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Obama Sinks to New Low in NBC/WSJ Poll - The Rush Limbaugh Show

RUSH: President Barack Obama's job approval has dropped to an all-time low in another poll. Remember, he hit 37 in a Gallup poll and came up to 41. This is the prestigious NBC/Wall Street Journal poll where Obama is at 42%. And here's how it's written. "A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey shows that a mere 42% of Americans approve of Obama's job performance, down five points from a poll conducted in early October.

"The president's disapproval rating stands at 51%, tying an all-time high for Obama. In all, 41% of respondents say they have a less favorable opinion..." Now, of important note here is this miserable poll for the president was taken October 25 through 28. What's key about that is, that's before his lie about, "If you like your insurance plan, you can keep it" was exposed to the country. This is another one of those things.

I'm telling you, the Drive-Bys are worried about this. I have audio sound bites to back it up. But they don't know half of it. The things that are happening in Washington have people livid. Remember when the government was shut down but it was opened up for a pro-amnesty rally? I'm telling you, people are still fuming over that, and there are people fuming now over the fact that they were promised they could keep their plan, and they were promised numerous times that their premiums would be reduced by $2,500.

They finding out this isn't the case.

They're being canceled for a whole host of reasons, and it's not sitting well with people, and it's not being reported just how angry people are. This NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that has Obama at 42% was taken before that lie became front-page news, which it has in this week. This poll captures the sentiment of those people sampled who were aware of the nonfunctioning Obamacare website. That's what's captured in this poll.

They didn't yet know that Obama had told the biggest and the most consequential lie of any president in recent years. I mean, it's a big one, 'cause he told it over and over and over again. We have played the sound bites, and now the Drive-By Media is starting to replay the transcript of it. They're repeating all the times Obama promised people that, and that was not in this poll. So arguably you can say the approval number may be even less than this.

These people who were polled here did not know that Obama was being flippant about them losing their policies, their doctors, or whether or not they could afford health insurance. I mean, he's out there... What did he say? Well, it's already scrolled out of view. Never mind. Something about the "bare-bones plans." He went to Boston yesterday, and he started ripping into bare-bones plans in the insurance companies and so forth.

You talk about people getting canceled and the insurance companies canceling people and the regime trying to blame it on the insurance companies, not Obamacare? You look at all of the new things that the regime, that Obamacare is requiring insurance companies to cover, things that they used to not have to cover -- medical devices, contraception, all kinds of crazy things that insurance companies have to cover now because of Obamacare mandates.

Naturally premiums are going up. They're not coming down. Obama's out there ripping into bare-bones policies, ripping into the insurance companies, because it's the only thing he can do. When the anti-Obamacare sentiment rises, that's all he can do is try to slough the thing off on the insurance companies. Bare bones is exactly what the kind of policy the free market would make available to people who don't think they're gonna get sick, who don't think they're gonna get a terminal disease.

Like the Millennials. A bare-bones policy is exactly the kind of thing they would buy in a free market, and it has been taken away from 'em because they're being soaked in order to get money to pay for the uninsured and the elderly and all that. Yet Obama went out and trashed these bare-bones insurance plans in his speech in Boston. This is another thing. He went into Boston and tied up traffic and caused the mess. He got heckled.

This was the day that the Red Sox could win the World Series in Boston for the first time since 1918. That's all anybody cared about in Boston, and yet he went in there yesterday, which was really a bad PR move. It made no sense whatsoever. Then while he's there, he starts trashing these bare-bones insurance plans. He said they were offered by "bad apple insurers." But I remember when we were all told that the purpose of Obamacare was to make insurance affordable for those without insurance.

One of the ways you do that is offer bare-bones plans.

You try to entice the young and the healthy into buying insurance, and one of the things, as I say, they're gonna want to buy is the cheapest policy they can get because they're not thinking of getting a terminal disease at 25 or 30, and they're not thinking of needing that kind of insurance. So it has been removed because Obama wants to soak those people. So it's Obama who's caused the bare-bones policies to vanish. Now he's out there ripping the insurance companies for either creating a bunch of policies that are no good to anybody, or removing cost-effective policies.

