The Predictive (In) Ability Of Rush Limbaugh
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In the course of my day job and generally obsessive absorption of conservative media 
(to beat your enemy you’ve got to know him), this recent tiff on the right over immigration reminded me of Rush Limbaugh’s insistence that the fight over Harriet Miers was a conservative "crackdown" and not a "crack up", and it would not hurt the 2006 election.
Charles Cook, the influential nonpartisan analyst of Congressional elections, said: ‘Right now, if I had to bet would the Democrats take the House and Senate back, I’d say no. But are the odds a heck of a lot better than they were three months ago or six months ago? Heck, yes.’" I’ll give you a little reality spin on this. There are 435 seats in the House of Representatives, and all of these districts out there in the states, you’ve heard the term gerrymandering. What has happened here — and this happens whoever the majority is — is every ten years you rewrite the districts and so forth. You know how many of these 435 seats in the House are competitive? At most, 20. By the way, a lot of that is thanks to campaign finance reform (the Incumbent Protection Act of whatever year it was authored) 20 seats in the House — 20, out of 435 — may be competitive, and the Democrats would have to win almost all of them to get their majority back, and what their thinking is that the number of competitive seats is now on the rise, because there is so much anger and sadness and distrust at the Republicans. Now, if you go back and look at all these things, "the response to Hurricane Katrina, war in Iraq, and soaring gasoline prices," none of these things were ever as bad as they were portrayed, and that is becoming more and more known as the days pass.
Of course you homegamers know that the Dems gained 7 seats in the Senate and 31 in the House in the 2006 election. And this, I think, is part of why cons are having a tough go online. They haven’t realigned to a media world where people are actually paying attention to them and making note of their predictions and proclamations. Limbaugh’s been on the air 20-something years but it wasn’t really until folks started listening to him that the clear disconnect between what he said several months ago and what actually happened became clear. To his sheep he’s always going to be able to pull a "move along, nothing to see here" act, but to anyone who pays attention for a second, like with the columnists and politicians and pols who keep requesting six months more of dead soldiers to prove their point in Iraq, they have no standing.
In a strong way, they are pwned.
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I remember a time when conservatives hated chickenhawks and drug addicts. Now a chickenhawk drug addict tells a large percentage of them what to think, who to hate and who to vote for.
The reason the RtWing has a problem gaining traction on the internet is that they depend on lies for their talking points.
In an internet world lies can be disspelled rather quickly, if only the traditional media would lear to use Google
Good things about Rush Limbaugh:
1. He wasn’t around in the 1930′s.
Are you seriously contending the republicans lost setas in 2006 because of Harriet Miers. Maybe you just phrased it poorly and don’t actually believe what you wrote.
2. He won’t be around in the 2030′s
Yes, Harriet Miers had an undeniable demoralizing effect on the Conservative base. They began to realize that their dream of a Conservative Presidency was all a sham and they were being played.
And Ollie’s right: Limbaugh has no credibility left with anyone other than the 30 percenters. Whatever moderate listeners he may have had have vanished. Moderates have left the GOP in droves.
Actually, I SHOULD say that without Limbaugh, Hannity, Boortz, and Beck, the GOP’s losses in 2006 might have been even beyond the catastrophe they turned out to be.
But I feel that wingnut command of the radio airwaves and total message control to the “heartland” has been seriously disrupted, hopefully beyond recovery, by the Internet and Air America.
Limbaugh and the so-called “New” Media ain’t all that any more, and they know it.
wingnut command of the radio airwaves and total message control to the “heartland” has been seriously disrupted, hopefully beyond recovery, by the Internet and Air America.
Really? Last I checked, the only AAR affiliates getting higher than a 2.0 rating were West Palm, Seattle, San Diego, Madison & Portland. “Heartland” bastions all.
Meanwhile,
Chicago — 0.8
DFW — 0.0
Houston — no affiliate
Atlanta — 0.0
Phoenix — 0.6
St. Louis — 0.0
Pittsburgh — 1.1
Cleveland — no affiliate
Cincy — no affiliate
Columbus — no affiliate
Kansas City — no affiliate
San Antonio — 0.0
Las Vegas — no affiliate
Charlotte — no affiliate
Need I go on?
OMG AIR AMERICA HAS TEH LOW RATINGS AND THEY STEAL MONEY FROM INNER CITY YOUTH SO EVERYTHING ELSE YOU SAY IS INVALID @##@@$!!!!%$!!!&
Wellstone, I think it is important to point out that there isn’t really “30% percent” approval out there. If you look at the most recent Rasmussen poll, only 14% strongly approve of GWB while 48% strongly disapprove. It would not surprise me in the slightest to find out that this 14% and the listeners of Limbaugh were almost perfectly correlated. Everybody else has stripped away.
