IOW, Mort is increasingly full of crap.
I wouldn't go that far -- Mort is a smart guy. But I think he's probably drawn the wrong lessons from the current dismal state of conservatism. He sees a dynamism to our left that is quite obviously lacking here on the right. It's sorta like how decadent Athens looked up to vital Sparta: their ideas weren't too great, but they weren't standing still. Similarly, Mort's probably thinking that conservatives need to borrow some of those ideas in order to move the party ahead.
As I said above, I think one of our biggest problems is that we have ceased to think about conservatism, and we often no longer even know how to think about conservatism.
Instead, we tend to recite a liturgy of "conservative ideas," often without reference to how they fit with current reality; and we also don't stop to see how those ideas are playing with the voters -- a serious failure for any political movement.
Talk radio (in its present form) doesn't cause that; if anything it's a symptom of the problem. But it most certainly plays to our complacent view of conservatism.
Let's take Rush, just as an example. He's a fine showman, and he's pretty smart. But he isn't nearly smart enough to provide an intellectual foundation for conservatism; and he certainly doesn't have the time to spend on the kind of sustained thought that would be required.
And so when you listen to Rush, you get a couple of hours of monologue from a guy who has scanned the headlines, watched some talking heads, formed an opinion, and then figured out how to make it entertaining. There's no room for thought in that. In fact, I'd say that Rush's format tends to discourage thoughtful engagement.
Now ... what do you think would happen if Rush began inviting guests to his show, and actually engaged them in conversation? (Not that he would: Rush is a narcissist...) It wouldn't have to be all serious, but a lot of it could be, and it could be interesting. You'd get a breadth of opinion -- different ways of looking at what's going on, not just Rush's viewpoint. It could be an effective way to invigorate conservatives, and encourage them to get into the debat.
Rush is just an example, but his format is pervasive in talk radio. When you look at what talk radio is, and think about what it could be, you begin to realize that Kondracke's got a legitimate point.