Listening to Howie suck up to the perfumed princes of the GOP-e: not pretty radio.
Posted on 08/25/2012 9:31:16 PM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie thread for the week starting with his Sunday Boston Herald column
Sun column ping
Be afraid, be very afraid of RCN (say the Dems)
By Howie Carr | Sunday, August 26, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Living next door to a battleground state (New Hampshire), we’ve been inundated lately with Obama TV spots about how terrible Mitt Romney is. If what they’re saying were true, I’d be lucky to be alive — as many times as I sat alone with Willard in my radio studio when he was governor.
Felon, murderer, tax cheat. And to think that his nickname at the State House was Dudley Do-Right.
If you believe the Democratic agit-prop, the local constabulary in Hillsborough County should be rousting the whole convention, like the New York cops did when the Mafia got together at Apalachin back in 1957.
SWAT teams should be surrounding the arena. Delegates should be told to come out with their hands up. The cops should be firing tear-gas canisters into the lobby.
Apocalypse, famine, genocide — you’d think this convention was being held at the Tampa Bay End Times Forum.
But none of the nightmares predicted by the Obama campaign and its parrots on the dying limousine-liberal broadsheets will come to pass.
At the convention, for instance, there will be no recruiting booths where one can enlist in the War on Women.
No GOP delegates will be wearing badges saying, “Ask Me About My Birth Certificate.”
Or, “Kiss Me — I’m Mormon.”
There will be no branches of chain stores selling ... chains.
The Todd Akin Fan Club will not be recruiting in the convention center corridors.
Paul Ryan will not be autographing wheelchairs to be used to push grandma off a cliff.
Chick-Fil-A will not be the only food served at the convention center.
At the Republicans’ online store, no gold-plated roof-rack dog crates are for sale. Neither is any of the poisoned food and water that Nancy Pelosi claims the GOP wants to foist on the children.
In this pre-convention period, Democrats have had a temporary funding advantage over the Republicans’ primary-depleted coffers. Once the conventions end, the GOP will have more dough, but in the meantime Barack et al. have deluged the swing-state airwaves with tens of millions of dollars worth of anti-Romney ads.
If you watch much Boston TV, you might believe Mitt Romney is already organizing a post-inauguration terror campaign to dynamite the electric car-battery recharging stations outside City Hall and in every Whole Foods Market [WFMI] parking lot in Moonbatistan.
ABC News is already planning to blame any murders next week in Tampa on the Tea Party. Brian Ross has confirmed it through his “sources.”
At least the networks are going to be streaming the coverage live online. That way they won’t be able to leave any pro-Republican soundbites on the cutting-room floor, the way CBS did on “60 Minutes” earlier this month when Paul Ryan talked about his mother living in Florida and using Medicare.
Stand by for tonight’s pre-convention special on NPR.
“Mitt Romney: Threat or Menace?”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061155830
Special Tue column ping
Call it the RNHC: Republican Nursing Home Convention
By Howie Carr | Tuesday, August 28, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by AP
TAMPA — Now I know what it’s like to have to fill time during a baseball-game rain delay.
The Republican convention was supposed to start yesterday, but Isaac put the kibosh on it. So most of the stars of Fox News were holed up in the local Marriott across the street from the convention center, inside the convention Green Zone.
This meant that even the junior varsity could draw a crowd among the gawkers. I know, because my radio booth was next to the King of the Forgotten but Not Gone, ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee. His program was like a GOP old-timers’ game — Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, two born-again Christians who’ve touched everything but the third rail.
And then there was Jon Voight. When he first arrived, with a handler, I thought, How nice, the Republicans are bringing people from the local nursing home around to see the sights.
Joe Buck is one old buck.
Newt Gingrich just left. He was blocking my view of Huckabee, but now I can report, Chick-fil-A’s No. 1 fan has gained back all the weight he lost and then some. He’s getting close to the Chris Christie dreadnought class.
Tampa doesn’t seem to have its act together as well as some other convention cities. Although, maybe the local constabulary was forced to clamp down after a squirrelly Occupier type tried to get into one of the buildings yesterday morning with a machete taped to his leg.
