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KGO was what I would call mainstream democrat prior to that. They had a few lefty bomb throwers but most of the hosts were moderate left

Gene Burns was a Libertarian and unless he too a radical turn leftward in his fiscal policies after he left Boston he was pretty conservative.

Unfortunately, Burns took a leftward turn toward the end of his run and turned into a big Obama supporter.

I did like him when he started and he did tout himself as a libertarian. I think part of his shtick was to take a controversial stand and then engage in verbal combat with the callers. So it wasn’t always clear where he really stood on issues.

I used to listen to Gene Burns in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he hosted a show for WRKO in Boston. At the time, he was very much a Libertarian. I found his show quite informative and he was very knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects, from the Middle East, medieval history, opera and even country music.

Since he left Boston in 1993, he definitely took a leftward turn. He was a closeted homosexual (not much of a secret when he was in Boston) but was more open about it when he got to the West Coast. Around 2008, he announced that he was putting his libertarianism aside and joining the Democrat Party. It was not too long after that that he began suffering the strokes that would eventually take his life last May.

During the 1985-1993 period, he was the premier radio talk show host in Boston. After that, he seemed to have gone down a bad path. So I will choose to remember him as he was.