Is This Straight Talk, John McCain?

Rush Limbaugh ^ | March 13, 2006

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let's go talk about the Republican Southern Leadership Conference straw poll that was Saturday in Memphis, Tennessee. Here is the LA Times version of this story. "Senator John McCain," the maverick John McCain "who made his name as a Republican maverick, is going mainstream." (laughs) Ooooh! (sighs) Ah. "Six years after the Arizonan emerged as George W. Bush's nemesis McCain is taking a different tack as he prepares for a possibly second White House bid. Even as he has picked high profile fights with Bush over military interrogation tactics and with congressional colleagues over pork barrel spending, McCain has been quietly courting GOP powerbrokers and conservative leaders emphasizing his loyalty to the president and burnishing his presidential credentials on litmus test issues.

"He recently met with the Reverend Falwell, a leading evangelical conservative whom he previously had denounced as intolerant. To the delight of Republican partisans, he publicly lambasted Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a rising star among Democrats over an ethics and lobbying overhaul. Senator Lindsey Graham," whom we affectionately refer to here as Vice President Lindsey Graham, "said that he and Senator McCain 'have learned from our mistakes, and if John does run, I think it's clear he's trying to be the leader of the party, not the leader of a movement. You're going to hear plenty of straight talk about the issues but you're going to see a man who is sensitive to the idea that this party is multifaceted and that the social and economic conservative groups are the heart and soul of his party.'"

Okay. Well. Here's what happened at this thing. The Republican Southern Leadership Conference has this little straw poll, and McCain knew going in that he would not win, place or show, -- that he would want come in first, second or third in this thing -- and so he sought to make sure that that happened by announcing a strategery. He asked his delegates to vote for George W. Bush in the straw poll for president in 2008. He did this, he said, because "he thought it was time that the president knew of the massive sort that he has." Now, this was a scheme. It was a trick to cover up the fact that McCain was not going to win, place or show.

Because I will tell you right now, with Bush not on the ballot in '08, a percentage of these votes intended for McCain that end up as a write-in for George W. Bush is nothing more than an attempt to show McCain as not thinking of himself but always thinking of the party. He's thinking of the president. The president needs our support. Howard Fineman has a piece that apparently last week McCain called President Bush, and word leaked out and some people said, "What did you do call President Bush about?" McCain said, "Yeah, I called President Bush. I just wanted to call and him offer him my support during this port deal."

I thought when I heard this, "This is going to be a little problematic because McCain wants to be an insider and an outsider at the same time, and the question is, 'How do you do that?' How do you be an insider and outsider at the same time? How do you publicly express and ask for support for President Bush and at the same time make sure the mainstream press loves you?" Well, McCain apparently had run a calculation figuring that the press would figure out it was a trick and would admire him and praise him for his political craftiness, but is this straight talk? Is this straight talk? Is McCain on the Straight Talk Express when he's doing something like this?

Anyway, he ended up in fourth place, I think. Frist was the winner. But the press is still writing about this as the front-runner, John McCain, even though he finished fourth in this thing. "He gave the best speech. He had the audience in the palm of his hand. He dazzled them. He wowed them," all kinds of great things -- and he's doing everything he can, by the way, to pick up as many people that worked on Bush's campaigns -- Mark MacKinnon in media and he succeeded in doing that. He's reaching out to as many Bush people as possible. I thought maybe that the press would have a little time scratching their heads over this move but they didn't.

I think McCain's built up enough of a reservoir of love and adulation with the press that they'll cut him a lot of slack. He's going to have to do a lot of un-straight talk before the media will consider him to be actually doing that, his media buddies. So it was a slick maneuver, but everybody caught on to it at the outset as to what it was all about. Now, I wasn't there, and I didn't watch this. So all I have for you is anecdotal evidence. The people who watched it told me that they were disappointed nobody made a good speech and that that there were a lot of hopes, say, in George Allen. In fact the surprise was Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney, he's Mormon, but still he's a northeastern governor. He's from Boston coming down to Memphis, south, and storing second to this thing to Bill Frist? (He's from Tennessee. It's only natural he would win this there. He would have the most delegates show up.) That apparently was something that surprised quite a few people. We'll have more on this as the program unfolds there's some ancillary issues that track to it as well but let's go back to the phones. Craig, glad you called. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Rush! I can't believe it! My-13-year-old-daughter-wants-your-job dittos.

RUSH: Thank you. Thank you very much. Have her keep working hard at it. I'm not going to give it away to anybody.

