Much to my surprise, it turns out conservative David Frum emphatically agrees with a point I made last August: that talk radio hurts the Republican cause.
Frum, who served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, was the talk of the town in Washington, D.C., last week after writing a column calling the passage of Obama’s health care proposal the “most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s” for Republicans. Frum heaped blame for the defeat on talk radio and Fox TV extremists. Just a few weeks before this, he wrote a piece for Newsweek entitled “Why Rush is Wrong” that excoriates talk radio king Rush Limbaugh.
In my column last August, I noted that while Republicans need to rebuild a majority coalition, “talk radio has exactly the opposite goal. It gets its high ratings by specifically targeting a minority of Americans.”
Frum went much further: “[Rush] claims 20 million listeners per week, and that suffices to make him a very wealthy man. And if another 100 million people cannot stand him, what does he care?”
I wrote that “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.”
Frum, again, went much further, describing why Republicans couldn’t compromise on health care: “Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?”
Yes, Frum wrote, Fox and talk radio mobilizes supporters, but they do so “with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information. … Overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government.”
Frum’s piece in Newsweek called Limbaugh “a walking stereotype of self-indulgence,” the worst possible image for the Republican party, who alienates women and independent voters. “Limbaugh is kryptonite, weakening the GOP nationally,” Frum fumed.
The payback came quickly. Conservatives were so angry that Frum was ousted from his position as a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Nope, moderation is not appreciated these days by conservative zealots.
Locally, you need look no further than the race for U.S. senator to see how difficult it has become for moderates to buck conservative Republicanism. GOP strategists are dying for former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson to run against Democratic incumbent Russ Feingold. Thompson was the classic Republican moderate, someone who departed from party orthodoxy, bullishly declaring his support of Obama’s health care package. Now, Thompson has flip-flopped and opposes the legislation.
This is probably the surest sign Thompson is seriously considering entering the race: He’s convinced he can’t get the GOP faithful excited about his candidacy if he favors health care. But it leaves him looking wildly inconsistent. It won’t help Tommy to offer a tortured, John Kerry-style formulation that “I was for it before I was against it.”
And even if Tommy somehow convinces voters he really, truly, always opposed the health care plan, it’s hardly clear this would help in the election. By November, as Frum notes, “the immediate goodies in the health care bill will be reaching key voting blocs.”
Frum chastises the Republicans for offering “no negotiations, no comprise, nothing” on the health care plan – unlike Democrats, who were willing to make a deal with Bush in 2001 on the tax cut bill. He contends the plan that passed was not that far from Republican Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan or from Heritage Foundation ideas developed as counterproposals to the Clinton health proposal of the 1990s.
Thompson apparently felt the same way, which is why he supported the Democrats’ health plan. But now he’s had to kowtow to the GOP’s talk radio-enforced political orthodoxy. In a state that has always liked mavericks, that may come back to haunt Tommy.
Buses Aren’t Empty
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the decline of the Milwaukee County Transit System, decrying the cutbacks in funding. This generated comments and e-mail from readers suggesting the buses were empty and that’s why County Executive Scott Walker was cutting back the service. That seems untrue in two ways. Walker has long argued that buses are the best form of public transit, and wanted all $91.5 million of the federal money promised to Milwaukee for transit to go to buses rather than rail. (The Democratic-controlled Congress gave him 40 percent of the money for buses and 60 percent to the city for a rail line.) Walker has always given the impression of cutting back the bus system reluctantly, as a way of keeping down the county budget.
As for empty buses, it’s worth noting a state study that found Milwaukee’s bus system rates high nationally in passengers per revenue hour and expenses per passenger. I also checked with the Milwaukee County Transit System about the ridership numbers for their routes. They sent me a list of their top 29 routes with ridership per bus hour: It ranged from a high of 51 passengers per hour for the No. 30 bus to a low of 18 for the No. 64 bus.
Buses are certainly empty on occasion, as the transit system’s Web site notes: “For example, Route 27 carries 11,503 passengers on one average weekday. It travels from 27th and Sycamore to Green Bay and Hampton for the majority of the trips. As the bus starts out on its run, it might only have a couple people on board, but as it travels along the route, it picks up additional people and lets others off, as a bus should do. But, by the end of the trip, all people will be off the bus.”
As I noted in my column two weeks ago, ridership on Milwaukee County buses declined by 25 percent from 2000 to 2009, dropping from 52.8 million to 39.4 million rides. Some are predicting an additional 30 percent cutback in the next budget if no funding alternatives are found. We are steadily decimating a bus system that has long ranked as one of the nation’s finest.
The Buzz
-There has never been much of a defense for the outlandish salaries earned by business executives. In response to the federally required reductions in compensation of executives at banks and financial companies the government bailed out, some protested that executives would flee to other jobs. Guess what? It didn’t happen.
A recent New York Times story reported that of 104 senior executives whose pay was reduced by the federal government in the last two years, 88 or nearly 85 percent, are still with the companies.
The truth is that these jobs are hotly coveted and hard to get. The incredible rise in executive salaries over the last 30 years wasn’t caused by market forces, and if salaries are reduced, there will still be businesspeople clamoring for these jobs.
-Once the laughingstock of the Milwaukee County Board, Tony Zielinski has become a seemingly statesmanlike candidate for lieutenant governor, as NewsBuzz reports. And Milwaukee now has a Garden District. Who knew?
-And why does the Journal Sentinel keep getting scooped on clergy sex abuse stories? Pressroom Buzz offers a frank analysis.
