To Mr G

Mr. G,

The Erstwhile Conservative is the only addition to the Globe’s reshuffled deck of community bloggers that has captured my attention. Unnaturally attracted to adjectives (the more archaic the better), the use of “erstwhile” to describe your political hang leads me to believe that you have split the sheets with Reagan Revolution dead enders. If so, then I applaud the divorce. It is a rotten shame that the once reasonably sane Republican Party continues to shed constituents who refuse further pulls of “movement‘” backwash.

I, too, took El Rushbo to task for his lame-brained sophistry sold as cutting-edge political satire, and squandered many long minutes’ euphemistically cattle prodding the garrulous blowhard. Aside from being a large target to lampoon (is it a coincidence lampoon rhymes with harpoon?), the thought that local Rush cultists might accidentally read my sacrilege and experience psychogenetic thrombosis made my coffee break. Although a lapsed Franciscan, old habits die-hard: I can easily pretend tooth-picked party favors are T-bones.

The power vacuum within the GOP is obvious. Believing Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich or Bobby Jindal can lead the free-trading righteous back to the promised land requires a miracle worthy of Old Testament pyrotechnics. Void of salient alternatives to counter President Obama’s massive federal spending stimulus plan, the best supposedly serious GOP legislators can do is stall for time and hope the economy continues to fail. If swallowed whole by another great depression, then Dr. LaNear’s fabled pseudo-economic “theories” can once again find favor with destitute taxpayers and social conservatives living in abandoned cars. Of course, labor unions and Jimmy Carter are the culprits responsible for banks playing craps with credit default swaps. Everybody eyeball to ileum knows that.

As usual, I am wandering. Here is the gist: Limbaugh’s influence is vastly overrated. Conde Nast researched the size of his listening audience and arrived at a number noticeably smaller than the assumed 20 million per week figure. The best guesstimate is that 13 million tune in and out each week. Alas, there is no way to arrive at an accurate measurement because of Arbitron’s less than scientific accounting system. However, just for fun, let us assume that 30% of 13 million ears think Supreme Magisterium is full of bull dookium. Simple math would indicate that the most coveted herd in talk radio is more global warming friendly than reported. Dividing ten million into 188,000,000 million registered voters makes Limbaugh’s 19% approval rating quite generous.

Corporations spending precious dollars advertising on EIB cannot be thrilled that the ditto head’s average age is 67. Perhaps this explains why Fox News (which suffers the same demographic nightmare) peddles an inordinate amount of adult diapers and todger resurrection pills. I like to think the typical Bill O’Reilly fan is literally pooping his or her pants AND going blind. Because of my gentle nature, I am incapable of imagining what the typical Glenn Beck aficionado is up to; but the odds are good that ammo clips, Prozac and six-volt batteries are involved.

Yale University provides further details about the actual strength of right-wing media: http://research.yale.edu/environment/leiserowitz/page17.html

Rush Limbaugh and the other cookie cutter imitators are loud leftovers from another era. As long as the mostly rural radio stations can afford to carry the wall-to-wall “anti-liberal” format, then a minority of disgruntled, aging southern white men can party like its 1994. Unless the GOP can find a way to regain lost moderate and independent voters there is the very real possibility that a hybrid grafting of theocrats and latter day Know-Nothings will mutate into regional pockets of political insignificance. The implosion of the Republican Party creates wide-ranging speculation as to what phoenix will arise from its’ ashes.

The near future will be historic indeed.

Sincerely,

J. McKnight

PS: Nice job introducing Geoff Caldwell to a mirror.







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Larry's Fine

Counting the cover letter, House Republicans offered a detailed 18 page budget proposal to counter President Obama’s FY2010 federal spending frenzy. Complete with several graphs, the GOP’s response was complimented by Washington Post columnist David Broder for using Kinko’s instead of Rep. Roy Blunt’s old mimeograph machine -- the one he liberated from Springfield, Missouri’s courthouse before Union troops could confiscate Confederate property. With tears in his eyes, House Minority Leader John Boehner pleaded with eight reporters to take special note of page six. Unfortunately, page six was missing from the classy cobalt blue binders.

Clearly frustrated, Rep. Mike Pence, former talk radio shock jock and Bass Pro Shop underwear model, Moe-slapped Rep. Eric Cantor for not taking the situation seriously. Cantor, annoyed by the unexpected cuffing, pointed out that Rep. Michelle Bachmann was wearing a gorilla suit. Verging forth from the tussling public servants, Rep. David Dreier shouted out that keeping the Bush tax cuts was the only way to thwart President Obama’s scheme to redistribute corporate wealth, drawing hooted agreement from CNBC‘s Jim Cramer. The press conference was saved from becoming another ill-conceived reality show when Rep. Paul Ryan started chanting USA! USA! On cue, the Republican delegation, sparklers in hand, formed a loose circle around the nearest ATM machine.
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Joe the Plumber Update: Sam Wurzlebacher, the non-plumber/journalist and self-professed “horny guy” has weighed in on the Employee Free Choice Act. He’s against it. Although it’s not clear how Sam is paying his bar tab these days, Americans for Prosperity spokesperson Mary Ellen Burke said, “He represents the American worker”. Coming to after a lengthy Captain Crunch binge, Juan Don’s reply to Miss Burke was expressed metaphysically through the use of enigmatic Yaqui silence.
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From the Madame Rosa File: “Gov. Sarah Palin’s political action committee (SARAHPAC) may be less about funding her presidential ambitions and more about paying off her mounting legal bills, rumored to be half a million dollars. Fending off myriad charges of violating state ethics gets expensive. More troubling financial news for the governor is that the proposed $11 million dollar book deal advance is on hold; as her popularity fades so does her market value. Compounding her woes, Sen. Lisa Murkowski has no intention of vacating her seat in order to advance Palin’s national political ambitions and Republican state legislators are going public voicing their dismay at the governor’s job performance -- or lack thereof. It’s reasonable to conclude that the glaring media spotlight hasn’t enhanced her reputation with fellow Alaskans. Her re-election chances, once considered a done deal, have become problematical

Assuming that Palin is serious about a presidential bid in 2012, losing her office via the ballot box would erase her previous claim of being the nation’s most popular state governor. If she decides not to seek re-election over fears of being voted out of office, then her handlers will be hard pressed to come up with a viable rationale explaining why the “popular” reformer opted not to seek another term. I won’t go near Jasper Bass’ snarky query: How would her rightwing evangelical supports react to yet another bastard grandchild?
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Interesting website of the day: http://baselinescenario.com/

JB