You may not know this yet, Farris, what with you being fed pap from the “New” Media pundits and all, but in late April, WestwoodOne/CBS Radio, the country’s leading provider of radio content with over 5,000 outlets, signed an affiliation deal with the “bankrupt” Air America network for nationwide distribution. MAJOR get for AAR.
Oh, and in the NYC market? AirAmerica’s flagship WWRL has been getting a steady 20-40% of WABC’s Rush and Hannity and Levin’s ratings since it started.
WABC is a HUGE, established “blowtorch” station, with a 50KW transmitter and penetration deep into NYC Metro suburbs. The country’s biggest “Talk” station, in the country’s biggest “Talk” market.
In spite of a marginal, weak signal, in spite of poor ad dollar and promotional support , and in spite of lousy management issues, AAR has won and held onto market and audience share.
In radio, anything around a 1.0 (not a 2.0) share is HUGE. In NYC, a 1.0 share puts you in the top-25 radio station tier. WABC only manages a 3-3.5
Curses! PWNED again! LOL
Partial list of current AAR “heartland” affiliates:
Ann Arbor, MI – WLBY-AM 1290 AM
Asheville, NC – WPEK-AM 880 AM
Charlottesville, VA – WVAX-AM 1450 AM
Columbia, SC – WOIC-AM 1230 AM
Huntington, WV – WRVC-AM 930 AM
Baton Rouge, LA – WPYR-AM 1380 AM
Lafayette, LA – KEUN-AM 1490 AM
Marion/Carbondale, IL – WINI-AM 1420
Memphis, TN – WWTQ-AM 680 AM
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN – KTNF-AM 950 AM
New Orleans, LA – WSMB-AM 1350 AM
St. Louis, MO – KRFT-AM 1190 AM
Albuquerque, NM – KABQ-AM 1350 AM
Denver, CO – KKZN-AM 760 AM
Phoenix, AZ – KPHX-AM 1480 AM
Santa Fe, NM – KTRC-AM 1260 AM
Sheridan, WY – KYTI-FM HD 93.7-3 FM
Taos, NM – KVOT-AM 1340
Eugene, OR – KOPT-AM 1600 AM
Eureka, CA – KGOE-AM 1480
Fresno, CA – KFPT-AM 790 AM
Medford-Ashland, OR – KEZX-AM 730 AM
Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz, CA – KRXA-AM 540
North Bend / Coos Bay, OR – KBBR-AM 1340
Portland, OR – KPOJ-AM 620 AM
Reno, NV – KJFK-AM 1230 AM
San Diego, CA – KLSD-AM 1360 AM
San Luis Obispo, CA – KYNS-AM 1340 AM
Seattle, WA – KPTK-AM 1090 AM
Spokane, WA – KPTQ-AM 1280 AM
Victor Valley, CA – KSZL-AM 1230 AM
Anchorage, AK – KUDO-AM 1080 AM
Honolulu, HI – KUMU-AM 1500 AM
Kihei, HI – KAOI-AM 1110 AM
Lihue, HI – KQNG-AM 570 AM
Oh, and one more thing: Conservatives are so afraid of AAR they have actually put pressure on affiliates to BLACKLIST AAR CONTENT!
Air America on Ad Blacklist?
ABC document: Sponsors shun liberal network
10/31/06
An internal memo from ABC Radio Networks to its affiliates reveals scores of powerful sponsors have a standing order that their commercials never be placed on syndicated Air America programming that airs on ABC affiliates.
The October 25 memo was provided to FAIR by the Peter B. Collins Show, a syndicated radio show originating on the West Coast.
Headlined “Air America Blackout” and addressed “Dear Traffic Director”—referring to the radio station staffer who coordinates programming and advertising—the memo gives the following order to affiliates:
Please be advised that Hewlett Packard has purchased schedules with ABC Radio Networks between October 30th and December 24th, 2006. Please make sure you blackout this advertiser on your station, as they do not wish it to air on any Air America affiliate.
The directive then advises ABC Radio Network affiliates to take note of a list of other sponsors who do not want their programming to run during Air America programming.
Please see below for a complete list of all advertisers requesting that NONE of their commercials air within Air America programming.
