RUSH: WE NEED TO PUSH OUR NOMINEE TO THE RIGHT, NOT THE LEFT!

www.RushLimbaugh.com ^ | January 10, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Yosemitest]

We Need to Push Our Nominee to the Right,
Not the Left!

January 10, 2012

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Wayne, Charlotte, North Carolina. You're next.
Great to have you on the program, sir. Hi.

CALLER: Yes, sir! That's where I am, sir.
I -- I -- I am livid with you today.
It's the first time I've ever been livid with you in over 20 years, Rush!
You know, you're negatively painting Speaker Gingrich when you just perfectly delineated my whole point, or at least part of it.
At one point, sir, Newt Gingrich came into this campaign with a campaign of ideas --
positive ideas, criticisms of the Obama administration and only criticisms of the Obama administration.
You said earlier with that other caller that was tired of the negativity in the campaign,
"Well, some people have been being positive."
The only person, sir -- the only person -- who created a positive agenda in the campaign and in the debates was Speaker Gingrich.
He refused to attack other people. He always said,
"Everybody on this platform would be better than what we have in the White House."
That was the tone he set.
It wasn't until Mitt Romney and it wasn't until Ron Paul came out with the attack dogs.
At what point, how many millions of dollars need to be spent broadcasting live against you until
you're able and allowed to defend yourself?

RUSH: What in the world are you disagreeing with? I've said all of this!
I've said all of this all day long.
I've gotta take a break, so you hang on.
You got time to hang on through the break?

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: I knew you would.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Back now to Wayne in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Wayne, thank you for holding on during the break.

CALLER: My pleasure, sir.

RUSH: Now, I'm gonna tell you something.
I have said everything that you made a point of saying right before the break.
I have pointed out precisely why this is happening, and I explained to everybody that this is because of what Romney did to Newt,
and I even asked, what would you do if you were faced with millions of dollars in the --
when you didn't have any dollars, and it happened in two weeks and you were the frontrunner,
what would you do?

It's beyond that, sir, it's not because he didn't have any dollars.

RUSH: And I have practiced remarkable restraint in face of these Newt sound bites.
These ads that Newt's running are more negative than anything I've seen in a long time on the Republican side.

CALLER: Look, you're now trying to cast Newt to be a spoiler, you know,
and you give historic references that he's a spoiler like Perot was.
You know, that is just nonsense.
Newt has come up with -- he's been working for years to develop strategies and ideas.
Why can't he be allowed to bring his ideas to the table without being ripped apart personally by his fellow Republicans?
The whole idea was supposed to be
to compare ideas, to compare concepts on how we can improve this government,
how we can answer the Obama administration abandonment of the Constitution and abandonment of capitalism,
and you want to cast Gingrich as the villain here.

RUSH: I didn't.

CALLER: You vilified him for his talking about Bain Capital.
Well, why is that not legitimate?
Because Romney is using Bain Capital to bolster his record of job creation.
Well, if that's why he's doing it, then the job creation that Bain capital achieved, not after he left,
which was what Romney wants to take credit for,
but while he was still there should be fair game,
and if he's liquidating companies and taking all the money out, and leaving entire towns unemployed,
that should be fair game.

RUSH: But that's not what happened.
It happened in two of the over 100 buyouts that Bain Capital was involved in.

CALLER: During Romney's tenure.

RUSH: And it happens to be the same two things that the New York Times is writing about in trying to take out Romney.
Where do I fit into this anyway?
I'm trying to do what I can here to maintain a field where ideas are discussed, but at some point this has devolved to where it is.
I've tried today to explain to people why.

CALLER: I don't think you can blame Speaker Gingrich for defending himself.
And when 45% of all television ads in Iowa over the month of December were anti-Gingrich ads mostly from Romney's PAC --

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: -- and also from Ron Paul's PAC --

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: -- when that's the case, at what point -- how many candidates did we have then?
Bachmann was still in the race then.
We had a lot of candidates and 45% of all aired television ads in Iowa were attacking Gingrich.
At what point do you say,
"You know what, I didn't want to answer these charges.
I didn't want to devolve the campaign into this, but at some point I have a reputation to uphold.
At some point I'm going to defend my ideas and my ability to express them."

RUSH: Look, Romney had the money.
Newt was in second place. Why is this so amazing?
This is what happens in politics.

CALLER: Well, it should be happening after the convention, not before.
We should be able to express ideas,
and if Mitt Romney can't expect to win by exchanging ideas and comparing his record fairly, then he doesn't deserve the nomination.
But, you know what, Rush?

