Replies

But it was the R party primaries that selected Gov. Romney (and most people thought his choice of Sen. Ryan was a pretty good one, too). Some of the other R candidates got torpedoed almost overnight, rather than running the course and seeing which one was the most popular. So, that is an issue — how do we prevent such things from happening in future so that we are really permitted a choice of all R candidates?

Santorum did quite well head to head against Romney until he dropped out. During contested primaries it was quite clear that the majority of Republican primary voters did not want Romney as the nominee. However, Romney managed to help slime much better conservatives than he right out of the race.

Others have posted it, and I will repeat it: people were warned how horrible a candidate Mitt Romney would be and were warned more than once.

And I will also answer the question before it's asked: the beauty of Ronald Reagan was that he could bypass a media that was as unfriendly to him as it has ever been to any Republican to take a message directly to the American people. Did we have a candidate who could do that who was not named Romney? We will never know, because Romney's GOP-E helped take them all out of the race.

Rush Goes On the Record with Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren (from December)

VAN SUSTEREN: Why has Governor Mitt Romney not had a so-called "surge"? We hear "surge" used with basically every Republican nominee, but you don't see that "surge" with Governor Romney.

RUSH: Well, every poll I've seen of Republican primary voters, he can't crack 30 percent. It has been curious. And you look at it from the reverse, 70 percent of Republican voters want somebody else. This is why we have the phenomenon of the "Not-Romney." Bachmann was the "Not-Romney" for a while. Herman Cain was the "Not-Romney." Now Newt is the "Not-Romney." I think it boils down to something that's not complicated at all. Republican primary voters are conservative. They don't believe that Romney is. They believe that he will stick a finger in the air and moisten it and see which way the winds are blowing and try to get in that direction. They remember that Romney said he believes in global warming and he believes that man is causing it. Well, conservatives don't believe that. They believe it's a hoax. Conservatives know that the whole story of man-made global warming is a hoax. And they're not going to get excited by a candidate who is trying to gain favor with non-Republican primary voters by articulating that stuff.

Here's the big problem, Greta, for the Republicans. And I am a lone wolf on this. The rule of thumb in elections, both parties, 40 percent are going to vote Democrat automatically, whatever you do, 40 percent are going to vote Republican, automatic, no matter what you do. And in the middle, who do we have? The precious, God love them, independents and the moderates. And they are the targets. They are the focus of every election. And our brilliant campaign consultants tell our candidates they are the ones that know how to go get a majority of those independents. And we have, as Republicans, put ourselves in prison to this whole silly notion that you only win elections by moving to the center and getting great independents. Fine and dandy, but if you squander your base in the process, you haven't a prayer.

The Republican Party is trying to do something in this primary that is unprecedented. They're trying to split the conservative vote and win the primary with a moderate, with Romney. It's the other way around. You consolidate your base and then you move to the center in the general. The Republican establishment has decided they don't want any part of conservatism. And this is really not new. People are surprised to hear this, but the Republican Party formative event with conservatism is Goldwater's landslide defeat. That's what they think of when they think conservative. They don't think Reagan. They think Goldwater.

They believe what the inside-the-Beltway philosophy is about conservatives. They're racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, Southern hayseed hicks. They're pro-lifers. They're embarrassing to have to go to the convention with them. And they're just embarrassed to have those kind of people in the party. They're dumb. They're not erudite. They're not educated in Ivy League schools. We'll take their votes on election day, but we really don't want to hang around with them. We don't want anybody in Washington thinking that we're really that close to them and aligned with them. So in the process -- you know, it's a very sophisticated electorate. The Republican primary voter can sense that the Republican Party really doesn't like them, really doesn't want them, thinks that they are the route to defeat. That's the problem in a nutshell. The Republican establishment thinks that a conservative nominee is the route to defeat because they think Goldwater landslides are going to happen because they believe what the popular misconception the left has created of conservatives -- they think everybody thinks that.