Rush Limbaugh: Republicans Were Elected to Stop Barack Obama, Not to Work with Him
RUSH: What I want to do here is cut to the chase. The result yesterday is exactly what I said it would be. The Republican Party now has one of the most important and unquestionable mandates a political party has ever had at its junction with American history, especially a political party which did not run on a national agenda. The Republican Party purposely stood mute nationally.
Now, if you go into the races, the House and Senate raises all over the country, you will find that many Republican candidates ran specifically against Obamacare, and that is an important note to make and an important thing for you to remember. Individual Republican candidates won, and they won big. They won in a wave landslide running against Obamacare. The national Republican brand or image didn’t say a word, which makes the mandate that they have all the more incredible.
It is rare that a political party running for office in a midterm election not standing for anything ends up with a mandate, and they have one, and it is the biggest and perhaps the most important mandate a political party has had in the recent era, and it is very simple what that mandate is. It is to stop Barack Obama. It is to stop the Democrats. There is no other reason why Republicans were elected yesterday. Republicans were not elected to govern.
How can you govern with a president that disobeys the Constitution? How can you govern with a president that is demonstrably lawless when he thinks he has to be? The Republican Party was not elected to fix a broken system or to make it work. The Republican Party was not elected to compromise. The Republican Party was not elected to sit down and work together with the Democrats. The Republican Party was not elected to slow down the speed the country is headed to the cliff and go over it slowly.
The Republican Party was elected to stop before we get to the cliff. And that’s the mandate: to stop Obamacare; to stop amnesty; to stop the open borders policy of Obama and the Democrats; to stop the Big Government assault on the free enterprise economy; to stop national security policies that have allowed terrorist networks all over the world to pop up and fill a vacuum created by the absence of the world’s lone superpower on the world stage. That must be stopped.
The Republican Party was elected to stop the run-up of a debt greater than all previous presidents combined have created. The Republican Party was elected to stop efforts by this administration to use the IRS and other agencies of government, in violation of manners and law, in attacking political opponents. The Republican Party was elected to put an end to this incessant and divisive lie that is the War on Women. Yesterday’s result cannot in any way mean that voters want Republicans to work with Democrats. And anybody who tells you that and anybody who thinks that could not be more dangerously wrong.
You do not have election results like we had yesterday with the intent being that the voters intend the winners to work with the losers. This election was about stopping the losers, in this case the Democrats. There can be no other correct analysis of what this election was about. They were not elected to “fix a broken system.”
They were elected to stop the people who are breaking the system.
The results do not mean that voters want Republicans to govern. The election does also not mean that the country’s become conservative. It can’t be said that there was an ideological component to the mandate, because the Republicans did not run on ideology. The Republicans ran everywhere to stop Obama, and that’s what the mandate is. Now, whether they want to accept the mandate or not, that’s another question.
Whether they are even aware of the mandate is an even bigger question. As I listen to the wizards of smart — all the analysts of both parties, all movements on TV last night and today — the thing I’m hearing from everybody is that what the voters want is for Washington to compromise and people to work together. That’s not what they said.
That is not what the voters said. They didn’t say it in the exit polls. They didn’t say it in the election results. This was a skunking of the Democrat Party. This was the people of America “standing athwart history and yelling, ‘Stop!'” There’s only one entity that can do that, and that’s the Republican Party. They were not elected to “get along.” They were not elected to “reach across the aisle.”
They were not elected to “compromise.” They were not elected to “end gridlock.” They were elected to stop the policies of Barack Obama and the Democrat Party. Too much damage has been done to too many people. Because of a president of the United States, people are having their jobs converted from full time to part time. The American people didn’t think that was on the table.
They didn’t think the president, when he was promoting Obamacare, meant that they were gonna get fewer hours to work. They didn’t think it meant that they were gonna lose their health care. They didn’t think it meant that their premiums were gonna skyrocket. The American people showed up yesterday and voted in numbers and voices with one message: “Stop this!” There is no legitimate alternative analysis.