RUSH: Why the attacks from the right?
These attacks are coming from the right.
Newt is not sounding like a conservative when he's making these attacks.
He's not giving people reason to vote for him. Trust me on this.
Not because of what I'm saying. I'm practicing restraint.
Do you realize how many people in this audience are livid when they hear these Newt bites?
They think it's what Obama says.
This is what Chuck Schumer says.
This is what Harry Reid says about us.

CALLER: And there you go again --

RUSH: No.
I'm telling you what -- I'm telling you what -- (crosstalk)

CALLER: -- Newt should have Obama at the end of his commercials?
Come on, Rush.

RUSH: I'm just helping people translate.

CALLER: Yeah, well, you know, obviously with a very broad bush,
and I think unfairly, and that's not like you.
You know, but like your caller earlier in the day, I still love you, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I still do love you.

RUSH: Who do you think I'm for in this race, can you tell?

CALLER: I can't really tell, but I think you'd be very happy with Mitt Romney.
I think you'd be very dissatisfied with Newt,
because otherwise I can't explain why you're unfairly attacking him today and --

RUSH: I'm not.

CALLER: -- you're trying to couch it by saying you're just explaining, but you're doing more than that.
You know that.

RUSH: I think more than anything here
I'm defending conservatism.
And I'm defending capitalism.
Capitalism is under assault here in the Republican Party.
I'm telling you, I don't care how much you love Newt, that is not good.
Capitalism being under assault in the Republican Party is not gonna help us at all.
It's what Michael Moore does. Michael Moore makes his career attacking capitalism.
We don't need to do that on our side.

CALLER: Job creation is a fair concept, it's a fair topic.

RUSH: Who defines fair?
What is fair job creation?

CALLER: Wait, what I'm saying --

RUSH: Who sits in judgment of that?

CALLER: Job creation is fair to talk about,
and when Romney talks about job creation, his record on job creation, he talks about Bain Capital.
Now, he wants to take credit for jobs created at Bain after, way after he left. Jobs created yesterday.
He hasn't been there, but he wants to take credit for all those jobs.
But the jobs that he actually threw away, the jobs that he took huge profits for, and then lost, he doesn't want to take the blame for.
That's not fair suddenly.
Well, it should all be fair.

RUSH: Oh, this fair business, that's another thing.
There's no enforcement mechanism for fair.

CALLER: You're right.
But it should be fair to bring up, and, you know, I'm bringing it up with you --

RUSH: You are.

CALLER: And it's fair --

RUSH: You are.

CALLER: And it's fair for you to bring it up with me.

RUSH: You are.

CALLER: We should be to talk about it.

RUSH: We are.

CALLER: And if Romney would take that plastic perma-smile off of his face
and actually answer some of the questions
he'd be better off as a candidate.

RUSH: (laughing) Plastic perma-smile off his face, I love it. (laughing.)

CALLER: Plastic perma-smile.

RUSH: I know
you think he's a Ken doll.


CALLER: Well, I do, I really do.
Because I don't think he has any core beliefs other than, you know, beliefs that guide him in his personal life.
He's a politician.

RUSH: I'm worried that we're looking at Richard Nixon II.
I'm worried that we've got a moderate here, there's no question.
But Newt is taking himself out by doing that.
I'm telling you, he's not helping himself here.

CALLER: Well, and you're not helping him to help himself, either, let me tell you.

RUSH: Well, but that's not my job.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: (laughing) What do you want me to do, say,
"Screw you, Romney. You SOB. You GDP,"
whatever the word. What do you want me to say?

CALLER: That was good enough.
I'll use that as a sound bite.

RUSH: All right, there you go, okay.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me try to 'splain this in another way.
I don't even know that I'm letting you in on a little secret here.
I have quoted a great column by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal about Romney.
I've mentioned this a number of times.
It has appeared that the establishment wants Romney, and Romney's been leading in every poll,
and don't get mad at me for saying that he's the presumptive nominee.
That's the case that everybody's been trying to make and that's what the polling data has all showed.
Okay, so you deal with what you got.

Henninger's column was about the fact that
Romney was gonna have to be pushed to the right if he was gonna get there,
that his natural inclination is not conservatism.
Despite what he says, his natural inclination, his core, is not conservatism.
He's going to have to be pushed toward conservatism.
I don't mind Gingrich attacking Romney. I am not defending Romney.
What we have known, what we have said, is that
Mitt Romney needs to be pushed to the right.
He needs to be made a little bit more conservative, to run as a conservative, to campaign as a conservative.
Which the elites do not want him to do.

