Maha Rushie: Romney's new best friend

From Rush today: see story

I'll tell you, there's so much conventional wisdom out there. I, for one, just want to repeat this: I don't think McCain's a lock in New Hampshire tomorrow night. I believe these debates matter. I believe people in New Hampshire watch 'em. In both the Saturday night debate and the Sunday night forum, McCain did not do well. I don't care what anybody tells you. You can look at the focus groups and see for yourself: He did not do well. He came off as sinister, mean, and strident on Saturday night.

Sunday, he came across as tired and out of it, as though somebody had said, "Look, you're a little too strident last night on Romney. Back off," which he did -- and then for McCain to sit there and whine and moan about attack ads? Come on! This ain't beanbag! Politics is a blood sport. You know, McCain has run his share of attack ads. But these guys have been in politics all their lives. They've had attack ads run against them. They act like big babies, they can't deal with attack ads. And, by the way, what's an "attack ad"?

You know, McCain is just like the Democrats in this regard. If you run an ad that's truthful about their record, all of a sudden you're "attacking" them. There have been some truthful commercials about McCain. McCain has been the author of the first official intervention in the First Amendment in this nation's history: McCain-Feingold. He has opposed tax cuts, the Bush tax cuts. So to put that out there in an ad is not an attack ad. It happens to be true. You have all this sensitivity about these attack ads. You don't see Romney whining and moaning about these things. You don't see Fred Thompson whining and moaning about these things. You don't see Rudy whining and moaning. But you do see Huckabee and McCain whining and moaning about this. It's unbecoming, because this is what it is.

Politics is what it is. I'll tell you what I actually think. This is based on truth, and it is in fact truth: the media are out to break up conservatives. I was instant messaging with F. Lee last night, and to me, there is no question. I spent this weekend in intense study of what's going on up there. I watched more political TV this weekend than I have watched probably in the last six months. My instincts were confirmed: Media are out to break up conservatives, dispirit us, destroy us, destroy the Republican coalition of the evangelicals; the social and fiscal conservatives; they're out to destroy that.

They want to destroy that by getting McCain or Huckabee nominated. That's how they intend to do it, and we have pundits, including some who are conservative, who are falling all over themselves to be the first to announce permanent realignments, permanent trends; the end of this era, the beginning of that era. In truth, all they have to be making such sweeping predictions is the results of the Iowa caucuses, where a couple hundred thousand people voted, 10% of those eligible, in a very odd format. Now New Hampshire is coming where the more liberal or populist candidate in the Republican Party now benefits from the flood of independents who vote in the GOP primary and skews the results, which means that you cannot draw conclusions about the Republican Party based on New Hampshire but they will anyway, and you've got to keep this in mind. Whatever happens in New Hampshire tomorrow night, the Drive-Bys are going to try to spin this as the end of conservatism as it's known.

Now, let me be blunt about some things here. Governor Huckabee does evangelicals a disservice when he uses faith to promote what is a liberal, populist agenda -- an agenda that includes large tax increases, which were not offset by tax cuts. I hope you saw the question from Romney last night to Governor Huckabee about taxes. He wouldn't answer the question. He got very testy, and said, "I'm not talking to you, Mitt! I'm talking to the moderator, Chris Wallace." So Wallace simply repeated Mitt Romney's question. "Well, did you raise taxes, a net increase, after all your cuts and increases?" He didn't want to answer the question. When he finally got around to answering, he said, "Well, the courts made me do it."Court orders were not responsible for $500 billion of tax increases, folks. I hate to tell you. There's no governor that can say a court made him raise taxes that many times. It was a bit sad.

The Huckabee agenda is large tax increases, not offset by tax cuts; open borders; amnesty for illegals, particularly their kids. He was also nailed on that last night. "Well, governor, you've said that you want the kids of illegals to stay and go to school." "Well, federal government hadn't done its job. Kids have to be educated." "Yeah, but you said that you want to give college students in-state tuition, and federal government doesn't say anything about that."And then he said, "Well, what's really going to happen here is when we deport all these illegals, they're going to take their kids with them, if they go out of school, have to go back to Mexico, get in line, they come back, they'll go back and finish school." "Uh, but I thought it was great to have 'em here and stay in school?"It was just all over the ballpark. And then McCain trying to defend his amnesty (laughing) by saying it wasn't amnesty because there was a $5,000 fine. Yeah, right. Let me say a couple of things about that $5,000 fine.

Do you know who's going to pay the fine, if anybody? Their employers are going to pay the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill. But besides that, there's no enforcement in that bill, or there wasn't. Who's going to track these people down and collect the money? What if they don't have it? If the $5,000 is paid, then okay, there's no amnesty. There's a big penalty, right? No amnesty? It's an annuity! If you're going to get five grand from these people and that puts 'em on the Social Security rolls and on the welfare rolls, it's an annuity! It is amnesty! He's going out of his way to say it wasn't amnesty, but it is -- and in New Hampshire, you know, they're not so concerned about it, the independents that have moved in there from Massachusetts, but this kind of stuff is not going to fly once we get out of New Hampshire. Once we get out of South Carolina, some of the border states, it ain't going to fly, folks.

Amnesty is not amnesty because we're going to fine them $5,000? Everybody knows they're not going to be tracked down to be forced to pay the five grand in the first place! Our memories are not that short, here, Senator McCain. We remember this amnesty bill like it was yesterday. Our memories are not short on campaign finance reform, either. I mean you're out there complaining. I thought you got the money out of politics! I thought you got all the mean-spirited out of politics. Now you're out there complaining about "attack ads from Mitt Romney." I guess we need some more campaign finance reform, don't we, Senator McCain? (Big sigh) Anyway, back to Huckabee. You start granting amnesty for illegal aliens, that's going to hurt the incomes and jobs of church-going, middle class Americans.