“Thank heavens for Talk Radio,” Republican operative and MacIver Institute blogger Brian Fraley recently declared. And why not? Talk radio hosts like Charlie Sykes and Jeff Wagner make no pretense of being objective and routinely run material intended to help the GOP.
But here’s a thought: Maybe talk radio isn’t so helpful to the party. The current challenge for Republicans is to find some way to rebuild a majority coalition. They must go beyond their conservative base and connect to independents and even socially conservative Democrats.
Talk radio has exactly the opposite goal. It gets its high ratings by specifically targeting a minority of Americans. Its hosts succeed by riling up an angry segment of conservatives and convincing them they are getting screwed by powerful, left-leaning institutions and leaders. Even when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, talk radio still played the victim card, suggesting all those bad liberals were somehow wielding tremendous power that would destroy America. But talk radio is always more potent when conservatives are out of power, when there is more anger to stoke among listeners.
Republicans desperately want to broaden their base. But talk radio will punish them for any attempt to do so – for any departure from politically correct conservative dogma. Sykes even attacked popular former Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus (now deceased) a few years ago as a “Republican In Name Only,” or RINO. Capitol insiders say that most Republican legislators in Southeast Wisconsin are fearful of being attacked by Sykes as RINOs and will therefore avoid making common cause with Democrats, even if it means passing legislation that might be good for Wisconsin and for GOP candidates.
Talk radio is in the entertainment business. It provides more heat than light. “Rush Limbaugh’s whole thing is entertainment,” Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele complained back in March. “Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly.” Yet once Limbaugh blasted back, Steele apologized. Republicans dare not antagonize talk radio.
Americans have noticed. A recent poll found Limbaugh was rated the most important spokesperson for the Republican Party. Imagine if Michael Moore was the most important spokesperson for the Democrats, and you may see the problem.
Limbaugh doesn’t have to be credible with the majority of Americans. And he isn’t. In his quest for ratings-building controversy, he even joined (for a while) the “birthers,” those crazies claiming President Barack Obama lacks an American birth certificate. The more this kind of nonsense gets associated with Obama’s opponents, the more silly the opposition looks.
Defenders of talk radio, and of the shrill right wing of the GOP, will point to Obama’s ratings: His approval rating has dropped considerably with Americans. But at what price? Take a look at Pollster.com, which tracks party identification of Americans. Back when Obama was elected, about 37 percent of Americans identified themselves as Democrats, versus 26 percent who called themselves Republicans. Today, Democrats are down to 34 percent, but Republicans are down to 23 percent. Mostly, the attacks by Republicans have increased the number of independents.
But the net effect has been to leave the already-strong Democratic Party in an even stronger position. A recent Gallup poll found 29 states and the District of Columbia are strongly Democratic and eight more states lean Democratic, a gain of two leaning Democratic since Obama was elected. America now has just four solidly Republican states and one leaning Republican.
Ultimately the pendulum will swing the other way. But not without effort by the GOP. When politicians are down as far as the Republicans are, they usually need to reinvent the party. But that’s something talk radio hosts are likely to bitterly oppose.
Lawton the Lightweight?
A popular pastime among Wisconsin political insiders aligned with either party is to make fun of Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton. She’s flaky. She’s too liberal. Gov. Jim Doyle hates her. Doyle was looking for some way to dump her. And so, the news that Lawton would run for governor was greeted with more such off-the-record derision.
But sometimes the insiders are wrong. If Mayor Tom Barrett doesn’t run in the Democratic primary (and Journal Sentinel reporter Dan Bice offers reason to believe he won’t), that would leave U.S. Rep. Ron Kind as the ostensible front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Kind is a centrist Democrat, which would help him in the general election, but may hurt him with more liberal voters in the primary. Kind has done well in his swing district along the Mississippi River, but is unknown to the rest of the state – and all of its major media markets. Kind has been in Congress for 12 years and will need to get up-to-speed on state issues, and will need to elevate the careful, tamped-down style of politics he has practiced as a congressman.
Lawton, meanwhile, is a liberal who will appeal to many Democrats who never warmed to Doyle. She is personally charming and now has campaigned statewide twice while running for lieutenant governor. She has a base in Green Bay and a following among liberals in Madison, like this blogger and The Capital Times, which has profusely praised her in the past. She may have a particular appeal for women voters.
Lawton has had it easy in a low-visibility office like lieutenant governor. In the glare of a gubernatorial campaign, she may prove out of her depth. But it’s worth noting that Tommy Thompson was once derided as a cornball political hack with no chance of winning a race for governor. It’s way too early to count Lawton out in this election.
The Buzz
-The Gallup Poll on political identification showed one-time swing state Wisconsin (in 2000 and 2004) now is solidly Democratic, with 49 percent of people identifying themselves as Democrats and 37 percent going Republican, a 12 percent edge in party identification for Democrats.
-While it may be a curse to run for governor as a candidate from Milwaukee, what if both opponents are from this city? What if Barrett does run and wins the Democratic primary and Scott Walker is his opponent? That would guarantee a governor from Milwaukee, and a lower turnout among voters in Northern Wisconsin. But would it be Republicans or Democrats in that area who sit out the race?
-The Sunday JS ran a briefer version of a New York Times story documenting the harmful effect of the weed killer atrazine, which is washing into water supplies and is associated with birth defects and menstrual problems. But the JS left out the graph showing the effect is minimal in Wisconsin, where just 1.9 percent of the population is exposed to the chemical, compared to hot spots like Kansas (70.4 percent), Maryland (69 percent), Nebraska (52 percent) and Kentucky (45 percent).
-The speculation that Doyle will get nothing done now that he’s a lame duck seems curious to me. Democrats still control both houses of the legislature and the governor’s mansion, which is a rare situation indeed. If they can’t seize this moment and find a way to work together over the next year, then perhaps they deserve to lose power in November 2010.
And with Favre playing for the Vikings, the Sports Nut wonders: Should the Packers pick up a Vikings quarterback?