Newt is not pushing Romney to the right.
Newt is coming at him from the left.
We're seeing Newt now running to the left of Romney. That's what's going on.
That's what's so mind-boggling about this.
In a conservative Republican primary, we got Gingrich, and Perry, too, running to the left of Romney.
Gingrich and Perry running to the left of Romney.
Now, since when do Republicans hate capitalism? When did that start?
I don't hate capitalism.
Now, I know we've got some squishy moderates and some establishment types in our party that are afraid to defend it.
And we've got some squishy types who are afraid to even defend the whole profit motive and concept.
And, frankly, I have no patience for them.
But we as Republicans, we as conservatives do not hate capitalism.
We don't oppose capitalism and we do not want to talk about capitalism the way the left does.
And we're certainly not gonna push our candidates to the right in the process of coming at them from the left like this. We're pushing them to the left.

Now, in the case of Romney, Romney supported TARP and says he supports capitalism.
Those two don't go together.
So it's tough to find anybody here who's got clean hands.
Who of these candidates would you say has obvious conservative core beliefs?
Isn't it true, folks, isn't it true that when we look at the field of those remaining,
that the full-fledged pedal-to-the-metal conservative isn't there?
They've all got one degree or another or a series of degrees of flaws.
They all in one way or another end up thinking that using government to advance their policies is a good idea.
We don't think that.
So what are we left with? We don't have the ideal conservative.
So whoever's gonna win this thing has got to be pushed to the right and has got to be reminded that if they win this thing it's because that's how they did it,
and they're gonna pay a huge price if they abandon it after they're elected.

You deal with what you have. It's like Rumsfeld said,
"You go to war with the Army you have,"
and they raked him over the coals for that, but he had no choice.
Same thing here. So who has clean hands?
I mean that's the issue here when looking for a candidate, that's the big issue.
Who's got clean hands? Nobody wants to say it.
Romney people out preaching capitalism now and their supporters would never say
Santorum deserves another look even though he opposed TARP.
I mean there's hypocrisy all around.
I wouldn't have voted for TARP, but I would not have attacked Romney over Bain.
So what does that leave? Will the Romney supporters answer that?

Nobody's got clean hands here,
but whoever ends up with this is going to have to have won it by being pushed to the right.
And you're gonna have to admit with me here, folks, the past couple days that's not happening.
What is Romney supposed to do to defend?
He's gotta move left if he's gonna defend himself from this stuff.
That's not what we want.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So there's hypocrisy everywhere in this campaign.
There is hypocrisy all around.
I would not have voted for TARP, but Romney did.
Practically everybody else did, too.
Santorum was opposed to it, though.
I, at the same time, would not have attacked Romney over Bain.
So who does that leave?
Will the Romney supporters have an answer for that?
Bottom line is this, folks.
The Republican nominee, whoever it is, is only going to win the general election
by being conservative.
You know it and I know it.
The Republican establishment does not know it.
The Republican establishment is going to have to be pushed to the right.
Whoever the Republican nominee is, is going to have to be pushed to the right in the campaign, if we are to win.
We are not going to win when we say things about ourselves that the Democrats are also saying.
There will be no difference.
Since when do Republicans hate capitalism?
We don't.
And we're not gonna start now. Not on my watch.

END TRANSCRIPT

Related Links


• Wall Street Journal: The Unsinkable Mitt Romney - Daniel Henninger
  
  
• The Rush Limbaugh Show - Newt Sounds Just Like Obama: 01.10.12
  
  

[montag813]

This is called “vulture capitalism” and it’s not a good thing. Driving a company into the ground and then feeding off it is not capitalism, except in the most distorted of worlds.

But that isn't true here. It was mainly a venture capital firm. The Staples investment was just that, as Kleiner Perkins invested in Google early on. I despise Mittens, but Newt never worked an honest day in his life, and it is a little rich for him to tell us when a capitalist makes "too much". No thank you. We need fresh blood in this race. There is plenty to shred Mittens about with his Mormonism, his illegal alien polygamist grandfather, his being an LDS leader at the time they had a viciously racist doctrine, RomneyCare, gay stuff, etc. We don't need these Occupy Wall Street talking points from Gingrich.

