Posted on 02/02/2004 6:36:05 PM PST by Zechariah11
Bush Campaign: This Could Be 1980 or 1960 February 2, 2004
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT 1:40 PM EST
RUSH: New polling data: John Edwards leading the pack in South Carolina, ladies and gentlemen. I don't pretend to know what this is going to do to the race and, frankly, at this point in time I'm still not that interested in it. I said "that interested." I'm not "that interested." I know all the stuff you're worried about: Bush isn't responding; Bush should be doing this and Bush should be doing that. Let me tell you something, folks: When it comes down to this, there are things that concern me about more about this administration than the way they're answering the Democratic primary, to be quite honest with you, all the spending, the Medicare bill. And I've been worried about it since this domestic agenda started expanding. That, frankly, bothers me more than whether he's answering Kerry or not. And, you know, the Democrats are doing their best to inoculate Kerry from any criticism as a liberal. And they think they're going to succeed in doing that. Just wait and see. Let it unfold a little more and then we'll get a better idea what's going on. We haven't heard the last from Howard Dean. Howard Dean is out there now accusing John Kerry of taking Botox. This is starting to get interesting.
Dean stopped spending money. He doesn't have any. He's got $5 million left or something. So he's got a new strategy out there, and we haven't seen Dean really attack anybody else because he's been the front-runner. He's been the attackee. So he's turning around, and this is - when he starts in on Kerry and the Botox, and let Edwards win this primary - and I'm going to tell you something else, folks, and I wanted you to mark my words that I shared this with you last week in a column from Jim Pinkerton who writes for Newsday. And it is this: The press does not like John Kerry, and not very many people in Washington do.
Now, you may think, "Well, hey, a lot of good that's doing us. They're raving about the guy now, Rush. Are you paying attention?" Yes, I'm paying attention, my friends, but you have to understand something. They're all excited about Kerry because Kerry is taking the race away from Dean. Dean had to be destroyed. The Clintons destroyed Dean. Let there be no mistake about it. Just as I told you, they had to destroy Dean because Dean was threatening to take the party away from them. There are two things going on with this party. One is a battle for the party itself, and the other is a battle for the nomination, and in the midst of both of them you'll find the Clintons. I've told you this from day one, and that's why all this happening now is a little bit premature to start analyzing because we don't really know where the Clintons are going to come down on it yet because they don't know. It depends. If Dean has a resurgence - and I know it looks like a long shot - but if he does, all bets are off. If somebody besides Kerry looks like they're going to win, it's not tied to Clinton. Nobody is going to win this nomination that is going to take this party away from Bill and Hillary, folks. It just isn't going to happen.
Additionally, nobody is going to win that they don't control. You couple that with the fact that Kerry is not liked, and he's not. Right now they're singing his praises because they had to get rid of Dean. They don't like Dean, and they want a long race, and they're very content to have a race, but I'll tell you, once Kerry gets it, if he does sew up the nomination, you are going to be stunned at the all of the so-called opposition research about Kerry the press is going to eagerly report. They do not like him. They think he's arrogant and condescending. A lot of people think he's arrogant and condescending. He's not a popular person in the Washington-Boston-New York political corridor.
Now, I don't know whether they don't like him enough to participate in defeating him because they hate Bush as well, but they're not big. It's not like somebody like, oh, a Kennedy getting the nomination, that they would just fall all over themselves and start acting slavish. They don't like Kerry, and at some point you're going to see this manifest itself. Now, let's go back to Bush, let's go back to the Republicans and what are they doing, because many of you people think that the Republicans and Bush are not doing anything to answer the Democrats and letting all this time go by and ought to be responding to them and saying this and not letting them get away with that. Well, a bunch of stories in the press today, Washington Times has one. LA Times has another. And I'll share with you the LA Times story, which I'm holding in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, a story that's by Maura Reynolds and Doyle McManus, and here's the headline, "GOP Focus Already Fixed on Endgame - (Strategerists') grass-roots plans to reelect Bush are well ahead of schedule. The emphasis is not on swing voters, but loyal Republicans." Now, I saw this headline, I said, "Whoa! I haven't seen this." I mean, not that I haven't seen the story; I haven't seen what they're talking about actually going on.
So I read this story, and let me share with you some excerpts of this story. "From South Carolina to Arizona, Democrats are brawling noisily over whom their presidential candidate will be. But back in the capital, Republican strategists are already focused on the finish line - and quietly working on a new 'ground war' plan to secure another four years in the White House for President Bush. So far ahead are they in their planning, and so committed to their new strategy, that nine months ahead of time they are already leasing vans in key states to carry voters to the polls on election day — Nov. 2 — and teaching volunteer canvassers how to track turnout with pocket computers."
Hmm. "'On a grass-roots and regional basis, this campaign is already underway,' said Ken Mehlman, the campaign manager, as he ticked off the organizational groundwork that has already been done: local committees named; voter registration drives launched; millions of supporters signed up; websites and e-mail systems humming."
