Remember Rick Santorum, the neb who finished a distant third in Florida ‘s king-making primary last week? There was a lot of buzz about him after that outcome, mostly speculation about whether he should walk off into the Sunshine State sunset. He had only one victory, in tiny Iowa, and even that one was retroactive, announced weeks after the voting. He had no money, no rich backers, no famous billionaires with comb-overs to offer him apprenticeships. And he definitely needed to lose that lame sweater vest. The pundits wrote him off and I was prepared to accept their verdict… until the Limbaugh endorsement. Suddenly, Santorum has a head of steam and he is pulling ahead of his team of competitors. Minnesota minimizes Mitt! Missouri misses the Romney bus! Colorado colors in Santorum! “Wait a second. What are you talking about? Everyone knows Rush Limbaugh does not endorse candidates!” “I didn’t say he did. I was referring to the David Limbaugh endorsement.” “HUH?!” IT IS TRUE THAT RUSH LIMBAUGH has a long-standing practice of refraining to choose sides in primary elections. That is a good plan for a man who holds a position of public trust as an arbiter of a particular set of values. His job is to lay out principles that others can apply to life situations. If he starts telling people what to do, he becomes a private-sector version of big government: a know-it-all who figures out other people’s lives for them. Every four years during the primaries season, people call in begging him to jump on one of the horses in the Republican race, and he wisely holds back. This time around things are different. Barack Obama has lied about many things but he has been truthful in his terrifying Inauguration promise to “remake” America. It may be too late to undo much of the damage he has wrought but one thing is fairly certain: giving him another term will guarantee a legacy of deep systemic damage to this nation. The pressure was building on Rush to accept that this time was the exception that proves the rule. When Rome is burning, Nero cannot be fiddling.
That’s what Rush Limbaugh has called Jeff Lord’s Elliott Abrams item posted below, spending the entire first half hour of his show today discussing and reading from the item, which certainly raises disappointing questions about Abrams. Was he used, or has he simply forgotten neoconservative history? Hard to imagine a great neoconservative doing the latter.
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‘An Absolutely Stunning Piece’
At the time of this writing, one Eastern hour into January 4th of 2012, Rick Santorum is barely ahead in the Iowa caucuses with 29,968 votes to 29,964 for Mitt Romney. Iowa is not known for its consonance, but this kind of multiple avowal is unprecedented. My home state of Florida has decided to freeze tonight in solidarity with Iowa, so this is somewhat akin to an on-the-scene report. Manning my media control center, I observe that Santorum is enjoying a honeymoon with the press that is certain to be limited to a one-night stand. In the moment, all the correspondents are buzzing affirmatively, with the merest hint of a caveat: “Santorum peaked just at the right time… he was the last man standing… he won the game of musical chairs… he visited all 99 counties… he did 367 Town Halls… door to door… retail politics… for now he gets to be the anti-Romney… social conservatives… evangelical vote coalescing… probably not sustainable… not enough cash on hand… doesn’t have the national network.” By morning, they will shake off their hangovers and try to change the channel, adjusting the narrative. The Tea Party was not much of a direct force in Iowa, but its aura will be invoked in trying to portray Santorum as the new incarnation of Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell. Once again, the forces of narrow-mindedness, mean-spiritedness and wrong-headedness had won a Pyrrhic victory. Richard-the-Lionhearted of tonight’s proclamation will give way to Poor Richard in tomorrow’s almanac. For now, there is much talk of the hard work, the doggedness and the good timing. His virtues are being paraded even though their ticker will quickly run out of tape. But there is one piece of the saga that even these erstwhile enthusiasts will not verbalize, the fact that the biggest winner of all this night is Rush Limbaugh. That is because Santorum breached the First Commandment of Republican political consultants: Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of Limbaugh in Advertisement. This has been one of the great anomalies of Republican politics the past two decades. The revolution in talk radio initiated by Limbaugh in 1990 is what gave conservative politics new life after Ronald Reagan’s tenure in office elapsed. Reagan himself acknowledged as much, writing a letter to Limbaugh in 1992 essentially passing the baton of leadership. Despite the fact that Republican candidates have always vied to get some air time on the show, the political consultants they hire have steered them away from quoting Limbaugh by name in other venues or using his name in advertising. The fact that he generally refrains from openly endorsing particular candidates has enabled them to get away with this brand of disloyalty. They can’t very well be expected to cite him in an ad if he has not specifically expressed his backing, can they? Thus the paradox. Five minutes on Limbaugh is worth more than all the campaign ads put together, yet mentioning him in a commercial is seen by campaign managers as taboo. It will anger the independents, they say, and the moderates… and the women… and the minorities… and on and on. The consequence of this strategy is that we wind up with colorless compromisers like Bob Dole and John McCain as Presidential candidates, and elections are written off as losses before the first lever is pulled in the voting booth for a Republican or in the mortuary for a Democrat. This time Santorum broke the mold. He ran a bold ad quoting accolades tossed in his direction by Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Rush Limbaugh. That willingness to name names sent a powerful signal, electrifying the fence that most Iowa Republicans had been sitting on. There are an awful lot of conservative voters who have been waiting a long time to hear their heroes acknowledged. In my estimation, that single advertising spot put Santorum over the top in Iowa. Can Santorum actually win the primaries pursuing this strategy? Well, the first bit of good news came along right away. The word is out that John McCain is about to announce his backing for Romney. This is a contest I will relish watching: Romney ads citing McCain versus Santorum ads citing Limbaugh. Stay tuned.
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And the Winner in Iowa Is… Rush Limbaugh!
That Conor guy at the Atlantic felt the need to slam Limbaugh and in the process claim there is some sort of fight between Limbaugh and others on the right. But there’s a bit of a problem with him dragging me into this fight he wants to pick. He uses a Limbaugh monologue about the GOP establishment attacking Newt as the kick off. The conservative movement, and I mean this from bottom of my large beating heart — ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom — the conservative movement is made up of me, talk radio, the Tea Party and the American people who are conservative. A conservative movement made up of movement media people, there hasn’t been that since Mr. Buckley passed away. And then the guy writes, “When I last aired that quote, I should’ve added that this “challenge their bonifides, not their arguments” approach has always been a self-serving dodge. Yes, there’s karmic justice in seeing Coulter and Erickson subjected to it. But they’ve both articulated earnest concerns about a man who could be president.” First, I should point off that I heard Rush’s monologue and the post Conor lumps in to Rush’s monologue as Rush taking issue with me was written after Rush’s monologue. Second, I largely agree with Limbaugh. Had Conor actually delved into my post he’d see that while I have concerns with Newt, I’d rather be with him than Romney. Third, I would note that Rush lists “talk radio” as being on the conservative side. I write this as I fill in for Neal Boortz on his syndicated show, taking a break from my own talk radio show. Fourth, I’m pretty comfortable, though I haven’t chatted with him about it, that Rush was not slamming Coulter, me, or several others Conor thinks Rush was slamming. Why? Because in the whole of the Rush Limbaugh monologue he was largely focused on the people trotting out the gnostic Washington knowledge about Newt — the Washington insiders lined up with Romney who have come out against Gingrich claiming to have prior knowledge of Gingrich that they may or may not reveal to hurt Gingrich. That definitionally rules out Ann and me. Conor used to pretend to be a conservative. I’m not sure if he still does. But it seems pretty clear in his attempts to cover the conservative movement he spends as much time inserting his wishful thinking into what he writes as he does misinterpreting facts.
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This Conor Guy Just Wanted to Slam Limbaugh, Right?
