Rush Limbaugh had this to say on his November 3, 2009
radio show (emphasis added):
RUSH:
It is conservatives who are the largest identified group in the latest
Gallup poll, Mr. Plouffe. You can throw your party politics out of
here. It's conservatives at 40, you guys at 20, and the moderate
independents or whatever they are at 36%. You guys are at the bottom of
that totem pole. But you see there's two things about this. They will
tell us who they fear. Our
Democrat buddies will tell us who they really fear and I'll tell you
right now who they fear is Sarah Palin. They have done everything in
their power to destroy her, and they haven't. If they
really, really believe that Sarah Palin was the death knell of the
Republican Party, they'd be shutting up. They would be encouraging her,
some other way to go out and get seen, be seen as much as possible. And
this business about centrists and moderates are abandoning the party,
do you really think David Plouffe gives a rat's rear end about the
health of the Republican Party? Do you think Obama and Axelrod and Rahm
Emanuel and David Plouffe sit around and say, "Boy, you know, we really
hate to see the Republican Party destroying itself. I mean, can you
believe the Republicans are driving moderates and independents out of
the party? I mean we gotta help 'em out here. We gotta figure out a way
for them to hold onto those moderates and independents."
If the
moderates and independents are being driven out of the Republican
Party, I ask, where are they going? They're going to the Democrat
Party, you would presume, and that should make them happy. This is why
you gotta be very careful in accepting the premises of these people.
They wish we didn't exist as a party, and they are trying to wipe us
out politically. They're not worried that we're losing moderates and
independents. They're worried
that conservatism is on an ascendancy, they are scared to death of it,
and they are really scared of Sarah Palin. They will tell us who they
fear the most by trying to destroy them. I find this laughable.
David Plouffe, all concerned, (imitating Plouffe) "Oh, driving
moderates and independents out of the party, oh, it's horrible, look
what's happening to the Republican Party. Oh, we care about the
Republican Party so much. We really wish they weren't driving all these
moderates and centrists out of the party 'cause we wish to have a
viable opponent." What? These people think we're idiots? They do. They
obviously do think that we are idiots.