It just senseless. So much of it is senseless. BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: I think, as usual, folks, Obama has things exactly backwards. Insurance is being stretched to cover things it should never have to cover and it didn't have to cover until Obamacare came along and mandated these things get covered, and all it does is drive up prices like breast pumps and birth control pills and wellness plans. I mean, it's all of that stuff, all of this touchy-feely liberal do-good stuff that ought never be part of insurance policies. Buy your own birth control pill! Buy your own breast pump!

That's not a health issue. It used to be our choice to go out and by a birth control pill or not. It used to be our choice to go out and buy a breast pump. If you want that, pay for it yourself. But no! These things are now part of insurance. It's not insurance. It's welfare. But regardless, as long as these things are gonna be mandated, covered, then somebody's going to have to pay for it. Whether you know it or not, you are going to pay for it, and so there's no way insurance premiums are gonna get cheaper.

They can't when idiotic things like this are added to insurance plans. This is why premiums are going up. You know, if insurance only covered serious health problems --accidents, disease, catastrophes -- like it used to, we would all be better off. But, no, no, no, no! Now everything supposedly to do with health care is part of insurance! Hell, in San Francisco sex-change operations, which are elective, are being paid for by the citizens. That's what the addadictomy is.

It's a well-known surgical procedure there.

My favorite line from Obama's speech in Boston yesterday was this. He said, "I don't think we should go back to the daily cruelties and indignities and constant insecurity of a broken health care system," which is funny to me because it seems to me that everybody's complaining about losing their old insurance plans. They liked them, and Obama thinks that it was cruel and undignified and all that.

But people want to go back to what's being taken away from them, which Obama now thinks is cruel.

He's out of it.BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, folks, I want to remind you about this NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Remember, that poll came out on a Thursday, I think, and it said that a vast majority of Americans blamed the Republicans for the shutdown; blamed the Tea Party for destroying the Republican Party; blamed the Tea Party for the shut down. And you remember how the media just loved that poll. I mean, that poll hit and they ran with it 'cause it was exactly what they wanted the news to be: the GOP responsible for the shutdown. Well that poll has now been forgotten, and the same poll has Obama at 42% approval, and his likability numbers are plummeting.

Now, let's go to the audio sound bites as Matt Lauer and F. Chuck Todd on the Today Show today spoke about it. They sound a little depressed about this.

TODD: Record low, this 42%, we have never recorded his approval rating this low. He started the year at 52 and he has just gone down. Even his likability rating is upside down for the first time. People are starting to not even like him as much.

RUSH: Gee, despite our best efforts, it's not just that his approval numbers are plummeting, guys, people just don't like him anymore, Matt.

LAUER: One side of political coin. Let's go to the other right now and see how Republicans are faring in this latest poll. They're the ones who shut down the government.

TODD: They are. Things are so bad for them. We asked if you could have a choice of a third-party candidate or the Democratic or the Republican candidate, what would you pick? Independent candidate actually finished ahead of the Republicans. Once again in our poll, the Republican Party had a new low in their personal rating, their brand rating.

RUSH: So they got themselves back up into a good mood 'cause it's even worse in their poll for the Republicans than it is for Obama. But it's nothing new about the Republicans in this poll, but it is new about Obama. Naturally they're trying to cover it up, but they are bothered by it, as well they should be. Remember this number, this 42%, all it includes is the website problems and the whole idea of enrolling in Obamacare and how that blew up. This does not include the now trumpeted news that Obama lied through his teeth, knowingly be when he promised people they could keep their plans.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Our old buddy Ron Fournier, who used to be the White House correspondent, bureau chief, whatever, he's a news writer at AP. Now he's at the National Journal. The title of his piece here is, "How Crazies" -- i.e., extremists -- "Are Destroying Your Party." And it is the most amazing analysis. It's the kind of analysis that illustrates how these people see events. The way they see the media, the way they see things is such a stark contrast than the way you and I. And his sources are consultants. A Democrat consultant by the name of Peter Hart and a Republican consultant named Bill McInturff, and then there's some nameless strategerists who weigh in on this.But it was Peter Hart and McInturff who conducted the survey for the NBC News/Wall Street Journal, and they say people are just mad as hell, and they're not gonna take it anymore. It's a Network moment. It's a Howard Beale moment. " Privately, party strategists agree. On Obama, a Democratic operative who works with the White House emailed me to say: 'It's his Titanic moment. He's hit the iceberg, but they keep acting like no water is coming into the ship.' A GOP operative who also requested anonymity said that Wednesday's hearing on Obamacare highlighted what's wrong with his party. 'We looked like we were beating [up] the HHS secretary,' he said of Kathleen Sebelius. 'Why do we have to always overdo it?'"

