Looking Back at 2012: Republicans and conservatives in their own words

Remem­ber these quotes? Take a stroll down Mem­o­ry Lane:

“What does it say about the col­lege coed Susan Fluke [sic], who goes before a con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tee and essen­tial­ly says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a pros­ti­tute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s hav­ing so much sex she can’t afford the con­tra­cep­tion. She wants you and me and the tax­pay­ers to pay her to have sex.”

— Excerpt from a vile and dis­gust­ing Rush Lim­baugh rant on Feb­ru­ary 29th.

“Look, I believe that, uh — and I’ve said this before, and every­body either gives a sigh of relief or a cyn­i­cal laugh — there is no chance that Oba­ma will get reelect­ed… Zilch, none, zip, nada.”

— Fox Noise talk­ing head Dick Mor­ris, speak­ing to Sean Han­ni­ty as a guest on Feb­ru­ary 27th, 2012. Moments lat­er, Mor­ris also wrong­ly pre­dict­ed “We’re also going to win ten seats in the Senate.”

“There are forty-sev­en per­cent of the peo­ple who will vote for the pres­i­dent no mat­ter what. All right, there are forty-sev­en per­cent who are with him, who are depen­dent upon gov­ern­ment, who believe that they are vic­tims, who believe that gov­ern­ment has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to care for them, who believe that they are enti­tled to health care, to food, to hous­ing, to you name it. That that’s an enti­tle­ment. And the gov­ern­ment should give it to them. And they will vote for this pres­i­dent no mat­ter what.”

— Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney, speak­ing at a May 17th recep­tion for wealthy donors at the home of pri­vate equi­ty mogul Mark Leder.

“I don’t think we’re pro­mot­ing Mitt Rom­ney on this net­work.”

— Fox Noise Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, still liv­ing in denial (August 7th).

“On my web­site there’s lit­er­al­ly — it demol­ish­es the idea of a hock­ey stick, new peer-reviewed study, so the idea that Bill Nye is just going around say­ing CO2 is up, there­fore glob­al warm­ing is dan­ger­ous, we should be con­cerned, it’s not. It’s not dan­ger­ous.”

— Cli­mate cri­sis denier Marc Mora­no, claim­ing that glob­al warm­ing is a hoax and dis­miss­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that seri­ous con­se­quences will result from human­i­ty fail­ing to curb emis­sions of car­bon diox­ide, methane, and oth­er gas­es that trap heat in the Earth­’s atmos­phere (Decem­ber 5th).

“Is this just math you do as a Repub­li­can to make your­self feel bet­ter, or is this real?”

— Fox Noise Chan­nel host Meg­yn Kel­ly, ques­tion­ing Karl Rove on-air on Novem­ber 6th after he pre­dict­ed that Mitt Rom­ney could still win Ohio.

“You know, I know they go out and… incest is so rare, I mean, it’s so rare. But, uh… the rape thing, you know… I know a woman who was raped and kept her child, gave it up for adop­tion, and she doesn’t regret it.  In fact, she’s a… she’s a big pro-life pro­po­nent. But on the rape thing, it’s like… how does, how does putting more vio­lence onto a woman’s body and tak­ing the life of an inno­cent child that’s not… that’s a con­se­quence of this crime… how does that make it bet­ter? You know what I mean?”

— Repub­li­can John Koster, at an Octo­ber 28th event with Tom Price of Georgia.

“You’re just try­ing to gain a polit­i­cal advan­tage, sor­ry. Why don’t you go get a job?”

— Defeat­ed Repub­li­can guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Rob McKen­na, dis­miss­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic cam­paign vol­un­teer Kendra Obom, who was try­ing to ascer­tain his views on repro­duc­tive rights (April 24th).

”I think even when life begins in that hor­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion of rape, that it is some­thing that God intend­ed to hap­pen.”

— Richard Mour­douck, the unsuc­cess­ful Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for U.S. Sen­ate in Indi­ana, dur­ing an Octo­ber 23rd debate with Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent Joe Don­nel­ly. Mour­douck, a dar­ling of the Tea Par­ty, was solid­ly defeat­ed two weeks later.

