Working like a charm with the full complicit help of Rush Limbaugh himself. The Republican Party is burning and Rush is basking in a sickly greenish glow of non-glory.
Of course if the GOP is so spineless as to kowtow to the fool (read: the forced frog march to publically apologize to the radio host for any perceived slight), the party deserves every bit of scorn and loss of support that happens.
I do find it astounding no GOP leader — an actual political leader and not a blowhard media opiner — is willing to come forward and announce this leader is wearing no clothes and does not represent the best interests of the Republican Party. He does represent the best interests of Rush. With his actual unique listenership somewhere between 1.5 and 3 million (don’t believe the 20 million number, go out and read one of the many helpful guides on how radio numbers are collected and reported), Rush needs to hold onto his base of loony ditto-heads. His popularity is way down so new listeners are unlikely and his core listener — old, white men — is well, getting older.
Here’s some tough figures on Limbaughfrom NewMajority:
Rush Limbaugh is a seriously unpopular figure among voters conservatives and Republicans need to reach. 45% of independents have a negative impression of him, according to the January Gallup poll.
Rasmussen found that only 16% of Americans would be more likely to support a candidate endorsed by Limbaugh – while 46% would be less likely to support such a candidate.
Limbaugh is especially offputting to women: His audience is 72% male, the most lopsidedly unisexual of any major media offering on radio, TV, or print, according to the Pew survey.
And here’s a piece from Politico today outlining exactly how Rush is embracing the evisceration of the GOP to serve his own greed.
From the link:
The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned their longtime tormentor was deeply unpopular with many Americans, especially younger voters. Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans were showering him with praise.
Soon it clicked: Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.
Limbaugh is embracing the line of attack, suggesting a certain symbiosis between him and his political adversaries.
“The administration is enabling me,” he wrote in an e-mail to POLITICO. “They are expanding my profile, expanding my audience and expanding my influence. An ever larger number of people are now being exposed to the antidote to Obamaism: conservatism, as articulated by me. An ever larger number of people are now exposed to substantive warnings, analysis and criticism of Obama’s policies and intentions, a ‘story’ I own because the [mainstream media] is largely the Obama Press Office.”
The bigger, the better, agreed Carville. “It’s great for us, great for him, great for the press,” he said of Limbaugh. “The only people he’s not good for are the actual Republicans in Congress.”
Also from the second link:
Paul Begala, a close friend of Carville, Greenberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, said they found Limbaugh’s overall ratings were even lower than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s controversial former pastor, and William Ayers, the domestic terrorist and Chicago resident who Republicans sought to tie to Obama during the campaign.
Then came what Begala called “the tripwire.”
“I hope he fails,” Limbaugh said of Obama on his show four days before the president was sworn in. It was a time when Obama’s approval ratings were soaring, but more than that, polls showed even people who didn’t vote for him badly wanted him to succeed, coming to office at a time of economic meltdown.
David Kirkpatrick 