Thanks again, Elizabeth Warren, for providing the “intellectual foundations” of the Occupy Movement.
Actually, though, the two dozen or so Ron Paul cultists are much more conspicuous than the occupiers around here, with their endless marches. If only they’d shave their heads and don robes, you’d think they were Hare Krishnas.
Whatever the reason, Tampa’s downtown is all blocked off. It’s much more inaccessible than Boston was eight years ago. It’s amusing the first time you drive past the billboard that says “DON’T BELIEVE THE LIBERAL MEDIA,” but by the third time, you just want to find a garage.
In an old convention tradition, the Democrats sent in a ringer or two to talk up Barack Obama to the media. Yesterday, it was the bust-out mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaragoisa. He didn’t stop at my table, so I didn’t get to ask him the one question that I’ve always wanted him to answer.
It’s a two-parter, actually. Why did you combine your own last name with your first wife’s? And why, after you started seeing a lot of that TV anchor, didn’t you drop her name, Villa or Ragoisa?
For the record, though, the mayor got out of the Convention Center without being physically assaulted by a “cab driver.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061156253
Listening to Howie suck up to the perfumed princes of the GOP-e: not pretty radio.
Tea Partiers refreshing amid the D.C. insiders
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, August 29, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Wed column ping
TAMPA — How do you know a politician’s been in Washington too long?
He roots for the D.C. pro teams instead of the teams back home.
And that’s why I like these new Tea Party solons. They haven’t been inside the Beltway long enough to covet Nationals or Redskins tickets. They aren’t buddies yet with the white-shoed K Street power brokers, you know, guys like Newt Gingrich.
So I was talking to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the minority leader of the Senate, and I asked the pro forma question about Scott Brown.
“Scott Brown?” McConnell said. “I call him the Bryce Harper of the Republican Party.”
The rookie phenom of the Washington Nationals. In the National League.
“Shouldn’t you be comparing Scott to Mike Trout?” I asked. He’s an even bigger rookie sensation, and he plays in the American League, the junior circuit, the one the Red Sox [team stats] are in.
But it was pretty clear, McConnell’s a big Nationals fan. I thought people from Kentucky rooted for the Cincinnati Reds. Or maybe the St. Louis Cardinals.
I don’t mean to pick on McConnell. He’s certainly preferable to Harry Reid, who roots mainly for sweetheart land deals near casinos. But McConnell moved to D.C. in 1985, and after you’ve been in a place for 27 years, that’s really where you live.
A few minutes after I talked to McConnell, I pulled over the junior senator from Wisconsin, a Tea Partier named Ron Johnson. He was more than willing to talk. I’m on a couple northern Wisconsin FM talk stations.
To make conversation — and to establish my Badger bona fides so to speak — I mentioned that he’d just been with a bunch of reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
So I asked Johnson, “Do you know Marty Kaiser?” He’s the editor of the Journal Sentinel, a high school classmate of mine from Massachusetts. Big shot Wisconsin media guy now, but Kaiser’s name didn’t ring a bell with Johnson.
“I don’t believe I know him — who is he?”
Beautiful. I guarantee you that the Democrat lifer that Johnson knocked off, Russ Feingold, knew Marty Kaiser. Probably had his cellphone number, too.
“You know,” said Johnson, “I’ve only been there 19 months.” He made it sound more like 19 years. I told him that standoffish attitude toward D.C. was why I like these new Tea Party senators, even if some of them, like Kelly Ayotte, are still in the closet.
“More coming,” he said with a smile.
Maybe some day the new Tea Party pols will sell out, too. But they haven’t yet.
What’s not to like?
from latter:
>>The Boston Globe isn’t naming the staffer whose editorial contained “similarities in phrasing and structure” to a WBUR.org op-ed that ran a few days earlier, but Globe-hater Howie Carr claims that Joan Vennochi has been suspended for two weeks for the infraction.
