Posted on 11/13/2002 7:16:52 PM PST by What Is Ain't
Now that the Democrats have had their backsides handed to them, analysts are expecting them to spend a lot of money researching such things as why they were so roundly rejected by exurban voters, and whether Al Gore has any life left in him for another run in 2004.
But I wonder if they might do better if they just saved their money and bought up some talk radio stations. When the political scientists start studying this midterm election, I think they'll find that conservative talk radio was the GOP's most effective secret weapon — "secret" only because people who don't know or care what a "dittohead" is have no idea how powerful it is, or what a role it plays in the lives of independent voters stuck in rush-hour traffic.
Radio may seem like such 20th century, Mondale-era technology, and yet self-proclaimed "21st century" candidates like U.S. Sen.-elect Norm Coleman have been very effective at riding its below-the-radar wave for getting voters on the bandwagon. Remember our former mayor's faux-folksy KSTP show in which he referred to himself as "Norm from St. Paul,'' a title that belied his Brooklyn accent? The radio career of Jesse Ventura clearly helped his name recognition in his run for the governor four years ago. And he used his bully pulpit on WCCO's "Lunch With the Governor" to rant about his personal peeves and rail against the "despicable" tone of the Williams Arena service after Paul Wellstone's death.
In fact, talk radio's reaction to the Wellstone memorial service offers a textbook example of why Democrats should be shopping around for a transmitter of their own. Let's review:
On Tuesday, Oct. 29, there was a remembrance service for Sen. Paul Wellstone, his wife, daughter, and three staffers. The event included some beautifully humane eulogies, several reprises of the disco hit "Love Train," and a few unfortunate moments in which a grief-stricken staffer appealed to Republicans to help win Wellstone's seat back, and when some audience members booed Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., when they saw his face on the Jumbotron.
These moments were fleeting in a memorial service that lasted more than three hours, but on talk radio the next day they took on an eternal life all their own. For instance, KQRS' Tom Barnard, who led an on-air campaign for Coleman, and who, several weeks before the plane crash, wished Wellstone would "drop dead,'' was fuming over the event and claiming that he was now a full-blooded Republican — as if any of his listeners could possibly be in doubt. (If you think the moronic ravings of his Morning Crew couldn't possibly matter in the world of politics, keep in mind that Tim Pawlenty appeared on the show the morning after the election. Voters stuck in traffic were some of his biggest supporters.)
Rush Limbaugh made those few minutes at Wellstone's memorial the subject of days and days of fulmination on his program. Of particular concern to him was that Minnesotans in mourning were unable to overcome their partisan feelings when honored dignitaries came to pay their last respects. Of course, Limbaugh was not so outraged a year ago, when firefighters at a concert to honor the dead of 9/11 booed New York Sen. Hilary Clinton. In fact, Limbaugh cheered along.
On Wednesday after the memorial service, the callers on local conservative talk radio were predictably whipped up about what they saw as a free advertisement for the Democrats. But their calls that day had to be forwarded all the way to the White House lawn, where President Bush was hosting "Radio Day." Some 50 conservative radio hosts and reporters, everyone from our own Joe Soucheray to Oliver North and Sean Hannity, were on hand five days before the election lobbing softball questions at the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Condoleezza Rice and Karl Rove. On that day, hearing call-in listeners complain of a "partisan tone" or "liberal media bias" was plainly hilarious. If the Democrats had any guts at all, they would have asked for equal time.
Of course, the Democrats haven't had guts in awhile. That's one of their myriad problems, the main one being an inability to communicate a message that actually moves people on issues like education, the environment and peace-making foreign policy.
The Republicans had one, and broadcast it loud and clear. It was so successful that this week, Tom DeLay invited Rush Limbaugh to the Capitol to say a few words to the GOP's incoming freshman class.
If the Democrats got one, and broadcast it loud and clear, maybe a few years from now Al Franken and Garrison Keillor could be prevailed upon to say a few words to the incoming freshman class, too.
I also notice the article conveniently left out the jolly faces of the Clintons and Mondale, the disinvitation of the Vice President, the odious speech by Kahn, the speech by Harken, and the boos directed towards Jesse Ventura, who eventually walked out, as did Lott.
I watched the whole thing. Obviously, this writer didn't or is lying.
Also, I am still waiting for an explanation of why the concession stands were open at such a solemn event.
There is a reason the airways are not full of liberal talk shows. No one listens. (Phil Donahue is a prime example.)
They have tried it with everyone from Alan Combs to Ed Koch and Mario Coumo. They have tried profesional radio news types, former personality jocks(in the Rush style) and famous political names. They were at first put on larger stations with big coverage.. But they just bomb. The ratings are terrible. No matter what was on the station before you put the lib on, the ratings went down. The conclusion is there are no programs that draw less audience.
It is interesting to note that Shawn Hannity is not on top stations in Clear Channel dominated markets. Clear channel has the rights to Rush and others. ABC has Shawn and Clear channel is not interested in carrying shows owned by ABC.
