The liberal Rush Limbaugh

From the “you can’t make this up” basket is this:

Democratic lawmakers in Washington are asking a North Dakota radio personality to take on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservative talk show hosts.
Ed Schultz, who earlier considered running for governor, has been tapped by national Democratic leaders for a talk show to start in January.
Democratic lawmakers in Washington are raising money for the show, and Democrats have pledged about $1.8 million over two years to get it off the ground, Schultz said Monday. He said a half-dozen stations are looking at whether to carry it.
“The Democrats are getting the tar beat out of them constantly by Limbaugh and Hannity, and they feel they don’t have a platform,” Schultz said. “There’s this conservative mantra that’s being jammed down the throats of the American people, and the other side of the story is not being told.”

So much to say about this article, so short a lunch break. This story should make any conservative’s chest swell with pride, assuming it’s accurate. They’ve got to go to Fargo to come up with a liberal talk-show host? Recall that Rush Limbaugh was wildly popular in New York City (pop. 7,348,000), not North Dakota (pop 635,000) before he went national.
And a “half-dozen” stations are interested in this guy? Wow. Limbaugh is carried on over 600 stations — none of which has dropped his program after he announced his drug troubles — and Hannity is on almost 400.
Maybe, just maybe, the thing that makes conservative talk shows popular isn’t the personalities, but the…conservatism? When people say that conservatism is “jammed down people’s throats,” and that’s why it’s popular, it’s a lot like news stories about the pope that say, “This pope is popular with young people, despite his ingrained conservative theological stances.” Ever think that he’s popular because he offers the perennial things, not the new and the transient?

14 comments

  2. Faithful readers:
    I want the whole world to know that Ed Schultz is not a member of the esteemed Schultz clan of the greater Washington DC Area.
    Ed Schultz is actually am embarassment to all Schultzes the world over.
    Thank you and good night.

  3. And let me point something else out:
    Conservative radio is a viable, profitable endeavor that is a great platform for advertisers and has been wildly successful for Limbaugh.
    Liberal radio requires seed money just to get on a half-dozen radio stations and God knows who will actually advertise on it: NPR? Save the Children? Doan’s Pills?

  6. …and Freddy, the guy with the missing front tooth who sits in front of the Fargo Exxon station all day.

  8. Mr. Coward, Freddy is what we refer to as “imaginary.” He probably has better economic ideas than Paul Krugman, though.

  9. …and who said Freddy was poor? He’s the richest guy in town, but kinda eccentric. Why don’t you stop judging Freddy by his appearance, Mr. Coward?

  10. Rush Limbaugh has gone over on his own program about why there is not a liberal Rush Limbaugh. They just couldn’t give an honest and indepth defense of their agenda.
    While, I do think that the conservativism is part of the true popularity of Rush’s show, you do have to give alot of credit to Rush himself. He has never been guest driven. I don’t think that there are many people who could get on the radio, talk for three hours, and still be interesting for even one day. Rush has done it for 15 years.

  11. It’s almost frightening to imagine what this “Democracy Radio” is going to sound like. Remember, these people honestly believe that there is no liberal voice in the media; they think that NPR, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, USA Today, the NY Times, and the Washington Post are down the middle. Whatever they broadcast is going to be intentionally far to the left of the NY Times editorial pages. It’ll be plenty entertaining, but probably not in the way they’re hoping.

  12. I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ll say it again:
    Liberal talk radio is the worst thing that could possibly happen to liberals, because they’ll be forced to actually talk about their agenda.
    It’ll be great if some of these shows rely on callers.

  13. It’s not that liberal radio talk show hosts don’t exist, it’s just that none of them has struck a chord with enough listeners to “make it big”. Radio is a business, and if liberal talkers were pulling in ratings, then there would certainly be many more of them. Conservatives are not being “jammed down people’s throats”, the people are seeking them out and swallowing them of their own accord.
    The bottom line is, not enough radio listeners are interested in hearing left wing diatribes. I heard a few short-lived liberal radio talk shows (during the Clinton years no less), and they sounded preachy or whiny or both. There just isn’t much of a market for that. This is a case where “money talks” actually works in favor of conservative thought, instead of against it.

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