10 most influential Conservative AM radio commentators. (Vanity, Vanity all is Vanity!)

[Pliney the younger]

10 most influential Conservative AM radio commentators. (Vanity, Vanity all is Vanity!)

My dear friends,

Rush “the great” has been described as the scourge of the leftists, socialists, and other anti-American groups of thugs.

His most powerful technique is simply to point out the 5 biggest lies that the socialist, anti-American, Islamic terrorist axis of evil spread the day before.

Rush then informs the world, of those portions of the news stories, that the “people of the lie” censored or distorted while producing their propaganda the day before.

But reports now state that there are close to 700 AM radio commentators ( local, regional, and national) who describe themselves as conservative.

Out of interest

First: Who do you think are the 10 most influential syndicated Conservative American AM radio commentators.

Second: How do you personally rate their shows.

If you are a hate-filled leftist anti-American you can skip this survey. And please feel free to go back to listening to your favorite NPR show.

Love as always,

Octavian Pliny

1. Rush : Rating 12 (on a scale of 1-10) 2. Shawn Hannity: 7 3. Dr. Laura: 4 (Yes, I know that very little of her show is directly political but she has a huge audience) 4. Michael Savage: 10 5. Paul Harvey: 8 (Once again minimal political discussion, HUGE audience) 6. G Gordon Liddy 7 7. Cal Thomas 7 8. Oliver North 6 9. Michael Reagan 5. 10. Hue Hewitt 8

Honorable Mention:

In no particular order, Larry Elders, Drudge, Dennis Prager (9), Michael Medford and on and on and on.

Who are your personal favorites?

Extra point question: Do you think that the leftists and socialists have a snowball’s chance in hell, of breaking into the AM radio audience (unless their shows are federally subsidized, and maintained by tax free leftist foundations)?

[IslandJeff]

Okay, I'll bite. Talk Radio, to me, is an addiction worse than tobacco.

FWIW - in descending order of influence:
Rush ***1/2
Neal Boortz ****
Sean Hannity ***
Michael Savage ***
Michael Medved ****
Laura Ingraham ***1/2
Larry Elder ***
Hugh Hewitt *****
Dennis Prager ***1/2
and, for tenth, I'll give "props" to Walter Williams, when he sits in!

[philosofy123]

Juan Carlos

Diane Rheem

and all the NPR reporters

[Lucky2]

Rush, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage! Old George Putnam in Los Anageles deserves an honorable mention!

[rs79bm]

1. Rush
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. Hannity
8. Ingraham
9. North
10. Liddy


Nobody comes close to Rush, but the others are too good not to mention. Anyway, there's my list.

[Uncle Miltie]

For intellectual depth, I prefer the following order:

1) Dennis Praeger
2) Hugh Hewitt
3) Michael Medved
4) Rush Limbaugh
5) Sean Hannity

Unfortunately, my recent move to God's country means only Sean is on the air in Fargo, ND.

[Ancesthntr]

An addition to your list: Glenn Beck is savagely sarcastic (and more than a bit unconventional), but very effective in making a point by ridiculing the lieberals. He takes Rush's tactic of doing the same, and bumps it up a few orders of magnitude.

Rush is clearly #1, simply based upon the size of his audience, but he's not, IMHO, the most intelligent or articulate (though he's got to be very near the top - how else could he get to the top of the ratings and hold it for so many years?). Why do I say this? Because he is, first and foremost, an entertainer. Too much of his show is dedicated to parody songs, discussions of football, etc., all of which add nothing to the political debate. Don't get me wrong - they ARE entertaining, and I esp. like the parodies, but that is fun, not serious debate. I often wonder whether it would be better for Rush to be more serious with a somewhat smaller audience, but I always conclude that things are best as they are - he reaches many more people with his existing format, and there IS enough substance there to change the minds of many fence-sitters (and even a few lukewarm libs). I do wish, however, that Rush would get his act together with regard to the 2nd Amendment. He makes the right noises most of the time, but is too timid (perhaps because he doesn't want to lose audience share) to come right out and say that the 2nd is there to preserve the means by which we may, someday, have to violently protect our freedoms against our own government, just as the generation of the Founding Fathers had to do.

