Limbaugh was credited with winning the 1994 election. Meet the new Rush Limbaugh.
by digby
Back in 1994, the new Republican congress led by Newt Gingrich named talk radio host Rush Limbaugh as an honorary member of congress for his work in getting them elected:
REP. DICK CHRYSLER (R-MI): We as the freshman class would like to nominate and make Rush Limbaugh an honorary member of our freshman class and present to him today a pin that all the freshmen got called “The Majority Maker,” because surely he helped us become the majority!
In the wake of the stunning defeat of Eric Cantor tonight, welcome the new Rush Limbaugh:
Conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham campaigned here with the long-shot primary challenger to Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Randolph-Macon economics professor David Brat, issuing a blistering attack on Cantor’s immigration record.
At an evening rally at the Dominion Club attended by roughly 500, Ingraham and Brat showed no love lost for Cantor, who has been touting himself as an anti-amnesty warrior in campaign literature.
“I was thinking about this prisoner swap. I kind of wish that President Obama would have thought this through a little bit more. Instead of sending five Taliban MVPs over there, he could have just traded one Eric Cantor,” Ingraham said, adding that “let’s be sure he gets treated well.”
“If you actually want to help America, sending Taliban back to the battlefield, that’s not going to actually help us. The Taliban could actually kill some of our people.”
“Sending Eric Cantor back for a little while, let’s be sure he gets treated well, that could actually help things. It could help our economy, stop so much spending.”
The rally is another sign of the volatile political climate Cantor faces back home, even as he is poised to be the next Speaker of the House when its current holder, John Boehner, steps down. Cantor, although known for pulverizing even empty suit opponents, has taken a number of unusual steps to keep the Brat threat at bay, including the anti-amnesty literature and negative television ads criticized by fact-checkers as misleading.
Everyone on TV is saying that this is all grassroots with no astroturf. Not true. Talk radio won this one. And Ingraham was all over Brat’s campaign and his anti-immigration message.
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