Shawn is on the ABC owned and operated stations in the 7 bigest markets. But is on small fringe stations in many other towns.
One of my client stations put Shawn on a low power AM with lousy coverage. It is a directional AM that points the wrong way. This station had never made the ratings. Atleast no one can remember when it ever has. Listeners have to DIG this station out of the background noise. But no one else in the market took Shawn so they let us carry him. For the first time ever this station made the ratings. Not only did Shawns time slot make the ratings, his lead in and following shows made the ratings too.
The famous case was a station in Cleveland who put Jane Fonda on live. This was when you could get fired for saying water closet. She used the f word several times... No one noticed.
Lott and Ventura were not featured speakers of the Wellstone memorial. They were booed as they made their entrances.
Clinton invited herself to the benefit concert held for the policemen/firefighters. They booed her.
I see a distinction there.
The author of the article is either intentionally lying or ignorant. The talk radio hosts invited to 'Radio Day' were not all conservatives.
Don't know about all of the radio technicalities, but I get Shawn on WLS (Chicago)at 9:00 p.m., and it's a pretty high power station. WLS is predominately conservative with a few serious libs in off hours.
However, any time they have put whiney libs into the prime listening slots, they have been removed in a very short time. The libs can whine all they want--if anyone really wanted to listen to them, I am sure WLS would have more lib time slots.
There is another reason...they don't have any positive issues. It's 100% negative. Conservatives have positive issues that are starting to resonate with the masses.
My guess is that she wrote this piece because she's still skeeved at being sacked by KSTP. It must especially rankle her that Joe Soucheray -- who writes for the same paper as she does, first went on the air at about the same time as she did, and whom she clearly considers her intellectual inferior -- hosts a hugely successful program, and continues to draw more listeners in every rating period.
First, NPR morning news already fills the 'liberal elite' demographic for "talk radio."
Second I find that talk radio is for men what magazines like Harper's Bazaar are for women. There is more that the 'politically correct' amount of male hormone in talk radio conversations. This kind of talk turns Democrats off like a light and the lack of it makes the center to right talk radio listeners tune out.
Third, the companies that own the broadcast networks and CNN have abandoned their corp news consuming center to right demographic, and they did it a generation ago. It wasn't until the Reagan Administration killed the "Fairness Doctrine" in the 1980s and radically lowered the regulatory barriers to market entry that conservatives like Rush Limbaugh could take advantage.
Last, the telecommunications revolution and the internet have further lowered the economic barriers to market entry. Now the big media broadcast and print media houses have numerous small competators they never anticipated before with wildly different market models.
The Free Republic is just one example of this competition.
The Drudge Report, WorldNetDaily, National Review On-Line, NewsMax, Lucciane.com and Tech Central Station are all out there now forcing into the media 'bigs' to report things on subjects they would have spiked even 10 years ago.
The demographic implications of the information technology field being over whelmingly white male is that the politcally motivated techies create sites that cater to their conservative and libertarian views.
When Ventura and Lott got booed, they had the decency to know they were not welcomed there. So they left. Since Ole Crusty doesn't know the meaning of the word decency she stayed where she wasn't wanted.
Is Hillary spelled wrong or do I need glasses?
The Democrats can also buy up all the talk stations they want and staff them with liberals, but they'd better be prepared to sell them six months later at a giant loss when the ratings tank. Liberals can't make it in talk radio because it requires two talents that seem to be beyond them:
1. Being able to make a clear, logical case for your point of view and defend it to callers without getting nasty and resorting to name calling.
2. A sense of humor. Liberals think they're funny, and some are -- when they are doing non-political humor. But get them onto politics and they can't be funny because they're too hateful, and self-deprecation is not in their vocabulary. While shows like Rush's use genuinely funny satire to lampoon the other side's political positions, liberal political "humor" is usually just snide, juvenile personal attacks, as witness such brilliant liberal "humorists" as Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower and Al "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" Franken. Nobody wants to spend three hours a day in the company of a self-righteous bitch. That's why Hillary Clinton has to pay her staffers so much.
So go ahead, DNC: spend all your money on radio stations. It would be an even faster way to squander it than spending it all on campaign ads for Bill McBride.
BTW, as for the Wellstone memorial vs. the NY concert, there is a big difference. The Wellstone thing was promoted as a dignified, nonpartisan memorial service, and the Republican mourners who were booed had nothing to do with the death of Paul Wellstone, the paranoid fantasies of some liberals notwithstanding. The New York event, on the other hand, was a rock concert. Only a liberal would think the standards of behavior for a funeral and a rock concert are identical. And the people who booed Hillary did so because they held her and her useless husband directly responsible for the deaths of their friends and family members, due to their failure to respond to previous, ever-escalating terrorist attacks. It might not have been nice to boo her, but it was not wildly inappropriate to the situation, and it was certainly justifiable.
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