Wanted: Liberal Rush Limbaugh's

Worried that their party has been outgunned in the political propaganda wars by conservative radio and television personalities, influential Democrats are scouring the nation for a liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh and the many others on the deep bench of Republican friends.

,...The efforts among influential Democrats, particularly liberals, range from a grass-roots talent search for progressive radio hosts to the creation of research organizations to provide a Democratic spin for the news media, to nascent discussions by wealthy supporters about starting a cable network with a liberal bent.

Hello, just what in the world is CBS/NBC/ABC/PBS/CNN/MSNBC/CNBC. What is the cable networks with the liberal bent they want - Pravda?

People working on these projects acknowledged they were venturing into territory where liberals have failed and failed again, most notably with the short-lived radio programs of Mario M. Cuomo and Jim Hightower, not to mention Phil Donahue's struggling liberal talk show on MSNBC.

...However, they said, the recent Republican gains have perhaps set the backdrop for the emergence of an angry liberal who could claim the same outsider status that worked so well for Mr. Limbaugh in the early 1990's.

Typical lie, it couldn't have anything to do with ideas resonating with people. How do they explain Mr. Limbaugh's audience increase during both GOP and Democratic administrations?" Mr. Donahue's show is not struggling it is dead and is on artificial respiration, the ratings flat lined after the first week.

..."If you start from the premise that the message was right, which we do, then the problem was that it wasn't getting out to the people," said one official of the Democratic Party who spoke on condition that his name not be used.

Garbage in, garbage out. Start from a faulty premise and the results are going to be skewed. The Dim erratic party message did get out and for the most part it was rejected.

..."Progressives have this problem: They sound too erudite, it's like eggheads talking at you," Mr. Athens said. "We believe that progressive talk radio can be every bit as successful as conservative talk radio if people present and format a show that people like."
[Full Whining Story]

When I looked up erudite in the thesaurus it gave James Carville and Paul Begala as antonyms. If Radio talk shows were 1 to 3 minutes long then liberal talk shows would be successful. They have always been successful in the sound bite wars but substantive solutions to real problems is a weakness. The other problem is that real people can call into these shows and challenge their opinions if they don't call screen out all who might disagree with them. Neil Boortz (who I can only listen to in moderation) once talked about an offer he made to two liberals talk show hosts to do his program for a week while he was on vacation. They would only accept the offer if they could control and screen the calls themselves.