And then there's a line in here about how the American people in this poll basically have an attitude of a pox on both their houses. Now, when the left and the media start reporting that, a pox on both their houses, that people out there are fed up with both parties, what that really means is that it's bad for the Democrats and bad for the president and that they are really screwing up, that the American people are slowly becoming fed up with them, but they just can't report that, so they have to include a nameless Republican who rips his own party and says, "Yeah, we're just as bad," but I'm just telling you, when they start reporting and using phrases like "the public says a pox on both their houses," what that means is that every kind of polling data for the Democrat Party, for the president is starting to plummet.

They also say in this poll that the Republican approval number in it is low because they have let their fringe take control. That would be Ted Cruz and Mike Lee. Well, Mr. Fournier, I need to ask you a question. If the Republican approval rating is down because the kooks are perceived to have taken control, how do you explain the 30-point slide by Lindsey Grahamnesty the past two weeks? Lindsey Grahamnesty, pro-amnesty, pro-immigration reform, big best buddy of John McCain, would never, ever be confused with Ted Cruz. In fact, he has been joining the Republican Party leadership in slamming Ted Cruz as a fringe wacko bird, how is it that he's dropping 30 points?

If your theory that the fringe kooks have taken over, guys like Lindsey Graham ought to be soaring here as the alternative or the opposite of the fringe kooks. But Lindsey Graham has seen really huge slide in his numbers in South Carolina and that's why he is starting to sound more and more conservative. But there is this line from the Democrat strategist, "Yeah, this is Obama's Titanic moment. He's hit the iceberg, but they keep acting like no water coming into the ship." And this line about the Republicans and Sebelius is classic, folks. This a nameless Republican operative -- read "strategist." That means this is a guy who's advising Republicans on how to win, quote, unquote, or how to behave, and he's ringing his hands. He's all upset that they just came on too strong with Sebelius. You don't beat up on the girl. It was just unseemly. We look like we were beating up on Sebelius.

It did not look like that. Maybe one or two instances. What shoulda happened yesterday, with that opportunity, the Health and Human Services secretary is a human being. The fact that she's a woman is irrelevant. The fact that she is a white, wealthy, rich woman from flyover country is irrelevant. She is the incompetent boob running this show. She's over her head. She hasn't the slightest idea what she's doing. This was a golden opportunity for the Republican Party to take action yesterday so that at the end of the day the American people were clamoring for this thing to be shut down, repealed, defunded, whatever. This was a teachable moment opportunity yesterday. This was an opportunity to expose the ideology of the left, and it was an opportunity, at the same time, to explain and teach the ideology of us, of the right.

They didn't do that. They did do kid gloves. And here's this Republican strategist wringing his hands, "Oh, my God, we came across as mean and it's gonna make it look like we have this War on Women." This timid, pansy behavior, scared to death of his own shadow, scared of what the media's gonna say. They didn't lay a hand on Sebelius, at the end of the day. They didn't really lay a hand on Obamacare at the end of the day. It's mind-boggling to me, the opportunity these hearings yesterday offered and presented to rally the American people.

The American people don't want Obamacare by vast majorities. It was again yet another opportunity for the Republicans to reach out and connect with a majority of Americans. And instead the take today, according to Ron Fournier from Republican strategist is that the hardheaded partisans are pushing the GOP away from the political center. Oh, and I should also say -- let me read the whole sentence to you, because it makes an earlier point.

"Like many other party regulars, these two operatives worry that hardheaded partisans are pushing both the GOP and Democratic Party away from the political center." Now, I'm telling you what that means. What that means is that the Democrat numbers are plummeting. That Obama approval of 42 scares 'em. The likability number falling scares 'em. So any time they start talking about a pox on both your houses, what that really means is the Democrats are in trouble and they gotta make it look like it's not just the Democrats, that all of Washington's in trouble, because nobody can just dislike the Democrats alone, don't you know. That's not possible.