'We are literally nine months ahead of where we were four years ago,' said Robert T. Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party and a veteran of 40 years of GOP work. 'This campaign is probably the best organized I've ever seen.' The result, GOP planners hope, will be a juggernaut that not only guarantees Bush's reelection but lays the foundation for a lasting Republican majority in Congress." Let me stop here and analyze. I have no doubt this is going on, and I have no doubt that they really think they can pull off this big alignment, this electoral alignment.
But don't be fooled. They are out there trying to get people voting Republican. There's no ideology in this. This is not about issues. These people are not out there stumping issues. They're not out there doing any of that. They are just lining up the apparatus necessary to get people to go to the polls and vote Bush, vote Republican, in as many races as they can. Now, this is great stuff. I'm glad this is happening. I just wish that there were - how can I put this? See, I'm starting to get depressed - not depressed - I'm starting to get reluctant, because I don't want you people to think I'm depressed, because I don't want to bring you down because it's way too soon for anybody to get depressed over anything. In fact, it probably doesn't make any sense to get depressed over anything anyway other than a death in the family. Nevertheless, I wonder how much of this would not be necessary if there were things going on in Washington that made people want to go vote and keep this administration in office on their own. I wonder how wonderful it would be if it didn't take... I have nothing against grassroots. I think grassroots is where it all happens, don't misunderstand. I understand the necessary evils of voter registration. Not "evils," but the necessity of voter registration and getting as deep in the grassroots as you can to get interest and so forth, and I'm all for it.
But wouldn't it be a nice thing to add to all this if these people who are the subject - all these people that are being worked on to get them to the polls and do all this stuff, the recipients of the e-mail - the people who are going to go get on the buses that they're going to be taken to the polls? Wouldn't it be nice if they were on the way to being inspired and motivated to do it anyway? And they could. See, this is the rub: they could be. And I want to tell you what, folks. It's coming up later here in the stack, but Bush still has time to turn this around.
This can be 1960 or this can be 1980. The Republicans can run the 1960 campaign as the Republicans did against Kennedy, or they can run an '80 campaign like Reagan did against Carter. Now, which of the two you think they should run? Rerun the '80 campaign because it was a landslide. What happened? I'm just telling you. I don't have Reaganitis here. I wouldn't apologize if I did; I'm just saying Bush has a chance to turn this around if he'll just start talking and speaking about things that energize his base. If they just start talking and doing some of those things as well, we'd be back to thinking this is going to be as big a slam-dunk as it was against Howard Dean. Mark my words - and I betcha this happens before long anyway.
It sounds like a bit of Pyrric posturing going on by those who feel that Bush might lose in November just so they can say "I told you so."
At some point it must be countered. The Republicans in the House and Senate have to start becoming visibly, vocally defensive of him.
Social liberals control most of the levers of power in the Senate, and the GOP House is replete with a bunch of pork-barreling get-along-to-go-along pols who have no problems spending the cash of voters, their kids, grandkids, etc.. In other words, at the margins in a closely divided Senate, and at perhaps 1/3 of the House, you'll find GOP liberals. They may have lots of different names for themselves, but they spend the voter's money like a drunken sailor spends cash in a whore house (...ah...speaking as one former sailor who knows).
I think Bush is fundamentally a social conservative, and a fiscal "moderate". Which means, he's willing to spend the voters cash to achive meritorious national goals. In fact, to ensure the politicial base exists to sustain these goals, he's willing to mimic the drunken sailor approach.
What do you think will happen when, and at this point certainly "if", Bush is able to achive something close to a super-majority in the Senate. When one or two RINO's cannot blackmail the entire GOP caucas, when one or two filabustering Democrats cannot be at all sure of sustaining their filabuster? When for the first time in ..what 60 years? a century? ... the GOP has real political power, what will Bush do with it?
Bush has said it in plain terms; political capital evaporates .. it is useless if not spent.
If Bush achives that goal, there will still be RINO's in the Senate, but they will be defanged. There will still be pork-barreling GOP House Leaders, but they will be on notice. (The Democrats, of course, will be relegated to life as a bunch of Dean-iac looneys, making many lies but little sense.) We may see:
If this fails to happen with the supermajority, then there will be no hiding what the GOP has become, i.e. the home of the "new Democrats", or the "right wing" of what used to be the Democrat party. The GOP will retain it's majority for about 4 more years, after which, between newly apparent bankruptcy of both the Democrats and Republicans, some new parties gain viable political ground. Bush has this year, and the next four years to succeed. The GOP Congress, perhaps, has even less time.
The clock ran out on the Democrats years ago, they just haven't figured out that they're already dead.
SFS where one can speak their mind without the po
hmmm...too bad there's not an "edit" button on this console, so I could fix that last post. :-)
SFS
I never said I wouldn't vote to re-elect President Bush... I'm just getting to the point where I don't want to advertise for his campaign. I've lost a bit of my enthusiasm due to his run to the middle vis-a-vis monetary pandering. Of course I will vote for him over any 'Rat bastard.
This is pretty Machiavellian. I wonder if the Clintons can really take the party back from Kerry.
I'll believe that when I see it.
Anything Bush would say right now would be lost in the Democrat noise. I'm sure the President will speak out when the time is right. I don't see him being laxadaisical about it like his Dad was in 1992.
George W. Bush is definitely not his Dad's president.
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