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One Big Difference Between Today and 1980
Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | November 7, 2016 | Rush Limbaugh

Posted on 11/07/2016 1:43:11 PM PST by Kaslin

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to draw your attention to something Pat Caddell has been talking about. Pat Caddell, of course, was the pollster for Jimmy Carter working back in 1980 and we all remember what happened in 1980. In 1980, it was much like today but with one big difference that I will get to in mere moments. Pat Caddell, and actually a couple of other people, have said that this election feels a lot like 1980. What do they mean? What they mean is all the polling data leading up to the election had Jimmy Carter winning and winning handily.

And the Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, was not very well thought of by the media and by the Democrats. They thought he was "an amiable dunce," not a serious politician. He was really known for being a B-grade actor, even though he had been governor of California. He was a conservative. Many in the Republican Party didn't like Reagan. They wanted no part of Reagan because Reagan was a conservative. They associated Reagan with Goldwater, which meant landslide defeat.

And to this day, by the way, I should tell you that the Republican Party thinks of conservatism that way. The Republican Party, when they hear "conservative" they think "Goldwater, landslide defeat." They don't think Ronald Reagan, two-term landslide win. They don't. They think Goldwater, landslide loss. But back in 1980 they didn't like Reagan. The Democrats made fun of him as not being serious, not being too bright. "Dangerous! Can't have this guy's finger on the nuclear button." There are a lot of similarities in the way Trump is being treated and the way Reagan was being treated.

The difference is that Reagan did come from the political system. He was elected twice governor of California. He was Screen Actors Guild president. So he had political pedigree. Trump has zilch, zero, nada.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, back to Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen and the similarities in 1980 and today. There are many. Reagan was seen much as Trump is seen by both Republicans and Democrats. The polling data going into election in 1980, the last poll, which was like a week out, had Carter winning by nine. Now Caddell tells people that he knew going into the weekend that poll was wrong. They were, I guess, doing internal polling and he knew before the election even came that it was over. Nobody is saying that now as they were privately. Nobody said it publicly in 1980, by the way. In 1980, election night, everybody thinking Carter was going to win.

An hour into election night coverage on NBC they proclaimed Reagan a landslide winner. Basically ten minutes after 8:00 p.m., before California had even closed. So Caddell and Doug Schoen were on Fox on Friday, and they were saying, to both it feels exactly like 1980. You've got the similarities in the way Reagan and Trump are being regarded, the way they're being treated. You've got similarities in the polling data. But the one thing they said that makes this vastly different from 1980 is early voting. There wasn't any early voting in 1980. Election Day voting was it. There was no way. You had absentees, but they weren't counted.

There was no early voting. So you had no indication at all, other than exit polling, how 1980 was going to go. They say that early voting throws all of that comparison to 1980 out the window. Essentially they say that the existence of early voting and the volume of early voting eliminates the possibility of a late surge for anybody. The late surge is the early voting, they say. And the difference is early voting is known. It's a known quantity. It's known by virtue of party loyalty. We don't know how early voters are voting, but we know how many of them are Republican and Democrat.

So they concluded, Caddell, which was a change of heart, concluded, yeah, okay, when you factor that in, Hillary's probably going to win, after having believed that we were on a trajectory that made this a potential 1980 again. Which meant a surprise massive number of people coming out for Trump that weren't counted. They say early voting eliminates that possibility. They're the experts. I'm not so sure. The assumption there is that if there is this giant groundswell, if there is this late-breaking surge, that it's already shown up. And you can see who it is in the early voting.

Well, that's not exactly what the Drive-Bys have been worried about. The Drive-Bys and the Democrats have been worried about a late surge of unregistered voters all these years, people who have never voted or very rarely voted because they're so fed up they don't think the system is affected by elections. They don't think their vote matters. They think that the people that run the show are going to do what they do no matter what the people want. So they've tuned out. And there are, of the adult population, about roughly 50 percent that do not vote every election. And it's been a fear on the Democrat side that Trump is connecting with those people and that waves and waves of them could show up on Election Day. So Caddell and Schoen say, no, no, no, no. They've already shown up.

