Rush Limbaugh has his grip on the GOP microphone

[sce56]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rush8-2009feb08,0,2881422.story

Rush Limbaugh has his grip on the GOP microphone

LOUD AND CLEAR: After President Obama called out the radio host by name, he went on the air and said: "I am Rush Limbaugh, the man President Obama has instructed you not to listen to!" As Republicans grapple with their fall from power, not all are comfortable with the talk radio king's suggestion that he, by default, has become the politically wounded party's unofficial leader.
By Faye Fiore and Mark Z. Barabak
February 8, 2009

Reporting from San Francisco and Washington -- In 1994, Rush Limbaugh was a field marshal in the Republican revolution, rallying troops fervid in their passion, armed with a change agenda and determined to shake Washington upside down. Fifteen years later, Republicans are politically hobbled and Democrats are fervid in their passion, armed with a change agenda and determined, along with their new president, to shake Washington upside down. And again there is Limbaugh, master of the talk radio universe, unchanged and unbowed. If anything, his prominence and political import have increased. Obama is "obviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He's more frightened of me, than he is of, say, John Boehner, which doesn't say much about our party," Limbaugh said on the air, referring to the GOP leaders in the Senate and House, respectively. That may be cause for personal congratulation (not to mention a bigger audience). But as Republicans grapple with their fall from power and undertake some inevitable soul-searching, not all are comfortable with Limbaugh's suggestion that he has become the party's unofficial leader by default. "He motivates a core Republican, who is a very important part of the Republican coalition, and we need those guys to be interested and active," said Jan van Lohuizen, a GOP strategist in Washington. "But it's not enough. The Republican Party has shrunk and it needs to be expanding."
<snip>

Few Republicans dare cross him. "I don't need him crawling up my any more than the president does," said one GOP strategist and Limbaugh critic, who would speak candidly only if granted anonymity.

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) recently learned the perils when he defended McConnell and Boehner in an interview with Politico, a Washington publication. It's easy for Limbaugh to criticize Democrats, Gingrey said, because he doesn't have to work with them every day. After he spoke, Gingrey's office was flooded with calls and e-mails from angry conservatives. He spent the next day apologizing all over cable television and on Limbaugh's show for making "those stupid comments."

These days, the radio host is so front and center that even his absence gets noticed. (He was on vacation last week and unavailable to comment for this article.) The liberal Huffington Post took note of Limbaugh's absence -- "Just as Rush Limbaugh ascends as the top leader of the Republican Party, it appears he has disappeared" -- and suggested sarcastically that he may have been forceably removed.

The voice of the GOP :puke:

Well maybe they will get back in the saddle now that Rush(Oxycotin Pedophile) Lambrain is in charge. :sarcasm:

Maybe we could get a stimulus package for ignorant dumbasses that listen to rush to educate them on what is truly American so they drop the Draft Dodging ChickenHawk!

[babylonsister]

1. Heh. Good. Too bad he's less popular than Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5006330

[TwilightGardener]

2. Pathetic, that an entire party takes its marching orders from an entertainer.

This is the fall of the Roman Empire part 2.

[tsuki]

3. He is the master of all their family values, multiple marriages, viagra,

drugs, and draft-dodger. He puts the chicken in hawk.

[NEOBuckeye]

7. Limbaugh is really nothing more than a loudmouthed bully and a coward.

If this is what passes for "leadership" these days, then there is little in the way of a future for the GOP.

[The Hope Mobile]

9. That's exactly the kind of "leadership" we've had for the last 8 years

Some people still want more of it and that's what scares me. There will always be bullies and there will always be people that are too stupid and/or submissive to think on their own. This, in part, is why I think Obama needs to be a bit more decisive though I totally agree with his philosophy of inclusiveness because that is the more mature/evolved way of looking at the world, bullies don't care about that, they only care about having the power, regardless of who they crush on the way. This is why mean abusive people become republicans. They like throwing their weight around because in real life they are nothing and they know it.

[otohara]

4. Democrats Never Apologize

to angry liberals.

Well a few did over their IWR vote.

[Turbineguy]

5. Dittoheads should get a clue

there's a link between the fact that they will not be able to retire until after they die while he makes $50 million per year.

[libodem]

6. Thus the decent into madness begins

he certainly has some type of personality disorder and the ego of a megalomaniac. His slant on reality is totally out of sequence with the norm. The freak is a mental case! A pervert. An addict. A muckraker. He is irrelevant.

[Skittles]

8. he grips the GOP penis

and regularly whacks it

[Seldona]

10. Now to hold Coulter to the same standard.

That should just about put an end to the republican't party for years to come.

[underpants]

11. Faye and Mark took the easy way out on this article

They just cut and pasted all the talking points about Rush, which deal in a world that sees him as relevant

Get him on the air and let MOST people hear him-after figuring out what the hell is talking about (inside jokes..deep inside) they will realize that he has no relation to the world they live in and that he contradicts himself at the top AND bottom of every hour. Plus it is all so negative that it will turn them away in about 12 minutes-the average listening time of Rush's audience.

[cyclezealot]

12. Grover Norquist. The other string puller of GOP ideology

Limbaugh brow beats them with media distortion. Grover Norquist forces them to sign a pledge saying , 'no new taxes ,ever.' Or else, I'll finance a primary opponent come the next election. And Norquist can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to combat enemy moderates, he calls "Rhino's." I'd say both Norquist and Limbaugh have equal influence over the GOP herd. Look to the recent Stimulus debate. All but three GOP senators, obeyed Limbaugh/Norquist.