Limbaugh Hoglets

Commentary By Ron Beasley

The Republicans have a new all powerful leader, Rush Limbaugh.  So how is he doing?

Not too well

From NBC's Mark Murray
Here's one set of numbers we're releasing before the entire NBC/WSJ poll comes out at 6:30 pm ET: By a 48-20 percent margin, Americans believe the Democratic Party would do a better job of getting the U.S. out of recession than the Republican Party.

When this same question was asked back in 1990, the public was essentially split. In an October 1990 poll, 36 percent said Republicans would do a better job, versus 31 percent who picked the Democrats. And in December of that year, an equal number -- 33 percent -- sided with the Democrats and Republicans.

Over at The Left Coaster Deacon Blues has a good summary. Read the entire thing but here is the closing paragraph.

We want independents and moderates to think that Limbaugh is the national leader of the GOP, because it makes it harder for the Republicans to look like reasonable actors who care about Main Street instead of being the pathetic toads they really are. If Obama is to have success in building a center-left coalition in this country, the first step was to marginalize the GOP as extremists.

 Over at Politico Jonathan Martin explains how the Republicans fell into the Democrat's Rush trap.

Daniel Larison agrees that it's all about Rush and has little to do with what's good for the republican Party or ideology.

If there is one thing Limbaugh is not, it is unpredictable. Maybe that’s the smart move for someone in his business. He is very successful at what he does, so I’m sure he knows what the formula is for drawing a regular listening audience, but one thing that you can rely on with Limbaugh is that you can be sure that you know exactly what you are getting when you turn on his show. Is Limbaugh independent? Independent of what? He very reliably serves up ready-made opinions, affirms his listeners’ beliefs, flatters their wisdom and very rarely challenges them. The same might be said of many people, and it isn’t the end of the world, but why pretend that one of the most predictable men around is the opposite of what he is? In what way is he a “leader in thought”? Perhaps you could allow that he popularizes and distributes ideas for mass consumption, but this makes him a simplifier of thought, not a leader. It is a thin line between a simplifier, who makes ideas more accessible to a broader audience, and a terrible simplifier, who distorts and mangles them in service to another goal.

Jill Miller Zimon points out the hypocrisy of calling Obama the "messiah" and then genuflecting to Limbaugh.