Maybe. For that to be true, this wave, this surge of voters, unregistered, that's poised to vote for Trump would have to have been so inspired they already would have shown up and registered and early voted, so that there is no late surge to happen. The late surge is what defeated Carter. There was a late surge that showed up that just rendered the nine-point Carter lead meaningless. They say early voting means that can't happen. We will see.

Despite all of that, folks, they tell us that Hillary's got this awesome ground game that Trump can't compete with. Well, that awesome ground game, early voting, Democrat turnout, is down, as I just mentioned in Florida. Early voting overall turnout is down. Rally attendance. Hillary's got a great ground game? Where is that ground game getting crowds for her rallies? There aren't any. Attendance is abysmal. She's in Pittsburgh. It doesn't compare to Trump in Sarasota. Sound bites coming up.

Hillary's social media, it literally pales in comparison to Trump's. You talk to people in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, you can't find a Hillary sign in a yard anywhere, but Trump signs are everywhere. And primary turnout on the Democrat side was way down. Does any of that cancel out what Caddell and Schoen were saying? We don't know. We just have to wait and find out.

END TRANSCRIPT


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: election; rush
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Ronald Reagan was the first president I voted for in the 1980 general election. Rush describes exactly how I felt during the primaries. I thought, like so many, oh he is just an actor. I voted for John Anderson. I voted for Ronald Reagan in the general election and I did not regret it.

I voted for him again in 1984 primary and general election.

1 posted on 11/07/2016 1:43:11 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

The real answer-

the dems have gotten better at stealing elections.


2 posted on 11/07/2016 1:45:21 PM PST by Faith65 (Isaiah 40:31)
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To: Kaslin

We need to start working on a Constitutional Amendment to ban early voting.


3 posted on 11/07/2016 1:45:29 PM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Kaslin

I voted for Phil Crane in the primary. I viewed Reagan then as too liberal & not enough of a libertarian Constitutionalist.


4 posted on 11/07/2016 1:45:38 PM PST by Reily
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To: Kaslin

Another big difference is the number of anti-American racists and welfare animals on the voter rolls, all permanently chained to the Democrat plantation.

If Mitt Romney was wrong about his so-called 47%, it was that he had the figure too low and it only ever moves in one direction.


5 posted on 11/07/2016 1:45:45 PM PST by PermaRag (If Trayvon had a father, he'd look just like Obama)
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To: Faith65

Sad. But true.


6 posted on 11/07/2016 1:47:40 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Kaslin

Rush is forgetting that the election may end up hinging on the hundreds of thousands of fictitious Democrats who’ve been registered to vote across the country.

The vote fraud is far worse now than it was in 1980 and where it will be obvious is in precincts that go for Trump at the polling place while going 50:1 in mail-in ballots.

They can still steal this election from us and I have not one doubt that they’ll try.


7 posted on 11/07/2016 1:48:37 PM PST by MeganC (Ik ben Geert Wilders!)
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To: MeganC

Rush was excellent today. If he had done what he did today directly after the convention, there would be no Never Trumpers. Great show!


8 posted on 11/07/2016 1:50:14 PM PST by miss marmelstein
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To: Kaslin

Rush is correct here, but Pat Caddell’s essay is probably the single best thing written about the 2016 election, and I really encourage FReepers to find that thread and read the whole thing for themselves.


9 posted on 11/07/2016 1:51:42 PM PST by bigbob (The Hillary indictment will have to come from us.)
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To: Kaslin; Liz
Thanks for posting! I remember the 1980 election as well. It is one of the last times the State of NY turned red.

Rush also devoted a great deal of time to the poll numbers showing Clinton up. He makes an excellent point:

You look at the size of these Trump rallies. In Minnesota, one of the Powerline guys was reporting, he was out driving around yesterday and maybe on the way to church, I forget exactly the specific reason he was out, but he encountered a line of human beings a mile and a half long to get into a Trump rally. He encountered a parking lot that had never existed before where all of the cars that brought those people to the Trump rally.