Democrats are loved. Democrats are appreciated. And if Washington at large, if Washington in toto is polling badly, it has to be the Republicans' fault. It can't be the Democrats. Because everybody loves the Democrats and everybody loves Obama and everybody wants Obama to succeed. They know the Democrat Party is starting to help them and look out for them and protect them and all of this, and if Washington's polling numbers are down, it has to be those Republicans, damn 'em, it has to be. And to the extent that the Democrats are in trouble, well, it's their extremists, too.

The problem with that is, every Democrat is an extremist, every damned one of them is an extremist radical. That is not an exaggeration. By the same token, Ted Cruz is not a radical. He's not an extremist. He's a constitutionalist. He is just a mainstream American. There's nothing radical about Ted Cruz at all, unless you measure him against the Washington establishment, which is dominated by the left, which is just full-fledged radical extreme.

So the take away from the Fournier piece here is that Democrats are in trouble, and Washington is in trouble, and we know this because the story is how all of Washington is hated. That then allows them to blame the Republicans for making everybody so mad. They're just mad at everybody, Republicans and Democrats. Normally they love Democrats. That's how you have to analyze this. Don't doubt me.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, you talk about the so-called fringe kooks. They always seem to become even more prominent in the Drive-By Media when the Democrats are plummeting -- and the Democrats are plummeting, so that has to be blamed on the Republicans, and that means they're fringe kooks, and they trot out a Republican. "Yeah, yeah, yeah! Our fringe kooks, we're just being defined by our fringe kooks!" The fact of the matter is, folks, these "fringe kooks," quote/unquote, are being proved right.

These "fringe kooks," which is the Tea Party... By the way, you people in the Republican Party? I want to put something to you out there. You know, you've got it so backwards. You're sitting there, you're trying to analyze what's wrong with you, and there's one reason. You have abandoned your base. You have publicly let it be known that you don't like your base, and they know it. You've left nothing to the imagination where that's concerned.

You told your base you're not interested in 'em.

If you guys were aligned with your base, you'd be able to get more done than you think. If you would be willing to fight some of this stuff -- which is what's missing, and that's what we're doing here. I just got an e-mail. "Rush, why do you keeping talk about this the way you do?" My friends, I assume you know this. Our objective here is to still beat this back. That's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to do it by informing more and more people every day.

That's why what happened yesterday with those hearings, to me, was such a blown opportunity. We could have succeeded. Had we played this stuff the way Democrats do when the situations are reversed, we could have had the people of this country demanding this thing be tabled. Instead we're worried today about whether or not it looked like we beat up on the girl. The people of this country don't have a connection with Kathleen Sebelius! There's no personal investment people have made with her.

They don't care, not where their health care is concerned. But what we're trying to do here is still beat this back. We've not given up on that. That's why I'm approaching this the way I'm approaching it. As I was gonna say, "The fringe kooks out there," the so-called fringe kooks, "are being proved right, right before our very eyes," and not just about Obamacare, but about the government's incompetence in general. The people fed up with Obamacare are being called fringe kooks.

No. It's the mainstream population of the country. The media and the inside-the-Beltway establishment wants everybody to think they're kooks, but they're not. They're being proved right about all this. Back to the sound bites. This is CNBC Squawk Box this morning. Joe Kernen spoke with their Washington correspondent Eamon Javers. Maybe it's Javers. I don't know. I've never heard his name pronounced. He's talking about this new poll on government, and this is what the guest said.

JAVERS: And what we see here in this poll, you do see some negative effects on the president from the government shutdown. It's not as clean cut as the White House would like you to say, "The Republicans got all the blame." The Republicans did get the blame but the president has taken a hit here. These guys live and breathe polls. It's like oxygen here. It affects your ability to get stuff done. When people on Capitol Hill see a weak president, they will pounce.

RUSH: That's exactly what we have been trying to say all this time. Everybody was predicting doom and gloom for Republicans over the shutdown. The fact of the matter is, Harry Reid caused the shutdown, and Obama caused the shutdown, and this commentator's actually got it right. The shutdown was one of the things going on when the poll took place and look who took a hit. Well, you can say the Republicans did, too, but they already had. The fact the Republicans look bad in this poll is not news. The fact that Obama's plummeting is the news.

The shutdown did bleed over to him.

There's no question that it did -- and it does have an impact, whether he's on a ballot again or not.

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Obama Sinks to New Low in NBC/WSJ Poll - The Rush Limbaugh Show
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John Hames