I’ve emailed Vennochi and Globe editorial page editor Peter Canellos for comment. Sydney Smith of iMediaEthics also tried to confirm the report:
We wrote to the New York Times Co. asking who wrote the editorial, if the reports that Joan Venocchi [sic] wrote the editorial and was suspended were accurate, what, if any, disciplinary action would be taken against the writer, how the Globe found out about the “similarities,” if the editor’s note ran in print and for further comment.
The Times’ Bob Christie responded that “We are not going to comment past the editors note.”
Thu column ping
$4 for gas should fuel Mitt Romney’s talk
By Howie Carr | Thursday, August 30, 2012 |
http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
TAMPA, Fla. — Here are some real estate signs I’ve seen in Hillsborough County in this fourth year of our economic “recovery.”
• “No Reasonable Offer Refused.”
• “Starting in the low 100’s.”
• (This next one was hand-lettered, at an exit off the interstate) “Lots Dirt Cheap! 9K.”
You think the economy’s in tough shape in Boston, but it’s much worse down here, and in most of the rest of the country. And I hope Mitt talks a lot about it tonight in his prime-time speech. It’s still the economy, stupid.
Plus, likability is overrated. No matter what Mitt says or does tonight, it won’t please his critics. Reciting too many statistics in a speech is also deadly. Look at Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s snoozer Tuesday night. He mentioned numbers more than Rick Santorum mentioned hands. But here’s one number Mitt should definitely use.
On Jan. 20, 2009, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was $1.89.
Now it’s close to four bucks.
That’s a number everybody can relate to. And it doesn’t matter how many times Comrade Chris Matthews says it’s racist to bring it up, and you know he will. Anything that makes MSNBC’s Sun King look bad — racist.
It’s hard to make yourself seem likable. If you’re really likable, it gets around through your friends, word of mouth. Yesterday morning, after his keynote speech the previous night, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spoke to a breakfast meeting of the New Hampshire and Pennsylvania delegations.
He talked about how when he was being courted for an endorsement last fall, the Romneys came to visit him in New Jersey. Christie said his two older kids shook hands with the Romneys and went away. But the two younger ones, 8 and 11, stuck around, looking for attention from the new adults, and Mitt spent a few minutes with them, asking them questions and playing.
“You know how it usually is with a politician and a kid,” Christie said. “It’s, ‘Hello little girl, that’s a pretty ribbon in your hair. Now, where’s your mother?’ ”
Everybody chuckled. It’s too bad he didn’t use it in his prime-time speech. If Chris Christie says you’re an OK guy, you must be an OK guy, right?
So Mitt shouldn’t waste a lot of his time tonight trying to wear his heart on his sleeve. Likability isn’t what it used to be anyway. Michael Barone wrote yesterday how it’s become less important as fewer people watch TV news as regularly as they used to. If you’re not in somebody’s living room every night, it matters less if they “like” you.
But if he wants to lift one line from a very likable president, and a Republican to boot, here’s the one Mitt should resurrect this evening.
“Are you better or worse off than you were four years ago?”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061156794
OMG, that was one of the funniest things I've heard in a long long time, priceless!
Fri column ping. I’ll mention here btw that once again prog talk radio in liberal BOSTON has failed. From 04 to 06, it was on AM 1200 and 1430, owned by Clear Channel, but they took it off due to low ratings and put on Spanish programming. In early 2010 Clear Channel made 1200 “Rush Radio”, later “Talk 1200”....and now it’s comedy. Anyway, Jeff Santos, who did a weekly show on the old “Boston Progressive Talk” later would buy time on WWZN AM 1510 to put on his own show then syndicated stuff like Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, and Ed Schulz.
Again, he had to BUY TIME to do this. WRKO, WTKK, etc. would not run these shows. In recent months, the syndie shows disappeared to be replaced by the likes of Rev Al Sharpton. Then those disappeared and only Santos’ show aired on WWZN. Now as of Tue, the station will become an affiliate of the new NBC Sports Radio network, at first running shows from this network 7 pm to 5 am. There may also be local shows, etc. I can’t tell if Santos will still be allowed to run his progressive talk (which he pays for) or not. He’s also on stations in Nashua and Portland.