[PAR]

Haven’t listened to Rush in a while, but as usual, he is right on the mark.

[Psalm 144]

Utterly unfettered capitalism is monstrous. All here would agree if they were confronted with it.

[PAR]

The really perverse result of this episode is that the end result is that due to their disdain for Romney some people on this website are allowing themselves to be pushed to the left by agreeing with Newt’s anti-capitalist sentiment.

I think it is possible to continue to support Newt but disagree with his comments about Romney’s Bain career. Rush mentions that only 2 of 100 company’s were forced into bankruptcy - and do we know the specific circumstances of those companies? My suggestion is to continue to dislike Romney for his flip flopping and liberal positions, but not be suckered by Newt into adding capitalist behaviour to what is already a long list.

[Political Junkie Too]

Probably his clever way of saying he's a paid premium member of Limbaugh's website.

-PJ

[gusty]

The traditional conservatism of Southern Agrarians, are you kidding. They were lock step in line with the New Deal as long as Roosevelt looked the other way on Jim Crow. Who was to benefit from the giant boondogle called the TVA. Hell, guys like Huey Long were even further to the left than FDR. The so-called traditional Southern Agrarian was conservative on Social Issues, but economics, he was a major partner in creating the New Deal. The South was no bastion of Conservatism until recently. Do not buy in to the Liberal story that the old Southern racist pols were Conservative. They were as Left as their Northern compatriots on any issue dealing with Economics.

[dfwgator]

Hell, guys like Huey Long were even further to the left than FDR.

He was a frickin' Fascist is what he was....thank God for Mr. Weiss.

[Rennes Templar]

“All the sweeter it will be when Newt wins SC”

Here’s hoping!

[freekitty]

Rush you know not one of the candidates are anything near the right; therefore a waste of time to try and push. They won’t fit.

Stop now and hold our own election. Elect Scott Walker, the only proven conservative.

[freekitty]

We are pushing back Rush because we are tired of the BS as you call it of being marshaled into a vote for one that is not our own.

[VegasCowboy]

It is fascinating to read about “good capitalism” and “bad capitalism” here on FreeRepublic, all to justify Newt’s attempts to strike a populist nerve.

[Yosemitest]

I don't think Rush "misunderstands big time what Newt is really saying".

To really get a thorough view and understanding of what Rush is complaining about, you need to read:

• "Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism", and
  
• "Newt Sounds Just Like Obama".

Rush's main point is

Bottom line is this, folks.
The Republican nominee, whoever it is, is only going to win the general election
by being conservative.
You know it and I know it.
The Republican establishment does not know it.
The Republican establishment is going to have to be pushed to the right.
Whoever the Republican nominee is, is going to have to be pushed to the right in the campaign, if we are to win.
We are not going to win when we say things about ourselves that the Democrats are also saying.
There will be no difference.
Since when do Republicans hate capitalism?
We don't.
And we're not gonna start now. Not on my watch.

IF Newt's case is as you stated, I'm inclined to agree with you,
BUT, listen closer to Newt's answer to Steve Doocy on Fox & Friends.

GINGRICH: I don't think I'm using the language of the left.
I'm using the language of classic American populism.
Main Street has always been suspicious of Wall Street.
Small businesses have always worried about big businesses.
People have a natural concern when they see financiers come in from out of town,
take over a company, take all the profits, and then leave people unemployed behind.
There's a big difference between people who go out to create a company, even if they fail,
if they try in the right direction, if they share in the hardships,
if they're out there with the workers doing it together, that's one thing.
But if somebody who's very wealthy comes in,
takes over your company, takes out all the cash and leaves behind the unemployment,
I think that's not a model we want to advocate
and I don't think any conservative wants to get caught defending that kind of model.

Now read Rush's response.

RUSH: Well, but that's not the model. That's not what happens.
See, this is why my old buddy Jay Nordlinger in Impromptus at National Review is pulling his hair out, because that is language of the left.
You could say that Newt actually compounded this and made it worse with these comments on Fox this morning.
Small business have always worried about big business.
Main Street's always been suspicious of Wall Street.
People have a natural concern, they see financiers coming from out of town, take over a company, take all the profits and leave unemployment behind?
My gosh, that's what the people who indict capitalism say.
So it continues to make me uncomfortable.

There's a lot more to read, but it's better to go to Rush's article and read it there,
for it will provide Rush's reasons for not liking the way Newt has stated his position.

