Talk Radio and Presidential Elections - New Book Illustrates Influence

Talk radio was paramount in building the conservative movement's role in presidential elections. This can be found with Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee and one of the intellectual leaders of the conservative movement. Political minds are wondering if it can help push Romney into the White House. for Romney.

The Right Frequency by Fred V. Lucas chronicles talk radio's impact on presidential elections and politics from the days of Walter Winchell to modern day hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. The book is published by History Publishing Company. The author is available for interviews.

It was talk radio show host Dean Clarence Manion who talked Goldwater into writing a book called "Conscience of a Conservative." When the publishing industry was not receptive, Manion founded Victor Publishing for the express purpose of publishing Goldwater's book, which became his launching pad to building a vast following to capture the Republican presidential nomination in 1964.

The book profiles the impact of radio other major radio giants such as Bob Grant, James Dobson and Neal Boortz.

Leading talk radio show host Mark Levin, a leader in the conservative movement, says the book captures the importance of talk radio in modern politics.

"Fred Lucas not only delineates the roots of talk radio as a venue for communicating conservative political thought in the 1930s and 40s, he explains how it has become, in the 21st century, the life force for the conservative movement and the voice for conservative ideals on the current political landscape," Levin said. "Anyone who loves talk radio will love this book."

This makes it sound like we always had modern talk radio.. not true.

Either those who believe that are too young to remember or weren't paying attention in the era of the "Fairness Doctrine" in the '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s; and also happening was newspapers were failing as the primary news source shifted to TV networks.

Reporting for CBS 1964 from Germany Daniel Schorr says “It looks as though Senator Goldwater, if nominated, will be starting his campaign here in Bavaria, center of Germany's right wing . . .Hitler's one-time stomping ground . . . there are signs that the American and German right wings are joining up.” (source newsbusters..

and that's what I remember.. back then many cities still had conservative newspapers and there were limited circulation magazines plus Time and U.S.News and World Report were real news magazines and more-or-less conservative. But as far as talk radio.. the station owner risked his license if he permitted conservative opinion and the liberals targeted his station vis-a-vis complaints to the FCC.)

William F. Buckley's one-hour-a-week Firing Line on PBS was all the fairness conservatives needed said "the Establishment."

The loud, hostile, ~~adversarial~~ heavy-handed dominance over the silenced majority was filled with screams of RACISTS! NAZIS! MCCARTHYISTS! BIGOTS! BIRCHERS!; as well as conservative opinion flagged by the MSM with words like "controversial," "ultra-conservative," "divisive".

Conservatives tended to slink away protesting that they were none of those things -- if they even had a chance to respond on the MSM. Responding over radio put the station owner in jeopardy of losing his license -- if enough liberals complained to the FCC.

"You might also think that they would recall the notorious Fairness Doctrine, which was used to 'harass and intimidate' right-wing radio broadcasts, in the words of one unabashed Kennedy-Johnson operative. When that censorious policy was ended in 1987 by former broadcaster Ronald Reagan, there was an explosion of talk formats that gave voice to popular concerns (for a while, Rush Limbaugh even billed himself as equal time)."

As reported by Fred Friendly in his book appropriately entitled The Good Guys, the Bad Guys, and the First Amendment, this was part of a "massive strategy . . . to challenge and harass the right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited, and decide it was too expensive to continue." This strategy was said to have been successful in almost all respects.

It's only in the past 20 years that we could Give it right back at 'em!

The “Fairness” Doctrine was always Newspeak for “agreeing with wire service journalism.” Just as “progressive” and “moderate” and “liberal” were transformed into that same meaning. Safire dates the change in the meaning of “liberal” from what is now called “conservative” in America to the 1920s.
It all traces back to the homogenization of American journalism by the wire services (essentially, by the Associated Press). Journalists have always chosen their profession because of a desire to be influential, and the Associated Press made journalism more influential by suppressing individuality and ideological competition among journalists. Without competition from other journalists, the competition for influence was only from people who didn’t criticize for a living but who actually provided essentials such as food, clothing, water, and shelter. Consequently journalists compete for influence against businessmen by criticism and second guessing of the inevitable mistakes of people who act before all the information is in (and action is too late).

The people who choose the easy way to political power merely take advantage of the propaganda wind emanating from journalism.
Journalists claim to be objective, which - far from proving their objectivity - proves that they are heavily biased in their opinion of themselves, and thus cannot be objective about anything else. Thus, they flatter those who align themselves with journalists, and deride those who do not.

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