I pick G. Gordon Liddy as the most intelligent and clearest thinking of the relatively limited number of those whom I've heard over the last several years. He is, in many ways, a true renaissance man. The depth of his knowledge on a very wide variety of subjects is stunning. His only problem is the taint of Watergate, though this is also the very reason why he can command an audience. G. Gordo isn't afraid to say anything about any subject. I especially like it when he describes how many guns "Mrs. Liddy" owns, which he "might happen to pick up" if someone broke into his home (being a convicted felon, he can't legally own a firearm).

Hannity is very good, a worthy successor to Rush in many ways, but he's hardly a doctrinaire conservative (if there truly is such a thing).

Mike Savage is also up there, but I've not heard him too many times.

Michael Reagan is very good, and he has that magic name to help him along.

Dr. Laura is not, IMHO, very effective because her somewhat grating style turns off a lot of people that the logic and morality of (most of) her positions ought to convert.

Paul Harvey is very well known, of course, but is largely unpolitical.

Walter Williams is amazingly bright and articulate, and has the added advantage of having a teflon coating against charges of racism - I really like him best of all among the Rush substitute hosts.

[smiley]

Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush,
Hannity, Hannity, Hannity, Hannity, Hannity, Hannity

[wku man]

Glenn Beck, eh? I have to disagree, but only because I'm comparing his show now to what it was before he went into Cheap Channel syndication. He used to be great, much more opinionated, more edgy, and had better production when he was local here in Tampa. Unfortunately, Cheap Channel turned him into a wimpy, cry-baby, girly man version of what he once was. That's too bad, because he used to be awesome.

My nominee is none other than the Black Avenger, Mr. Ken Hamblin. I'm surprised he's not in more markets that he is.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[chnsmok]

Glenn Beck is the BEST!

[Ancesthntr]

OK, I rambled a bit. Here is my personal favorite's list:

1. Liddy
2. Walt Williams (when he's on, which isn't enough)
3. Rush
4. Glenn Beck
5. Hannity
6. Michael Reagan

[Sinner6]

Here in MN we have a guy named Jason Lewis and I think he rules. Most of his show is dedicated to people calling in, and yes he lets plenty of liberals on.

[GSWarrior]

Dittos to those you've chosen ... especially Michael Savage!

I like Savage but I can't see anyone listening to him day in and day out. He usually talks sense but will veer off into a confrontational mode that, in my opinion, lessens his effectiveness. He comes after you at an emotional, gut level, rather than an intellectual level.

The KSFO morning team (Lee Rodgers and Melanie Morgan) are hands down my favorite conservative commentators.

[GSWarrior]

Thank you. I am no fan of Hedgecock.

[bankwalker]

So who are the Top Ten Callers?

1. Frank from Queens

2. John from Staten Island

3. Carl from Oyster Bay

4. ...

[albee]

While agreeing with the consenus that Rush is #1, there is a local show in the San Francisco Bay Area that precedes Rush and is on between 5:00AM and 9:00AM on 560KSFO. This show is both serious and humorous and features three radio personalities; Lee, Melanie Morgan and "Officer Vic".

They are worth a listen!

[samm1148]

I agree whole-heartedly. I haven't heard Mr Hamblin since I was transferred from Oklahoma to New Jersey in the mid nineties. Rush and Sean and alot of these commentators are good. But when Ken went on a rant the man was on fire! I miss his hard-hitting commentary.

[CyberCowboy777]

I have not heard the Black Avenger since leaving Cali...

[CyberCowboy777]

Locally Lars Larson - Oregon's #1 radio host

[Taliesan]

Glenn Beck is the funniest guy I've heard in years.

But the reason none of these names will ever approach Rush's popularity is that he understands radio the way nobody else does and still, after all these years, nobody gets it.

First, he has an unmatched sense of when the program is moving and when it is getting bogged down. Some of these guys will do 2 hours on some nuance they consider interesting but millions of conservatives' eyes are glazing over in the audience.

Also, they all, except Rush, surrender their shows, at times, to the callers. It is not just a joke that the function of the caller is to make the host look good; 9 out of 10 calls are not interesting, except for how the host responds. If it was the caller we were interested in, we would only need a call screener.

Despite what you may think about his opinion on any given subject, Rush is at the top not because he is more entertaining (Glenn Beck is more entertaining) but because he understands the format better than anybodt else and his instinct for good radio is tops.