It's this way everywhere Trump is going. The crowds are massive. They are lining up for hours to get in. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is drawing 200 people in Pennsylvania. Tim Kaine drawing 30, 35 people wherever he goes. Hillary Clinton is drawing 10,000 people but she needs Jay Z and Beyoncé in very little clothing in order to get that 10,000. She's got Springstein going to Philadelphia tonight. Why wasn't Jay Z and Beyoncé and Hillary in Philadelphia on Friday, why wasn't that enough? Springstein is going in there tonight.
Polls Are Still Being Used as Weapons -- And Nobody Knows What Will Happen


10 posted on 11/07/2016 1:52:10 PM PST by NYer (Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy them. Mt 6:19)
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To: miss marmelstein
Rush is so LAZY... plus he is ‘best’ friends with that nicest guy Romney. IF Trump dethrones Jezebel, Rush will be sure to take credit.
11 posted on 11/07/2016 1:52:39 PM PST by Just mythoughts (Jesus said Luke 17:32 Remember Lot's wife.)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Can it be done statutorily? It says in the Constitution which day election day is.

I’d say we should just make it a holiday and ban all early voting, absentee OK for deployed troops and government officials. Maybe also if you can prove you’re in the hospital or otherwise medically indisposed.

At the rate we’re going, it won’t matter unless Trump is elected tomorrow. Democrats will be having people voting by smartphone soon if we can’t stop this trend.


12 posted on 11/07/2016 1:55:53 PM PST by MountainWalker
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To: Kaslin

The early voting thing that prevents a late surge is nonsense. The pressure is on the pundits to come up with something original sounding to fill up air time and make themselves look brilliant.

What has been called a late surge is merely people acting on what has been in the back of their minds for a spell.


13 posted on 11/07/2016 1:56:58 PM PST by odawg
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To: Reily
I voted for Phil Crane in the primary. I viewed Reagan then as too liberal

Lol! So did I! Though I voted for Reagan in the 1976 Presidential primary. It was the first vote I ever cast.

14 posted on 11/07/2016 1:56:58 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator (Sof davar hakol nishma`; 'et-ha'Eloqim yera' ve'et-mitzvotayv shemor, ki-zeh kol-ha'adam.)
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To: Kaslin

One big difference? That would be demographics. Reagan carried about 58-59% of whites in 1980 and won a landslide as a result. Bush the Elder did about the same in 1988 and won a similar landslide. W did about the same in 2004 and won an uncomfortably close reelection. Romney carried about the same and lost easily to Obama.

I hope Trump wins. I think he has a decent chance, but demographics make it much harder for him than it was for Reagan.


15 posted on 11/07/2016 1:58:31 PM PST by Aetius
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To: Kaslin

I was in the US Army in W. Germany so I had to vote absentee. In fact, “Voting Officer” was one of my extra duties. I sent off for my packet and received it in time to vote and return it. My wife’s packet was never received. The fact that absentee ballots rarely get counted is disconcerting.


16 posted on 11/07/2016 2:01:34 PM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: Aetius

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that Trump is doing unusually well with minority voters.


17 posted on 11/07/2016 2:02:25 PM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: miss marmelstein

Thank you for the note!

By the way, God bless you and yours and may He keep them safe in the days to come!

- Megan


18 posted on 11/07/2016 2:02:42 PM PST by MeganC (Ik ben Geert Wilders!)
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To: Kaslin
Between Today and 1980 is about 36 years.

CHOICE killed ~36,000,000 future American citizens in this amount of time.


19 posted on 11/07/2016 2:03:38 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MountainWalker

I am in Pennsylvania and there is no early voting here.

We have absentee ballots. I was going to be out of the state one year on Election Day and had to vote absentee. You had to swear out an affidavit that you would be unable to go to the polls on that day for a specific reason.

Seemed entirely reasonable to me.


20 posted on 11/07/2016 2:03:41 PM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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