By Greg Lewis

Rush fill-in Mark Davis spends first hour pondering the NY-23 special election

Today's edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show featured Dallas talk show host Mark Davis filling in for Rush. Davis started things off by reminiscing about the 1994 Republican revolution, noting that there are “interesting” comparisons being made between then and now.

From there, Davis spent a considerable amount of time pondering the New York House seat special election between Democrat Bill Owens, “RINO” Republican Dede Scozzafava, and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Davis pondered whether it was worth backing Hoffman on principle, even if it ensures a win for Owens, because it would send a message to the GOP not to nominate “squishy moderates” like Scozzafava.

On the other hand, Davis highlighted the fact that Republicans in Congress are backing Scozzafava -- like friend of Davis, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) -- because they don't want to lose a seat to Nancy Pelosi. Davis said this was a reasonable position for Republicans to take, and said that he agreed with this argument a few weeks ago before changing his mind.

Davis asked his audience if it was smart to support Hoffman, even if he can't win, to teach the GOP a lesson. After the break, a caller from the district told Davis that he would rather have an honest Democrat representing him than a “lying Republican.” Following more discussion of the topic, the caller expressed his confidence that Hoffman would win, which fascinated Davis.

Davis came back from another break still on the topic of NY-23. After reluctantly citing a Daily Kos-sponsored poll of the race, Davis reiterated that it doesn't look good for Hoffman. Then Davis gave us a history lesson by reading nearly word-for-word from the Wikipedia entry of former Sen. James L. Buckley. Davis said that what happened to Buckley, a Conservative Party politician who won a three-way race for Senate, needs to happen to Hoffman.

The next caller on the program was disappointed in Republicans who he thought were trying to tell people what they want to hear, just like Congress and Barack Obama. Davis continued to express his thoughts on the race, concluding that either the Republican Party will pay a price, or the Party's power brokers will realize they need to start looking for more conservatives.

Another caller was adamant about Republicans not electing candidates who weren't conservative. Davis asked the caller if it was realistic to expect conservative candidates to be able to win in every district.

Davis ponders the politicization of the H1N1 vaccine

The second hour saw Davis briefly address a different topic: the “politicization” -- as he saw it -- of the swine flu vaccine. Davis claimed that neither the strain of flu nor its vaccine have been around a long time. Davis thought that the Department of Health and Human Services was being overcautious in an effort to keep this from becoming the Obama administration's Katrina, but Davis ultimately felt that he'd rather have an overcautious approach to the flu pandemic than an under-cautious one.

Then Davis got into why he thought the vaccine was being politicized:

DAVIS: But since the swine flu issue has arisen and it happens to be alongside the massive health care debate, is there an effort on the part of this White House to make it seem worse than it is so that we're all just thinking and worrying and gnashing our teeth and wringing our hands over the kind of coverage we have, and to make us feel oh-so-good about government handling a health issue?

Davis went on to describe the vaccine situation in Dallas County, where he lives. Davis had no problem with priority for the vaccine given to certain at-risk groups, but took issue with the county's policy to include the uninsured as a priority group, and tied this into his argument about the politicization of the vaccine.

Then Davis got back to the topic du jour, the NY-23 special election. He read an article from Human Events about Scozzafava's ties to the Working Families Party. He also related the race to the gubernatorial race in New Jersey, likening NY-23 candidate Hoffman to independent New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Chris Daggett. However, the next caller told Davis that New Jersey Republican gubernatorial Chris Christie was more conservative a candidate than Scozzafava. The caller also said that Daggett was as liberal as Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine. The next caller said that he was on his way to New York to volunteer on the ground for Hoffman.

After another commercial break, Davis took a few more callers. He took a caller who went on about the special election in the CA-10 special election, praising the Republican candidate who happened to be running in a very Democratic district. Davis was skeptical of the Republican's chance in the race. The next caller said that NY-23 was a bellwether race and compared the conservative movement to the American Revolution. The caller even worked in an analogy to the movie The Patriot. This led to Davis discussing the issues of incumbency and term limits at length.

