Establishment GOP afraid Sarah Palin will win and they'll be out in the cold for trashing her so much-Rush Limbaugh

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6/8/11, "If Sarah Palin gets in the race, she will be the candidate to beat," Rush Limbaugh

"Now, we've gone through all the reasons Republicans don't want her in the race, the insiders versus the outsiders, the Beltway elites and all that, the consultants, GOP operatives. They don't want her in the race not because they fear she will lose. The standard line, and you heard it from our caller Vinny in Queens, " Rush, I love Palin, love you, but she's gonna lose. The media's destroyed her. She's got no chance. I'm sick and tired of backing people that are gonna lose, Rush."

Right, okay, so we just chalk it up, media has another victory, is that it? We sit here, we let the media destroy one of our candidates and we move on to somebody the media hasn't destroyed? Somehow that just doesn't sit well with me. I mean on the one hand I have people constantly complaining about the media destroying our guys and nobody ever defends our guys and here they go out and destroy Palin. "Well, she's destroyed, Rush, it's impossible. I don't think that she can win, and I'm really tired of nominating losers and so forth. I hate to say it, Rush, the media's just totally destroyed her." Fine. This is that cut-and-dry? You're happy with that? No. They don't want her in the race not because they fear that she can't beat Obama. They don't want her in the race because they are afraid she can beat others in the Republican field for the nomination, leaving them

• on the outside looking in....
  

With as much piling on of Sarah Palin as there has been on our side, if she gets in and if she wins, look at all of the people on our side who are by virtue of the way they've treated her up 'til now out of it. They will have no role. When she went to New Hampshire on the bus tour and happened on the very day the Mittster announced himself she's up there taking and stealing his thunder and at the same time she's making her appearance while he's making his, she is denouncing and disagreeing with some of his policies. A lot of people said, "Well, that's really stupid. This is another example of Palin being an idiot. Why, she's not even consulting with the Republican hierarchy on this bus tour. She ought to be coordinating her schedule so she doesn't step on some of these other people."
Well, wait a minute, now. That argument stems from the narrative that she's an idiot and doesn't know what she's doing.

What if she's settling a score with somebody? What if Romney's got somebody on his team that has been very scornful of her? Who knows, I don't know. But I do know she's not stupid, and I do know that she is highly competitive, and I do know that she's willing to go to the throat, and I do know that she keeps score. Because everybody in politics does. And she's certainly in politics. So all of this, "Rush, you can't win, I mean 41% of Republican voters..." I have never in my life put it to you this way. I have never in my life seen the Democrat Party and its media operatives spend so much time destroying somebody who didn't have a prayer anyway. This woman is so stupid, she's got the entire press corps chasing her bus all up and down the East Coast. "...



from Rush Limbaugh show transcript, 6/8/11