CALLER: Ha-ha! She is. There's no way. McCain is already done. It's too late for him. There's no way that he will win the conservative vote. Just like who Bob Dole did when he ran to the center, there's -- I as a conservative, I could not vote for John McCain because he would not represent the conservative movement.

RUSH: All right, this is the conventional wisdom. There is conventional wisdom that McCain cannot win the conservative base, and he can't win the Republican primary, and you don't know what McCain is doing. We haven't talked about it much on this program. (interruption) You don't think he can? I do, too, because he's courting the conservative intelligentsia in Washington, and they love the guy. I mean, they love having attention be showed at them, and he knows that. He's going to dinner with them and they're writing positively about their experiences at dinner. I know the conservative intelligentsia is not the base, but it all depends on who the Democrat nominee is, how little race is shaping up. It depends on a lot of things.

See, I think it's too soon to say anybody is going to or is not going to win something. I think it's way too broad a generalization to say that the base is not going to vote for McCain. I understand why. It's because of what happened in South Carolina and during -- not just South Carolina, Michigan as well -- the primaries in 2000. McCain went out of his way to insult Bob Jones University, and Jerry Falwell and the Christian right, and he was on a campaign at that time to get Democrat voters to cross over in these primaries where both parties are holding their primaries in the same day and vote for him, and the base resented that as well. They didn't want no stinking Democrat determining the Republican presidential nominee.

McCain's not going to pull that stunt this time. He's just doing just the opposite. You're going to see McCain become the biggest friend George W. Bush has, as these days go forward. Now, I want to remind you the Republican pollster Ed Goeas -- and this ought to be a warning to these Republicans in Congress who acted out last Thursday and Friday like spoiled little kids. Ed Goeas of the Battleground poll has data that says Republicans who abandon Bush -- Republicans up for reelection who abandon their president in this campaign season -- are going to pay for it, that the best thing they can do is stick with him, that the base don't want any Democrats. You don't need to act like Democrats. If they do that they're going to lose. McCain will not do that, you watch.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I like the take of our buddies at the RedState.org blog today. They have a piece posted entitled, "Media Love Fest with McCain Continues Today -- You want to laugh today? Let's examine how out of touch the media is," and they talk about the straw poll performance. He came in behind Frist, Romney, George Allen and President Bush, and he asked for people to vote for Bush but not all of his people did so he couldn't even move all of his people to do what he wanted them to do, and he ended up -- if you count Bush in this, he ended up -- in fifth place, but the RedState.org people sampled the media today and yesterday.

They talk about how he's still being portrayed as the front-runner and they asked the question, "In what world is McCain the front runner? Maybe in courting the media and some of Bush's donors. But among the grassroots -- let's just point out again -- McCain came in fifth -- behind even Romney... McCain may very well pull it off, given the Republican propensity to crown a nominee in advance of primaries based on the person's 'time having come,' but calling McCain the front runner is silly." It's just silly. (interruption) You don't think...? (interruption) You don't think it's...? (interruption) I know the straw poll means absolutely nothing. Well, doesn't mean absolutely nothing, but it's an indication of things today. It doesn't give us an indication of what's going to happen. It tells us what is now at that straw poll.

Those were Republican delegates and they were voting, and Mitt Romney did come in second. It was expected Frist would come in first. The real thing to watch, though, is McCain, because McCain is building his campaign. As Howard Fineman's piece says, the strategy is to build out the campaign with members of Bush's camp, and to basically recreate the Bush campaign organization, thereby getting the best people, and the people with the most recent experience as having succeeded. Now, let me comment in a little bit more detail about Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake. They have the Battleground poll. We cite that poll frequently on this program. It's a bipartisan poll. She's a Democrat; he's a Republican.

They combine their results and come up with pretty accurate trends, analysis and forecasts, and Goeas made the point last week -- I think it was early last week; it was before the port snort fiasco -- Republicans who think that they have to run away from George W. Bush running for reelection this year in the House and Senate, they do that, they're only going to be hurting themselves. They're going to be joining sides with Democrats. We don't need Republicans sounding like Democrats. We don't need Republicans talking about Bush like the Democrats are. He made the point that Republicans who stick with the president have the best odds of being reelected. He could help them fund-raise and particularly it's Republicans they need to vote for them.

It's silly to focus on crossover Democrats, and this mythical independent swing voter sect. Just go get the Republicans to vote for and that's all you need -- not all you need but well over 80%, 90% of the battle is down. With McCain, as Fineman reveals, making this phone call to Bush... Oh, and there's something else! There's a lot (well, some) buzz in the Republican Party about Haley Barbour after the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. "I like this guy," people are saying. "I wonder if he has a future in presidential or vice presidential politics?" and Haley Barbour took himself out of it.