I tuned in briefly yesterday just before 5. Santos was shouting down a caller who was disputing Obama’s alleged peacemaking activities, etc. Maybe Santos has competition from powerful NPR stations. Anyway, his attempt at doing liberal radio in BOSTON has apparently failed. Who knows, maybe he can still buy time to do his show, but is anyone listening? Liberal talk radio FAIL.—rr
In the end, that’s what it comes down to with Mitt Romney. He’s running as the non-Barack Obama.
As over-the-hill as Clint Eastwood looked last night, he still succinctly summed up what the next 67 days will be all about:
“When somebody does not do the job, we gotta let ’em go.”
As much as the Democrats try to change the subject, this election will be about Barack Obama, period. Mitt’s speech last night hit all the right notes, but this fight is not about him. He’s just the vessel. Now the question is, does this guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. who thinks the private sector is doing fine get another four years?
Mitt’s best line of the night:
“President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise ... is to help you and your family.”
Subtle, but hitting the right notes, reminding everyone of the narcissism and hubris of Obama and his moonbat supporters. How many times did Mitt say “we” last night? How often does Obama not say “I”?
Second best line of the night:
“You know there’s something wrong with the job he’s done when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.”
In other words, don’t feel bad about 2008, everybody makes a mistake. Barack Obama is like the old joke about boats. The two best days of owning a boat are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.
Or, as Clint Eastwood would say, “We gotta let ’em go.”
He didn’t pound it, but he did repeatedly mention the price of gasoline — “it’s doubled.”
And he mentioned Jimmy Carter. And no jobs. And his father’s birth in Mexico. And Obama’s attacks on the coal industry, and the military cutbacks, and the Medicare cuts.
Weren’t you surprised when the video kept going on and on and on about the Olympics, but mentioned the governorship of Massachusetts almost as an afterthought? But then you saw the first still photo, with Felon Finneran standing behind him in the House chambers, and the second picture, with Tim Cahill looking over his shoulder.
I guess they couldn’t find the photo of Mitt at Faneuil Hall signing Romneycare into law, with Ted Kennedy and Sal DiMasi standing behind him chuckling.
Mitt said, “I wish President Obama had succeeded, because I want America to succeed.” Message: I am not Rush Limbaugh.
“What America needs is jobs. Lots of jobs.”
Maybe he should have paraphrased the old Ronald Reagan line: “A recession is when you lose your job. A recovery is when Barack Obama loses his.”
It was Mitt’s night, but it’s all about Barack Obama. Today and every day until Nov. 6.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061157037
The progressive talk guy is on 1510 till Nov., at which point he’ll cry in his beer for a couple weeks, I’d hope, then goes off.
thanks, RR
You’re welcome...I’ve been talking on radio boards about how 1200 dumped conserv talk for comedy and 1510 is dumping prog talk for sports. (I guess the prog talk guy is picking up a new station in NJ/NYC area but he’s losing Boston, in Nov.) It has to do with political talk stations suffering in ratings and billing, some stations having weaker signals, and companies going after younger people—or more abundant—who would prefer something else.
Clear Channel figured it’s easier to sell ads and go after people who’d prefer a Dane Cook comedy routine to Hannity talking to John Sununu. And 1510 figures more people care about NFL, MLB etc. (and “younger demos”) than “what do you think about the RNC/DNC?”. Thus 1200 to comedy and 1510 to sports.
Howie’s options btw are limited. We know his contract is up in 2 yrs...assuming 96.9 is still doing talk by then, and they probably will, he may try to go to them—but who else?
WBZ 1030 has no room for him and I can’t picture the “illegal horn” on WBZ. Anyone else? Howie will be 62 by then (almost 63 in fact; he was born in Jan of 52 and all this will take place in late 2014) and his listeners will be aging too. How many stations will still have political talk? As I said, for Howie the options are WRKO and WTKK right now. That’s it. 1200 is running comedy instead...
yes I’d heard about McScreamer in for Howie Mon., no reason for me to tune in
That needs to fail too. Someone needs to jam in a bootleg message:
>>Hey illegal bastards...this is the USA...we speak English...GET OUT!<<
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