The list, totaling 90 advertisers, includes some of largest and most well-known corporations advertising in the U.S.: Wal-Mart, GE, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Bank of America, Fed-Ex, Visa, Allstate, McDonald’s, Sony and Johnson & Johnson. The U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Navy are also listed as advertisers who don’t want their commercials to air on Air America.
The ABC memo is evidence of the potentially censorious effect that advertisers’ political preferences can have on the range of views presented in the media. When Al Gore proposed launching a progressive TV network, a Fox News executive told Advertising Age (10/13/03): “The problem with being associated as liberal is that they wouldn’t be going in a direction that advertisers are really interested in…. If you go out and say that you are a liberal network, you are cutting your potential audience, and certainly your potential advertising pool, right off the bat.” (See Extra!, 11-12/03.)
FAIR’s call to the ABC contact person listed on the memo, to ask if similar “blackout” lists exist for other shows, including conservative-leaning programs, has not been returned.”
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2983
Limbaugh represents a small fraction of actual voters out there.
I find it amusing. When Limbaugh would talk about his “20 million listeners”, the left would be sure to scream and yell that:
A. The 20 million represented a weekly total, not daily total
B. This was the number of listeners at any given point in the show. Meaning if somebody tuned in for 30 seconds, it was counted.
But now, we’re supposed to believe that Limbaugh has this svengali like figure that controls the hearts and minds of conservative voters all over the United States.
Besides, who cares if Limbaugh was wrong about the 2006 election results? Do you know how many predictions of wins and beat-downs the Democrats were going to lay down on the GOP ever since they took Control of Congress in the 94 elections?
I’ll never forget the “Jeb is gone” nonsense that came straight from the mouth of Terry McAuliffe and was echoed by any lapdog Democrat within earshot, thinking Bill McBride was going to sweep into the Governors race in Florida in 02 because voters were going to exact their revenge for the “stolen” election of 2000. The result? Jeb beat McBride 53% to 46%. It wasn’t even close.
So take Limbaugh’s prediction for the 06 election and extrapolate that out to be part of some larger disconnect between conservatives and the rest of the country is just absurd.
It seems like the conservative radio in my town has fallen into such desperate disarray that even their advertising sounds whiny. For months the local affiliate had billboards up reading “LIBERALS HATE IT!”
No. We just don’t listen. We have better things to do than hate your blustering.
Nobody is asking for my opinion on this, but I don’t necessarily think AAR is a great thing. Talk radio is not a democratic medium. It is basically an opportunity for an opinionated gasbag to tell other people how they should think about the world. The liberal medium is really the Internet, where you need not only have opinions but back them up with fact. Do I like to see liberal gasbags achieve parity with conservative gasbags? Sure, but I am much prouder of the independence of liberal blogs. Aparently, Farris and the rest of the gaggle are as well, which is why they are posting here.
z adura – You bring up a salient point, but the unfortunate fact is that most Americans will pay attention to the gasbags rather than bother to do the effort of reading a researched, well-sourced article on the blogs. I’d rather that Americans turned this trend around, but until they do (that is, until future generations do), we’re stuck using even imperfect media.
Sorry Wellstone, but not every market is NYC. When you’ve got as many radio stations in the area as New York does, a 1.0 is actually meaningful. (And AAR can’t even manage that! Last quarter, they pulled a 0.8 on WLIB)
But outside the tri-state area, there are MUCH fewer outlets per market. For example, in Cleveland there are only 25 stations rating higher than a zero TOTAL.
And while you thought it might be clever to cut-n-paste the Central, Mountain & Pacific timezone lists from AAR’s website and claim it as “heartland”, it would have been cleverer to edit out those stations that no longer carry AAR (New Orleans: http://www.nola.com/lagniappe/t-p/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/116322847624040.xml&coll=1), average a 0.0 in the ratings (St. Louis, Memphis) , or include left-coast stations (Portland, Fresno, Hawaii, Seattle)
As for why advertisers wouldn’t want to advertise on AAR, I don’t blame them. Look at the ratings!!!
You would have had a much stronger argument if you left it at “the Internet”. No denying that DailyKos has some serious pull within the party.
Limbaugh only appears to have an audience larger than he actually has because he simply repeats talking points that are consumed by republicans from all of their media outlets. Yes, Republicans say exactly what Rush is saying, but they’re just as likely to have gotten it from Rush as the Op-Ed page of their conservative-propitiating local newspaper.
