Rush to judgement

When I as out running this morning I started thinking about the hoopla over Rush and the Republicans. The final thought was that someone on the Democratic side was doing a masterful job of stoking the controversy. On one hand I was kind of happy to see this being done so effectively. The result could well be to splinter the Republican party.

Simple facts and math tell you that for entertainers such as Rush and Hannity that a following of 5 - 20 million people can make you very, very wealthy. They have cultivated this following very carefully over many years. The result is that these are the most diehard of the "conservative" movement. The problem is this following alone won't win many elections.

Now this is what worked for Rove with Rush's help in 2000 and 2004. They were able to inflame their base with nonsense. They were able to satisfy just enough independents to tie the election. The problem they have know is kind of like fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. The public wasn't falling for that again. Obama not only ignited the democratic base he created a new base of African Americans, especially those who hadn't voted before, discouraged people who hadn't voted in a long time, college kids and young voters.

As a result no matter how excited Palin was able to get the base this strategy was bound to fail and fail it did handily. Now the Republicans find themselves reaching for a direction. Somehow the default has fallen upon Rush Lindbaugh.

This started with a highly noticed but seemingly off the cuff comment by President Obama.

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

This statement was made just 3 days after taking office. It elevated Rush back onto the national stage in the middle of a very important debate. Rush took the bait hook, line, and sinker. Of course President Obama was responding to Rush's statment that "I hope he fails" . Which has lived on and repeated this weekend. The Republicans took the ball and ran with it ever since. There has since been three GOP politicians who have publicly apologize to Rush for disagreeing with him.

The Democrats have spent little time pouncing on this. The Rush Limbaugh Apology machiney. Tim Kaine's statement from the DNC. DNC Chair Kaine's Statement.

AUC has come out with a couple of adds on this topic.



And how about this one.


As the republicans are eating their young a story appears that provides just a little background to all of this. J. Martin over at Politico is reporting on the background in a very detailed report.
Rsuh Job.

The seeds were planted in October after Democracy Corps, the Democratic polling company run by Carville and Greenberg, included Limbaugh’s name in a survey and found that many Americans just don’t like him.“His positives for voters under 40 was 11 percent,” Carville recalled with a degree of amazement, alluding to a question about whether voters had a positive or negative view of the talk show host.

Paul Begala, a close friend of Carville, Greenberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, said they found Limbaugh’s overall ratings were even lower than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s controversial former pastor, and William Ayers, the domestic terrorist and Chicago resident who Republicans sought to tie to Obama during the campaign.

Now on the other hand. While it is good to see a big hot air bag get tangled and most likely do great harm to party of the few, I am hopefull that this is not to be a mainline business for the Obama administration. Politics is dirty business and this is softball compared to what the Bushies undertook (See Valerie Plame). I will enjoy the show for now and acknowledge it may well give President Obama the additional leverage to do the things he was elected to do. To be honest with myself I will have to keep an eye open on where it goes. You know on second thought compared to Plamegate this is simply good honest fun.