But at this straw poll down in Memphis, the McCain people were recruiting and I think they succeeded, and if they did -- I'm not sure, if they did; if Haley Barbour is going to become a McCainite -- then that's going to carry a lot of weight in the so-called south. I don't think they'll think Haley Barbour sold out. I think they'll say, "What does Haley know?" and they respect him, and then Fineman reveals this phone call. "What was the Bush call about? According to the McCain he simply wanted to off friendship during the furor over the ports deal. Even though President Bush remains popular with most hard-core Republicans his overall poll numbers are about as low as you can go, flirting with territory once occupied by Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon.

"As McCain explained it, 'You get no credit for standing with a popular ally. The test of his friendship is to be at his side when he's down. So the call was meant as a personal pick-me-up. I wanted to tell him that I was with him and supported him and the polls weren't a test of whether he was doing the right thing, which I think he is.' This is on the port deal. All of which would be fine, even touching, were there not also a series of political and tactical moves," writes Howard Fineman. So that phrase by Fineman, "all of which would be fine, even touching, were there not also a series of political and tactical moves"?

Wait a minute! Does a "straight talker" get involved with "political and tactical moves?" Well, in truth, yes because this truth there's no such thing as a straight talker. The media has dubbed McCain this. So since they have defined straight talker as McCain, whatever McCain says is straight talk, but they're starting to say, "Waaaait a minute. This whole business of asking these delegates to vote for Bush, why, that's a little curious," and some people were saying, "Well, this is all well and good. You ask people to support Bush on something that's meaningless. Where was your support for Bush on permanent tax cuts? Where was your support for Bush on the issues? You've been out there running against Bush trying to please the media a number of times. Where was your real support for him? It's one thing to ask your delegates to vote for him on something that has zilch substance to it."

He voted for tax cuts this budget cycle but he has yet to vote for making them permanent. He ran against these tax cuts. This is what I'm saying. McCain is taking the Goeas model. McCain is going to move closer and closure to Bush. I will tell you this. If McCain comes out and supports permanent tax cuts, it's going to be a tough one for him because the media hates tax cuts -- permanent, temporary, any. If he comes out and supports permanent tax cuts, well, he'll get away with it. The media will say, "Well, we understand what he's doing. He's running for the Republican nomination. We know what he has to do but he'll be back to us once he wins that."

But if he were to do that, if he were to come out and support permanent tax cuts -- and, of course, this will never happen. But he's got an opportunity to denounce Feingold and this censure movement. Now, it's a real risk denouncing Feingold because one half of the campaign finance reform bill, or the chief sponsor was Feingold, and so you watch him. I will bet you that he makes a series of public moves that will make it appear as though he's moving closer and closer to Bush. He wants his campaign team. If he comes out for permanent tax cuts, just consider them permanent-until-I-win tax cuts, but remember, anybody can change legislation every year. There's no such thing as permanent anything in Washington except Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- and now Medicare part B, the prescription drugs. That's about all that's permanent, but other than that you can change everything else. Now, there's a piece today. Where's this from? It's Lloyd Grove in the New York Daily News gossip column. "Is John McCain a lesbian?" is how the piece opens. "Maybe we'll learn the answer from Edward Klein, who insinuated as much about Hillary Clinton in his 2005 biography -- largely a clip-job of hit pieces, reviewers said -- and is apparently hard at work on a poison-pen book about the Arizona senator. According to Crain's New York Business, Klein claims he'll chronicle the Republican presidential front-runner's 'sexual infidelity, chronic gambling and anger management,'" in a book that's coming out. So we shall see. As Feingold ends. (interruption). Well, it could appeal to Democrats if there's any truth to any of that, particularly the anger management, if you've got anger, because the true test for the lunatic fringe Democrat base is how angry can their candidates be, the angrier the better. Now, here is how Fineman ends his McCain piece today. It's on MSNBC's website. "Still, McCain's procedures here expose the risks of their embrace-the-president strategy. If they're such good buddies," McCain and the president, "and if McCain's the natural follow on to George Bush, shouldn't the senator have been the toast of more people in the Peabody lobby hotel [meaning the delegates] down in Memphis? It's a tough hand to play. Weary McCain strategists said is there a playbook for how to run as an insider, an outsider, an establishment and anti-establishment guy? If you find it, let me know." So, you know, I don't know if this is Fineman deciding to get off the Straight Talk Express or not, but I knew this was going to happen. I've been asking you: "Let's say McCain gets the nomination and Hillary is the nominee. What are they going to do?" Well, you know flat-out well what they're going to do. It's bye-bye McCain, and now is McCain is publicly gravitating to the president. What are they going to do? They're going to have a tougher time calling him a maverick and a straight talker and all that, because they're going to assume he's going to be an insider and an outsider -- establishment, anti-establishment -- at the same time, and that's only because in their minds he's been anti-establishment. McCain is pro-McCain. You know, that's the way to define it, and they have been willing accomplices in promoting that, because he was the most credible and the loudest Republican opposing Bush... Who. They. Despise. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let's listen to some audio on this whole straw poll business. We first off here, we have a montage of various political bigwigs and media people here, Chris Matthews, Chuck tad of the Hotline, Charlie Cook, Fineman, CNN's John Roberts, we have Chris Wallace from Fox, John Dickerson from Slate, and George Will and they're all talking about Senator McCain's status for president. All this took place over the weekend, primarily on Sunday after the straw poll vote in Memphis on Saturday night.
tr>

