Lux Lucet

I see that Rush Limbaugh’s daily excoriation of all things Ron Paul continues unabated. Today on his website (I’m not a member so I have to read the transcript) he comments on a news piece by Erin Burnett in which she discusses the possibility of large numbers of democrats voting for Ron Paul in the Iowa Republican caucuses.

This is anathema to El Rushbo. Rush would have us believe that if Democrats vote for a Republican in large numbers, they would do so only for purposes of sabotage. No other explanation is possible or permitted. This puts Limbaugh in the position to spin the caucus results any way he wants. If Ron Paul does well in the caucuses, it’s obviously Democratic conspiracy designed to undermine the Republican party by voting for an unelectable candidate. If Ron Paul does poorly, this is evidence that Paul is just a fringe wacko whose appeal is limited to the tinfoil hat brigade. Heads Rush wins, tails Paul loses. What a deal!

But here’s another way of looking at it. What if a whole lot of Iowa Democrats come out and vote for Paul, not because they want to sabotage the Republicans, but because they actually like Ron Paul and support his ideas. Can’t happen, you say? Naive, you say? If this is what you think, I have two words for you: Reagan Democrats.

See, I’m old enough to remember when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. He won the election in a landslide over Jimmy Carter in part due to a phenomenon called the Reagan Democrats. The Reagan Democrats were for the most part blue collar folks who got fed up with Carter’s lack of leadership, his depressing incompetence, and the general “malaise” felt by much of the nation at that time. For more on the Reagan Democrats, please click here. These traditional union democrats crossed over to large numbers to support Reagan in the general elections of 1980 and 1984.

Now as anyone who’s followed Rush even a little bit knows, Ronald Reagan is one of Rush’s heroes. Rush loves to brag about Reagan and has himself touted Reagan’s crossover appeal as a sign of the Gipper’s greatness. So how is it that if Reagan attracts Democrats, Rush finds that a good thing, but if Paul does likewise, it’s proof positive that the good doctor is a crank? Instead of bashing Paul for attracting Democrats, by his own logic, Rush should be one of Paul’s biggest supporters.

Could it be that Paul’s crossover appeal in Iowa may be a sign, not of his weakness as a candidate, but of his strength? Could it be that in the general election large numbers of Paulian Democrats may seriously undermine Obama’s electoral base and usher in a Republican landslide? Could it be that these Paulian Democrats may even turn out to benefit the Republican party in the long run by increasing the breadth of its appeal? I know, I know, in Rush’s cloistered world behind the golden EIB microphone, this is unthinkable. But it the real world, who knows, stranger things have happened.