Rush is right, and this is not good. This is not conservative. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/01/10/newt_sounds_just_like_obama

[livius]

Venture capital companies invest in the future, and there’s a lot of risk involved. A company that devotes itself to seeking out a weakened company and then savaging it and draining its resources is not a venture capitalist company.

[onona]

Bingo to you.

Definitely overlooked by many.

Thanks for posting.

[livius]

Probably only John Corzine...who is still walking around and not in jail...knows.

[familyop]

"Mitt Romney needs to be pushed to the right...So whoever's gonna win this thing has got to be pushed to the right...The Republican establishment is going to have to be pushed to the right...Whoever the Republican nominee is, is going to have to be pushed to the right..."

What a creep. Rush sided with feminists against fathers and families for the divorce/cohabitation industry during the '90s, too, so he would naturally be on the side of more spending from debt for socialists like teachers, building officials, land use regulators, social workers, pensioners from such positions, all. Thus, his support for Romney and dishonesty about it.

There can be no lasting fiscal conservatism without moral conservatism. Thievery--even legalized thievery is not a tenet of conservatism.

Capitalism is a system--not a philosophy. It can be used for good (conservative) purposes or evil ("progressive") purposes.

[Yosemitest]

You need to read the supporting information to Rush's article, and read:

• "Making Sense of Republicans Attacking Capitalism", and
  
• "Newt Sounds Just Like Obama".

Yes, it's possible that Rush's hearing loss might be a small factor, but I don't believe there's any "misunderstanding" on Rush's part.

It's hard to take emotion out of this, because we all get very emotional when we see what this ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT IN CHIEF,
and his minions are intentionally doing to OUR country.
But we must keep emotion out of it.
Listen and think. Don't just react.
We mustn't try to play on other peoples' emotions, like the left.
We're better than that.
We can't win if we're NOT conservative.

Like Rush said:

This is so simple.
We got a Marxist in the White House,
come up with a conservative nominee,
run a campaign, win in a landslide, and save the country.

Instead what happened?
The establishment Republicans get scared to death of conservatives,
thinking it's gonna result in a Goldwater landslide,
and they figure Obama can't be beat anyway,
so let's find a moderate that doesn't tick off the independents.
Let's try to win the Senate
and get ourselves in charge of the chairmanships and the money,
and we'll call it a day.

Any conservative that got in the race, the establishment [Republicans] is set out to destroy.
That's where we are.
That's why all this is happening.
Because we got a bunch of people in the Republican establishment who don't think the Marxist in the White House can be beat anyway
and really care more about getting themselves in charge of the money than anything else.
And they do not share our view that the country's future is in peril.
They don't.
That's where we are.

“Operation Chaos” worked like it was suppose to, keeping the Democrats at each other's throat for an additional 6 months.

Try a little harder to understand what Rush is saying.
Read Jay Nordlinger's articles

Let’s Play Two,
Conservatives vs. Capitalism 01/09/12
and P.S. on Conservatives vs. Capitalism 01/09/12.

We don't need to use the language of the left, or sound like the left.
We need to BE ... CONSERVATIVE!

[Yosemitest]

"Rush sided with feminists against fathers and families for the divorce/cohabitation industry during the '90s, too,
so he would naturally be on the side of more spending from debt for socialists
like teachers, building officials, land use regulators, social workers, pensioners from such positions, all."

WHAT?!
You got any proof of those accusations, and links?
Take a chill pill, then take a few breaths, relax a little, and read it again.
It's not that difficult to understand what Rush is saying, and where he's comming from.

[Irish Eyes]

” Romney’s vaunted “private sector experience”, is of a particular kind “

Bill Gross of PIMCO and Eric Janszen of iTulip, neither of whom could be accused of being anti-capitalist, both have written of a distinction between the finance sector and the productive sector of the economy. Bain Capital belongs to the finance sector.

The productive sector of the economy grows as more things are produced. The standard of living of the middle class historically rose along with the productive economy.

The finance sector grows as asset prices increase. Its growth doesn’t always correspond to an improved life for the middle class. The finance sector used to support the productive economy, but in recent decades their interests often diverged. Instead of fueling the growth of the productive economy the finance sector could make money dismantling American manufacturing or shipping it overseas

Nice explanation, but too many of the electorate ( and the MSM) will not take the time to understand that.

[xzins]

Newt never worked an honest day in his life,

That's just boiler plate talking point stuff from the GOP establishment. Gingrich had a doctorate and years as a professor before he ever entered politics.