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Still McCain is the front-runner coming out of this.

CHUCK TODD: McCain is still the front-runner.

CHARLIE COOK: He's still the front-runner for the nomination.

HOWARD FINEMAN: McCain is the putative front-runner.

JOHN ROBERTS: John McCain is the presumed front-runner.

CHRIS WALLACE: Front-runner John McCain...

JOHN DICKERSON: John McCain is the real front-runner.

GEORGE WILL: The stars are aligned right now for Senator McCain.

RUSH: Well, that's probably the most accurate statement. He (George Will) didn't fall into the trap of echoing everybody else, "The putative... The presumed... The front-runner..." The stars may be lining up, but it's way too soon here. Like our buddies at RedState said, anybody thinks he's the front-runner right now, especially after coming in fifth in this thing, is jumping the gun. Once again, it's conventional wisdom. It's conventional wisdom tsunami. Everybody's getting aboard. All these insiders are, all these inside-the-Beltway types and drive-by media types, and they're just... You know what it is? They're too paranoid that they're not going to agree with everybody else in their crowd, and so they all want to end up saying the same thing because that keeps them membership in the clique. One, two, we got two little bites from McCain. Here's his gambit at the straw poll, snuggling up to President Bush and giving himself the excuse for finishing fourth or fifth depending on how you want to tabulate it.

McCAIN: For the next three years, with our country at war, he's our president, and the only one who needs our support today.

RUSH: So you see what he's doing here? He's out there, not asking just his delegates; he wanted all the delegates to vote for Bush, because he didn't want to show that he came in fourth or third, whatever he was going to come in. He didn't win, place or show. Now, I cannot help but observer this. We've all seen what McCain's up to here at the straw poll. The question is: Is it straight talk or is it cynical? Do we also realize how stupid he thinks the GOP rank and file is? I mean, I think there's some weakness on display here, without knowing the ultimate outcome, and nobody should be surprised that the media don't run the Republican Party, and he has spent years campaigning for the media support.

I have tried to -- in a very gracious and thoughtful, compassionate and caring way, on this very program, I have tried to -- warn Senator McCain, all of these years: "If you make the media your base, you are alienating Republicans. They despise the media as much as they despise the Democrats because they're no different. They're the same people, and you're cozying upside down to these people, they're not helping you, and the media does not elect Republicans. They don't have anything to do. The media doesn't run the Republican Party." You know, he spent five years off and on undermining President Bush. How about this? How about when...? This is one I'll never forget.

You might have your own example, but when John Kerry asked him to be his vice presidential running mate, and McCain didn't immediately say, "No," even though there was no way he was going to do it, but he still flirted with the idea, started talking about what a great guy John Kerry is. You don't have to run out and dump on the guy who asked you to be vice president. I understand the trick that Kerry was trying to play. Acknowledge to your own party that you understand it and you're not going to fall for it, and that you're not moved by it, but he wanted to act, "Oh, I'm so impressed. I'm so touched that Senator Kerry would be thinking of me in this light."

Gag me with a spoon. It was time for my index finger down my throat, and I would assume most people, too. Now, Friday night on Chris Matthews' show, McCain appeared with Chris Matthews, and Matthews said, "This southern leadership issue. I mean, you endorsed Bush for write-in tomorrow at your own expense." Come on, Chris, I mean even you are better than that. Your own expense? Own expense? He was trying to cover up what was going to be a poor showing. This is what McCain said.

