1996 Loser Scolds Rush

The last time the GOP electorate was as unenthused as it is now was in 1996 when the GOP ran "the next guy in line" against incumbent Bill Clinton. That "next guy" was Bob ("I only got 41%") Dole who was creamed in the general election.

Today, the 1996 loser decided to tell conservatives, and especially Rush Limbaugh, that they should support John McCain:

Bob Dole, the former Senate Republican leader, wrote an insistent letter to Rush Limbaugh on Monday and suggested that for the good of the party, the conservative talk-show host should stop his strafing of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
On Monday's show, Limbaugh asserted that McCain has "lied about his reason for opposing the Bush tax cuts," and added: "I think McCain has an animus toward the Republican Party. I think ever since South Carolina 2000 he's had it in for the Republican Party, and one of his objectives is to destroy it and change it."

McCain, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has always had a shaky relationship with the party’s conservative base.

In a letter released Monday evening by McCain's campaign, Dole strongly defended the senator’s conservative credentials, noting that his voting record is opposed to abortion and supportive of gun-owner rights.

As McCain’s campaign gained steam, Limbaugh has used the airwaves to remind listeners daily that he does not consider the senator to be a conservative.

Limbaugh has even suggested he might not vote Republican if McCain were the nominee.

Dole makes the mistake that many are making in assuming that Rush is a Republican first and a conservative second. It's the other way around with Rush and also with me. I'm sure Rush will have an appropriate (and biting) response on his show tomorrow.

You can read Dole's letter here.

I don't think Dole got through to Scott Ott either:

(2008-02-04) — On the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries, Republican front runner John McCain said conservative voters should “shut up, suck it up, and vote for the lesser of two evils.”

The Arizona senator refused to specify which of the remaining three GOP candidates is the “other evil,” because he said, “my inner Reagan prevents me from speaking ill of a fellow Republican. But here’s a little straight talk: Fred Thompson is gone. I’m the devil you know, and I’m asking for your vote.”

Later, in an interview on the Straight-Talk Express, his campaign bus, the candidate extended an olive branch to what he called “the other side of the aisle.”

“I feel your pain,” he said. “Life’s not fair. But you radical right-wingers just have to play the hand you’re dealt by the mainstream media.”

McCain campaign volunteers will fan out across the 22 primary and caucus states tomorrow with free bottles of water that they’ll hand to conservatives leaving the polls to help those who voted for Sen. McCain, and who thus “threw up in their mouths a little.”

I won't need that water bottle today. My vote won't be going to McCain, today...or ever.