Rush Limbaugh

Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and other critics who say Arnold Schwarzenegger no longer is a Republican are "irrelevant," the California governor asserted in an interview this morning with the "Today" show.

Reporter Campbell Brown noted Schwarzenegger recently has been promoting universal health care, initiatives to combat "global warming" and embryo stem-cell research.

Brown then asked: "Rush Limbaugh is just one of many Republicans out there saying you're not a Republican. You're a Democrat pretending to be a Republican. Why?"

"All irrelevant," Schwarzenegger replied. "Rush Limbaugh is irrelevant. I am not his servant; I am the people's servant of California. Whether they call me a Democrat or a Republican, or in the center, or I changed, or this or that, that's not my bottom line. This is for them to talk about."

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Limbaugh, on his top-rated radio show today, responded, saying he chooses to accept the "charitable" interpretation of Schwarzenegger's remarks.

"He's just calling me irrelevant because he doesn't care what I say or anybody else says," Limbaugh said. "I'm irrelevant in terms of determining the future course of the state of California, because that's his job."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Limbaugh said he didn't think Schwarzenegger was "referring to me as 'irrelevant,' as a has-been, as a passer-by, as a human being or what have you."

The talk host clarified that when he said Schwarzenegger was not a Republican, his point was that the California governor is not a conservative, noting the mainstream media often equate the two.

"I have said he's not a conservative – and, by the way, I want to remind all of you people in California, from the get-go I have told you he was not a conservative. He's a good guy, but he's not a conservative. He's a Republican."

Contending Schwarzenegger ran for governor as a conservative after the recall of the unpopular Democrat Gov. Gray Davis, Limbaugh charged Schwarzenegger has engaged in a "sellout."

"Now, here's the truth of the matter," Limbaugh said. "Arnold Schwarzenegger has done the typical sellout move. He has sold out, and there are too many conservatives selling out these days. You can find 'em all over Washington, D.C."

During the 2003 campaign for governor, however, Limbaugh initially said Schwarzenegger's "own words prove he's not a conservative." Later, Limbaugh revised his assessment, saying the candidate's advisers had him running a centrist campaign while he was a conservative at heart.

"I think Schwarzenegger's natural inclinations, when he arrived in this country and who he is (I know there's the Kennedy thing there), I think that's who he is," Limbaugh said in 2003. "He's afraid to be it, doesn't want to be it anymore, whatever, or has been advised he can't be it if he's going to win. If Schwarzenegger would simply run on a conservative fiscal agenda, he would win. He doesn't need to do all of this stuff to go to 'the middle.'"

Schwarzenegger won a landslide re-election victory in heavily Democratic California last year after making significant policy shifts in the wake of major legislative defeats and a drastic slide in popularity.

In his monologue on Schwarzenegger today, Limbaugh said he has not chosen a Republican presidential candidate, partly because "there's not one Reagan conservative in the bunch."

While acknowledging "there can be only one Reagan,'' Limbaugh asserted "conservatism is not subject to redefinition on the basis of presidential candidates who are 30 percent conservative, 40 percent, 50 percent, whatever percent conservative they are. That's not the new conservatism, at least it won't be for me – and that is my point."

Conservatism won't triumph, he said, "if we water it down and dilute it and say that people are 60 percent conservative or whatever, happen to be the definition of new conservative."

Democrats and the mainstream media would love for conservatives to water down their principles on the basis of there not being another Reagan or believing "we can't win as conservatives."

"That has been disproven (sic) over and over again by actual experience from Ronald Reagan forward," Limbaugh said. "It is when Republicans do not campaign as conservatives that they lose."

Republicans failing to govern as conservatives paid a price in the November mid-term elections, Limbaugh contended.

Limbaugh said Schwarzenegger "obviously didn't have the leadership skills to articulate conservative principles and win over the public as Reagan did."

If the California governor had those skills, Limbaugh continued, "he would have stayed conservative, but he felt like he was unable to do that and so in order to get reelected and become popular and be liked and so forth, he broomed conservatism and became a liberal while calling himself a Republican."

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