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.