“If it’s a legit­i­mate rape, the female body has ways of shut­ting that whole thing down.”

— Todd Akin, the the unsuc­cess­ful Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for U.S. Sen­ate in Mis­souri, in a tele­vi­sion inter­view on August 19th.

“Take your mes­sage of equal­i­ty of achieve­ment, take your mes­sage of eco­nom­ic depen­den­cy, and take your mes­sage of enslav­ing the entre­pre­neur­ial will and spir­it of the Amer­i­can peo­ple some­where else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bot­tom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.”

— Oust­ed Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Allen West of Flori­da, derid­ing pro­gres­sives at a Jan­u­ary Lin­coln Day Din­ner in West Palm Beach, Flori­da. West was defeat­ed for reelec­tion by Demo­c­rat Patrick Mur­phy in November.

 “Thank God! Now we might have a real elec­tion on the great issues of the day. Paul Ryan almost per­fect choice.”

— Media mogul and Fox Noise Chan­nel own­er Rupert Mur­doch, prais­ing Mitt Romney’s choice of run­ning mate on Twit­ter (August 12th).

“This elec­tion is a total sham and trav­es­ty. We are not a democ­ra­cy!”

— A dis­ap­point­ed Don­ald Trump, whin­ing bit­ter­ly after his man Mitt Rom­ney lost to Barack Oba­ma on Novem­ber 6th.

“I am light­ing can­dles, sac­ri­fic­ing sheep, what­ev­er it takes. I’m beg­ging, talk­ing to God every day that it be Dar­cy Burn­er because she is the Den­nis Kucinich of Wash­ing­ton State. If Dar­cy is the nom­i­nee, we will get six­ty per­cent of the vote, easy.”

— Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair­man Kir­by Wilbur, fan­ta­siz­ing about a Dar­cy Burner/John Koster matchup in the 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict pri­or to the August win­now­ing elec­tion on July 25th. Koster ulti­mate­ly faced Suzan Del­Bene instead of Dar­cy Burn­er, and lost to Del­Bene twice — in the old 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict rep­re­sent­ed by Jay Inslee, and the new 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict drawn by Tim Ceis, Slade Gor­ton, Tom Huff, and Dean Foster.

“My cam­paign for U.S. Sen­ate is pick­ing up speed as I’ve criss­crossed the state from the Tri-Cities to Belling­ham. Every­where I go I hear the same ral­ly­ing cry: Cantwell Can’t!.”

— Repub­li­can State Sen­a­tor Michael Baum­gart­ner, attack­ing Maria Cantwell in a March 25th email to sup­port­ers. In Novem­ber, how­ev­er, Cantwell crushed Baum­gart­ner, tak­ing more than six­ty per­cent of the vote statewide and even show­ing that she could win out­side of West­ern Washington.

“I don’t know whether Barack Oba­ma was born in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an Amer­i­can. He’s just not an Amer­i­can.”

— Repub­li­can Mike Coff­man, at a fundrais­er for his cam­paign on May 12th. Coff­man sub­se­quent­ly claimed he “mis­spoke”, but did not renounce his comments. 

“I think we can all look to my beloved birth city of Detroit as exam­ple of what lib­er­al poli­cies will do to great­ness. Detroit is a canker sore com­pared to this glow­ing city on the Detroit Riv­er that I was raised in and it’s direct result of the May­or Cole­man Young and the Jen­nifer Granholms of the world and the tragedy of pimps and whores and wel­fare brats being blood suck­ers and destroy­ing the great­est city in the world.”

— Out­spo­ken rock­er Ted Nugent, who serves on the board of the Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion, mind­less­ly blam­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers for pover­ty and crime in Michi­gan’s largest city (March 30th).

“I high­ly approve of Rom­ney’s deci­sion to be kind and gen­tle to the retard.”

— Tweet from Ann Coul­ter, Octo­ber 22nd.

Media Mat­ters has not com­piled a Most Out­ra­geous State­ments of 2012, but they do have a nice recap of Fox’s gas price fibs that we rec­om­mend reading.