In any case, the highest-rated radio station in any metro market is always the news-and-traffic station. Honestly, I don’t think that liberals are going to make a dent in that. The optimal strategy here is to realize that the market for talk-radio is saturated and to work around it, which the Democrats did by creating an independent blogosphere as a center for activism.
Sorry, Farris, your chery-picking efforts to PROVE to us that AAR has no “heartland” presence have been “PWNED”!! AS usual, you just flat out refuse to recognize it.
As to Limbaugh and Conservative Talk Radio’s effect, I’ll tell you a story: I had a nice consulting gig training Special Ed teachers in Alabama on new Ed software, and I spent three weeks traveling throughout the state in every school district.
I never heard ANYTHING but Limbaugh’s voice on Politics. Limbaugh, the Christian station, and country music. And as I traveldd out of signal range from one affiliate, another would fade in and maintain message.
It’s not an accident that the South loves them FOX and Falwell and Conservative talk radio. It’s all they ever GET. Limbaugh tries to make the point that he’s the chicken, not the egg, that someone else would have surfaced if he had never come around to supply a need for right-wing message that reflected the opinions of those in the heartland.
Bullshit. The Heartland USED to be strongly populist Democrat in the 30′s and 40′s and 50′s.
As far as the Internet, everything has changed. It penetrates into the heartland without he need for transmitters or air time.
Air America has serious streaming presence, DailyKOS, Josh Marshall’s Talkingpointsmemo.com, Duncan Black’s Atrios, Ariannan’s Huffington Post, thinkprogress.com, buzzflash, even firedoglake all destroy the biggest Conservative blogs,
I think the biggest reason why Bush’s and the Rethuglycan poll numbers are in a tailspin is the loss of message control by the right.
I think they neevr saw it coming.
You ask DeLay, Santorum, Gingrich, Rove; all the architects of the GOP circa 1998 when they beat Clinton to the gorund if they ever envisioned the state of the political world in 2007 with the GOP in a total rout, hounded by investigations and oversight, and losing the money fight every month to the Dems and they would have thought you were a screaming moonbat!
Damn,it feels good!
We made a difference.
Predicting success is kind of the party chair’s job. Terry McAuliffe did it in 02-04, while Ken Mehlman and Ed Gillespie did the same on their side. Jay, I know you’ll deny this till the cows come home but Limbaugh is a major influencer on the right. There’s a reason why he gets regular visits from the President and Vice President – something no other radio host save maybe Sean Hannity gets. He’s been the most consistent conservative spokesman in the country.
My point is that he sets himself up as a font of knowledge and denies reality, like with Miers and beyond. He knows that the con coalition was breaking up in 06 but pushed forward otherwise and now pretends he never said it before. That’s how your side operates, and my side took it because nobody was watching and keeping note of it – both with pundits and pols.
But now we are.
Talk radio is for people who have nothing better to do than to listen to AM radio in the middle of the day. No wonder it’s dominated by conservatives.
You can tell a lot about the listeners by the advertisers who buy time on those shows: weight-loss scams, magic collagen cures, debt-reduction scams, put-all-your-money-in-platinum scams, get-a-star-named-after-you scams, snake oils of various sorts. Advertising agents ain’t dumb: they know they’re dealing with a brain-dead demographic.
That AAR get’s any listeners at all is a major indication of how badly the wingnuts have screwed the pooch.
Are you seriously contending the republicans lost setas in 2006 because of Harriet Miers. Maybe you just phrased it poorly and don’t actually believe what you wrote.
Agreed. They lost seats for things MUCH worse than that.
Predicting success is kind of the party chair’s job.
It wasn’t just the party chair Oliver and you know it. Go dig back through the archives of the liberal blogs that are now supposedly ruling the day and you’ll see the same thing.
Jay, I know you’ll deny this till the cows come home but Limbaugh is a major influencer on the right. There’s a reason why he gets regular visits from the President and Vice President – something no other radio host save maybe Sean Hannity gets.
And what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? It doesn’t refute anything I said.
62 million people voted for President Bush in 2004. If every single one of Limbaugh’s listeners on a daily basis voted for GWB, that accounts for a little over 6% of the total. IE, 94% of the people who voted for GWB don’t listen to Limbaugh.
You need to start thinking outside the box because you’re under the false impression that most people follow politics the way you and others here do and that just simply is not the case. You and I could tick off the names of the top Democrats and Republicans in Congress. The average person wouldn’t know and probably doesn’t give a rat’s ass.
The point is, you’re attempting to give Limbaugh more credit than he deserves simply so you can make his incorrect prediction seem that much more worse.
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