In an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “On the Record with Greta van Sustren” on Wednesday night, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was optimistic about Republicans winning the White House in 2012, saying that anybody but Texas Rep. Ron Paul could beat President Barack Obama if the election were held tomorrow.
“I know since I don’t subscribe or practice conventional wisdom that my answer here is going to discredit me with all the, you know, professional political experts, but I think right now anybody other than Ron Paul could beat Obama if the election were tomorrow — easily.”
Addressing which candidate is the most conservative, Limbaugh admitted that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich both had their flaws. And he said that the callers to his radio show were hoping for a revival from Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum or Texas Gov. Rick Perry. But, he warned, perfection isn’t achievable in this contest.
“I don’t want to be misunderstood as seeking perfection, because it doesn’t exist,” Limbaugh said. “We’re all imperfect —everybody. There is no such thing as perfection. And there’s no way to remove risk from life. You can’t achieve perfection. You can try for it. It’s great motivation. You can’t remove risk and you can’t achieve perfection. Nobody is going to be flawless. At the end of the day, somebody will win the nomination fight. It’s up to them to win it. It’s not up to people in the media to hype it or enforce it. I don’t think it works much anyway. So, at the end of the day, somebody will win this.”
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But Limbaugh said he worried of the danger of a candidate being nominated that would not inspire and rally base, like Sen. John McCain in 2008.
“The hope I have is there is enough left to unify the conservative base behind the candidate because it’s going to take a base that’s fully participatory, not sitting home in a peak of anger because another McCain has been nominated, for example,” Limbaugh said. “It has to be somebody that will be inspiring and get people to the polls. There will be a lot of fraud — crazy things happen in various states — but I am imminently, profoundly optimistic that we can win.”