I don’t even know how you come up with the idea or the conclusion that the message in the vote yesterday is, “Yeah, they want us to cross the aisle and work with the Democrats.” If they wanted you to work with the Democrats, you wouldn’t have won. If they wanted the Republicans to work with the Democrats and to help the Democrats accomplish more, they would have just elected the Democrats!
“Yeah, well, they want us to work together. They want us to fix things. They want to stop gridlock.” No, no, no. They want as much gridlock as it takes to stop what’s going on. The country is careening out of control. All of the public opinion shows show it. Right track/wrong track? Two-thirds of America says: Wrong track. The number was increasing as we got closer to the election.
The mandate the Republicans have is to stop Barack Obama, to stop the further implementation of Obamacare, to stop government policies that are destroying the private, free-enterprise economy. Voters across this country know this is not how this country is supposed to be. They know that this is not what they were electing in 2008 and 2012.
So they have shown up here; they have thrown Democrats out of office all over this country. They have thrown Democrats out. Even the polling data could not have been more wrong in several key races, and that’s a subject for later on in the program. But there is no confusion about the message the voters sent yesterday.
It may be the myth or the dream of the establishment types from both parties in Washington that what all this means is, “Ah, they want us to work together to get things done. They want us compromise and like each other and stop all the arguing and stop all the acrimony. They just want everybody have fun, go-along-to-get-along and get things done.”
That’s not what this vote was about. This vote was about stopping Barack Obama. It can’t be that it was about anything else. Now, how do we do this? How do you go about stopping Barack Obama when you’ve taken impeachment off the table? Well, let’s listen to Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz was on Fox this morning about 12:40.
He was interviewed by Bret Baier. Baier said, “One of the messages of this election could be that America wants to see Washington work. Some people said compromise would be a good thing. What’s your thought on that sometimes evil word, ‘compromise,’ in Washington?”
CRUZ: It is incumbent on Republicans to stand up and lead. It is incumbent on us to deliver that bold, positive, optimistic agenda. You know, the fact that the people rose up and voted the Democrats out of power doesn’t necessarily mean they trust the Republicans. They’ve given us another chance. But we’ve got to earn that trust, and the way to earn that trust is to listen to the priorities of the people.
And I hope come January Republicans stand united, we stand as one, and we systematically — one after the other — vote on positive, pro-growth ideas. We vote on tax reform. We vote on regulatory reform. We vote on embracing the American energy renaissance. We vote on going after and stopping Obamacare. We deliver on the promises that Republicans campaigned on.
RUSH: Bret Baier then says, “Well, you bring up Obamacare. You have a Democrat president. His name’s on the legislation. He’s gonna veto whatever you send up there. So how do you do it?”
CRUZ: With Obamacare, I think we should start by using reconciliation to pass complete and total repeal. Now, you’re right: The president will, in all likelihood, veto that. If that happens, we should then systematically repeal the most onerous parts of Obamacare. We should pass legislation saying, you can’t have your health insurance canceled because of Obamacare.
We should pass legislation saying, you can’t be forced into part-time work like so many people, especially single moms have been. We should pass legislation saying, no bailouts for insurance companies under Obamacare. And force the president to pace those single, rifle-shot repeals and decide whether he’s gonna listen to the American people or just remain an absolute partisan. And, you know, if he vetoes those bills, I think there’s a real chance we might be able to get the votes to override those vetoes.
RUSH: That’s how you do it. That’s how you start. That’s how you use the ammunition you have in your arsenal. But you must understand. They, the Republican Party, must understand that they have one objective. There was one lesson that was being taught last night, one message being sent: “Stop Obama. Stop this. Stop this country careening out of control and being transformed into something it was never founded nor intended to be.
“Stop the Democrat Party. Stop Barack Obama.” The Democrat Party part of that has been dealt with in the Senate and the House. Make no mistake: If voters wanted Republicans to work with Democrats, they wouldn’t have seen to it that so many Democrats got creamed last night. The country is tired of Democrats. The country is worn out with Democrats.
The country’s depressed because of Democrats. The country is out of work because of Democrats. The country is feeling aimless because of Democrats. The country is not optimistic about its future because of Democrats! There is no way the vote yesterday was a signal to work with them. They have had six years of unstoppable destruction, and the American people — and I, by the way — want it stopped.