The third hour began with more campaign talk, with Davis still toying with the idea of losing the race in NY-23 in order to send a message: that people want upbeat, unapologetic conservatives like Ronald Reagan. Davis also talked more about the race in New Jersey, reading from Daggett's website arguing that voting for him wouldn't be a waste.

Following the commercial break, Davis aired a clip from Sunday's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, featuring conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on the show's panel talking about how ABC anchor Charlie Gibson didn't know about the ACORN scandal going on several weeks ago. This got Davis talking about the bubble the media lives in, which was demonstrated in how they missed the ACORN story.

Davis says Obama's “radical” associations are comparable to a Republican president “surrounding himself with” Klansmen and Nazis

Next, Davis brought up John McCain's appearance on Face the Nation, in which Davis noted that McCain didn't go as far as Dick Cheney in criticizing President Obama's approach to his Afghanistan. Davis went on to rant about all the “radicals” that Obama rubs elbows with:

DAVIS: You know, there are all kinds of negatives you can bring up about your opponent that nobody cares about, it doesn't matter, whatever. But have these nine months of President Obama maybe given you maybe a little bit of some smelling salts that it kind of does matter who you hang out with? That by osmosis, some of this stuff travels from person to person, and if you're spending your time around the likes of Jeremiah Wight and Bill Ayers, and look at some of these nominees -- Van Jones and Kevin Jennings, and some of these bizzaroids and creepoids and people from what deep annal of what kind of thought have some of these folks come from, that you're properly judged by that?

Imagine a Republican president, you know, surrounding himself with folks with these kinds of unsavory past connections? You know, maybe some Klansmen over here, some Nazi over there. It wouldn't fly for a New York minute.

Davis went on for a bit about the etiquette of former presidents criticizing the incumbent. He said he preferred it when past presidents didn't criticize the incumbent, highlighting Jimmy Carter as an example, but thought it was fine for former VPs like Gore and Cheney to criticize Bush and Obama, respectively. With this rationalization out of the way, Davis went forward with his praise for Cheney's recent remarks, echoing the former VP's charge that Obama was “dithering” on Afghanistan.

Coming back from another commercial time-out, Davis took a quick call on the Virginia gubernatorial race. It didn't take long, though, for Davis to talk about the proposed “opt-out” public option compromise being floated in the health care reform debate. Davis envisioned Republican gubernatorial candidates rushing to run on a platform rejecting the public option in their state.

Davis was also skeptical about the whole notion of an opt-out because Democrats don't do choice, he claimed, they use a sledgehammer. Davis was doubtful that Reid, Pelosi, or Obama would stand for such a provision (which is funny, seeing as Reid appears to be one of the opt-out provision's most influential backers). Davis ended the show by reading from Charles Krauthammer's most recent column.

Zachary Aronow and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights

Outrageous comments

DAVIS: But since the swine flu issue has arisen and it happens to be alongside the massive health care debate, is there an effort on the part of this White House to make it seem worse than it is so that we're all just thinking and worrying and gnashing our teeth and wringing our hands over the kind of coverage we have, and to make us feel oh-so-good about government handling a health issue?

[...]

DAVIS: You know, there are all kinds of negatives you can bring up about your opponent that nobody cares about, it doesn't matter, whatever. But have these nine months of President Obama maybe given you maybe a little bit of some smelling salts that it kind of does matter who you hang out with? That by osmosis, some of this stuff travels from person to person, and if you're spending your time around the likes of Jeremiah Wight and Bill Ayers, and look at some of these nominees -- Van Jones and Kevin Jennings, and some of these bizzaroids and creepoids and people from what deep annal of what kind of thought have some of these folks come from, that you're properly judged by that?

Imagine a Republican president, you know, surrounding himself with folks with these kinds of unsavory past connections? You know, maybe some Klansmen over here, some Nazi over there. It wouldn't fly for a New York minute.