McCAIN: Let me be serious a minute about it. He's having trouble right now. We Republicans all know that. That's when we need to stand by him. He doesn't need us when his numbers are 65. He needs us now, and that's my only message.

MATTHEWS: Is your -- is your hope that he'll win here tomorrow?

McCAIN: (laughing) I hope so.

MATTHEWS: (laughing)

RUSH: What's the laughter about? I hope so? "That's my only message is that Bush needs our support right now"? The way he's going about doing this if he wants to, but he's going to create a bunch of cynicism in people's minds about his motives and behavior doing at this way. One other thing about Haley Barbour. I left something out. The McCain people are trying to get Haley Barbour, and it's a dual-pronged purpose. They're trying to get Haley Barbour as an official endorser. He may be on the short list / long list for veep. Who knows? There's two reasons for that. One is to get Barbour to sort of quell some of the unrest for McCain that there is in the south and the second thing would be to take Barbour out of the running because they consider him a threat. You know, Barbour said he's not interested but he could change his mind any day and they think Barbour is a threat so you get Barbour on your team to get him out of the running. So there's any number of things that are at work here that are not straight talk.

END TRANSCRIPT

[msnimje]

Who did McCain vote for in the straw poll?

[Coldwater Creek]

McCain can neet with everyone in the US, and I will still not give my vote to a traitor.

[Echo Talon]

If McCain is nominated he will be the reason that the Lincoln bedroom gets rented out again.

[jecIIny]

Traitor? That kind of invective is what really bothers me about some of the fringe cases on FR. I expect to see a lot more of it over the next couple years as we move towards the 08 election.

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

You must be the type of person who would go off to war with a pea shooter..

[jecIIny]

LOL What an incredibly brilliant rejoinder. I am blinded by your intellect and reason.

[c-b 1]

McCain caused me to do something I had never done last year when he was up for re-election.

Vote Libertarian! I will do it again if he is on the ticket on 08.

[Coldwater Creek]

Well, just what would call someone that gave information as to our ships location's just two days after being captured?

[Coldwater Creek]

Ya'll know McCain better than anyone else.

[jecIIny]

"Well, just what would call someone that gave information as to our ships location's just two days after being captured?"

Could you provide me with a source for that please?

[c-b 1]

Ya'll know McCain better than anyone else.

I know him well enough to know that, his swelled head, and I don't fit in the same room"!

[zook]

I read this and I heard it on Rush. I can't see a single reason there why I shouldn't support McCain if he's the Republican nominee. And that's what I intend to do.

[zook]

Oh, yeah--and what's funny is, if McCain gets the nod, Rush will support him, too!

[Recovering_Democrat]

McLame; no pal of the conservatives.

[Osage Orange]

Read my tag line..........

[Soul Seeker]

It's something only a conservative can understand....

[Soul Seeker]

It's like this. Haley said he wasn't running. If he decided to run he would be a serious threat. Southern Governor that can nuke the Katrina platform, stands firm on WOT and judges.

If he decides to cosy up to McCain, he's through. McCain's a deal breaker. Standing by him doesn't burnish McCain's reputation, it hurts Barbour's.

It's difficult to know what's real and what's not. The MSM has an agenda. Republicans/conservatives have an agenda. McCain has an agenda. The stories may be exagerated...they may not go far enough. But IF Haley joins with/has joined with McCain? Better to find that out now. Because anyone that embraces that man as THEIR candidate is no conservative. They aren't even an ally.

[Randy Larsen]

I sure hope Barbour hasn't caught the same bug that Tom McClintock has here in Ca.

True conservative risking his successful career to back a RINO!

[Dolphy]

There are a couple of very interesting points here. First, the comment about the conservative intelligentsia:

...because he's courting the conservative intelligentsia in Washington, and they love the guy. I mean, they love having attention be showed at them, and he knows that. He's going to dinner with them and they're writing positively about their experiences at dinner.

I figure these are the same people who have been attacking the President. I have always believed that they didn't have a clue about the base or who turned out the largest grassroots effort in Republican history in 2004. So it isn't surprising to read:

Now, I want to remind you the Republican pollster Ed Goeas -- and this ought to be a warning to these Republicans in Congress who acted out last Thursday and Friday like spoiled little kids. Ed Goeas of the Battleground poll has data that says Republicans who abandon Bush -- Republicans up for reelection who abandon their president in this campaign season -- are going to pay for it...

Beware of the conservative intelligentsia. They do not have their hand on the pulse of the base, they will lead to defeat.