know, you listen to this program, right?

CALLER: Yes, I do, most of the time.

RUSH: Okay, and you know who my audience is?

CALLER: Yes, I do.

RUSH: Well, you know that I'm just trying to keep them bucked up. You know that my audience is really depressed today. Some of them are as suicidal as you people felt last year and I've gotta say this stuff, Steve. I'm winking -- you know I agree with you -- Bush took it on the chin yesterday. I think Bush ought to resign. I think this is such a humiliating defeat. Bush ought to just say he and Cheney are going and ask the Democrats who they want to run the country now because we Hastert is not capable of doing it. But you've got to cut me some slack here, man, because I'm talking to my audience; I've got to keep them bucked up. You understand that.

CALLER: Well, I believe you're using a condescending tone. I think you believe that Bush is still strong. Virginia is a red state, and he was there, the eve of the election. If people realize --

RUSH: I can't be honest with these people.

CALLER: -- policies, you know, he lost.

RUSH: You're not --


CALLER: -- Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota's mayor --

RUSH: Steven, Steven, Steven, I'm soliciting your help. You don't understand when you have a friend. I just told you, you're right, but I'm asking you to shhh, and understand what I'm dealing with here. You know, I've got a big problem, I've got to keep my audience together as well as keep the White House, and you guys, you're having too much success out there in causing us all kinds of trouble. I'm just asking you to help me. I'm not arguing with you, do you understand that?

CALLER: Well, your audience is highly educated, well informed audience, and I feel they know it deep inside. Some of them, they are like you, don't believe that, but most of them today, they believe -- or they already have a cast of a doubt that hmm, maybe --

RUSH: Steven, Steven, Steven.

CALLER: -- Bush is really not right.

RUSH: Steven, Steven, come on, we've got to be man to man. You know my audience is not that smart. They're conservatives, man, they're just a bunch of hayseed hicks. They believe everything I'm telling them, and here you come calling me and blowing my cover. You could have waited a day or two, and I didn't have to take your call. But this audience will believe anything I say. They're just a bunch of mind-numbed robots.

CALLER: I disagree with that. I disagree. They are very well informed; they are very well educated; and they make up their own minds. And I think this is really, really --

RUSH: Wait a minute. Now, if they're smart and make up their own minds, then how can I spin them?

CALLER: Well, that's why I'm saying, in Virginia, which is a red state, they made up their mind. They rejected Bush's policy, that's my point, because they think for themselves, you know, they decided for themselves.

RUSH: Well, hold it. You may be more informed than even I, which would be saying something. What Bush policies were on the ballot in Virginia?

CALLER: Well, here is the case. One is Iraq. Iraq isn't going well. Iraq is going very, very wrong --

RUSH: Steven, Steven, Steven, Steven, I don't think any of the gubernatorial candidates ran on Iraq since neither of those candidates, had they become governor, would have anything to say about it. I don't think Iraq was on the ballot. Since the Democrat won, is Virginia going to withdraw from Iraq now? Is Virginia going to pull their National Guard and soldiers out now? Is that what that means?

CALLER: No, they're not, they're not, but they're sending a message that this policy is wrong. Remember 1994, when Bill Clinton came up with all that, we want to reform the Medicare, med this, med that, the people rejected the policy by sending him the message, by sending --

RUSH: Steven, Steven, Steven.

CALLER: -- the Republicans --

RUSH: You're absolutely right about that, but here's why. The elections, those were -- 1994 was an on-year election and those House elections were nationalized. It was one of the strategies that Newt Gingrich put together. He had members of Congress go out and run campaigns in their state districts on national issues, and that was one of the better kept secrets of that campaign, that along with the contract for America. But I don't think that happened in Virginia or New Jersey. There weren't any national issues. These governors are not trying to pass themselves off as presidential candidates opposing Bush. They were talking about state issues.

CALLER: Well, everybody who's associating with Bush now has to be careful just like the former governor of Virginia, just like the former mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota, this is the message the country is sending.


RUSH: Okay, all right, I've tried.

CALLER: You really need to wake up.

RUSH: I've tried, I've tried, Steven. I've tried every which way I know to become a buddy with you. You have rejected and resisted my efforts to do so. And I'm going to tell you the truth. You and your kind of thinking here are the exact reason you're going to lose in '06 and '08 because you think you win when you don't. You think you won big yesterday, and you think Bush lost, you are living in an alternative, false reality. Bush wasn't on the ballot. No congressman was on the ballot yesterday. You can talk to me about mayors and governors and lieutenant governors and attorneys general all you want, but you can't tell me that anybody other than those candidates who lost, lost. But you want to believe that Bush lost yesterday, so you're going to continue to lie to yourself that you've won when you haven't. You people out there on the left have a huge problem. You are losing everywhere you go. When it comes to national elections, other than these few weird little enclaves like Massachusetts, New York, and California, the bottom line is, you're losing margins of victory in national elections while you think you're winning. You have a guy in Ohio named Hackett who loses, and you people tell yourself, you won. It's gotten so bad that when you're in the minority in the Senate, you say the minority should run the show. You are not winning things while you think you are. People who lie to themselves never, ever get it. They are continually surprised because you are not willing to face the genuine problems that you face. And if you think that you can persuade people that Bush was on all these ballots yesterday and that he lost, you go right ahead. I am more than comfortable for you to think that, because it's going to continue to keep you focused on the wrong things in the ensuing years. Mike in Cleveland, you're next, nice to have you on the program, sir.