FeedWith Off-Year Elections Looming, Wrong Time to Fight Rush
It was confirmed today that the White House is running a campaign against Rush Limbaugh. Is this a smart strategy?
Rush Limbaugh was a leading force in the Republican Revolution two years after Bill Clinton first won election. The freshmen Republicans dubbed themselves the “Dittohead Caucus” after their sweeping victory in 1994. Obviously Rush played a critical role in 94' election. Is it smart for the media and the White House to target Limbaugh at a time when a repeat of that 1994 revolution is most likely to occur?
The problem for Obama and the liberal media is that Democrats often fail to show up in off-year elections, when there is no presidential election. In 2010, the problem for Democrats will almost certainly be worse. The support for Obama this past election was very particular to him. ‘Obama-nation’ is a clever catch-phrase, but it is also accurate. Many have rightly dubbed Obama’s following a ‘cult of personality.’ With Obama not on the ballot, the Democrats will be starved of critical grass-roots support.
Obama can make as many pleas as he wants for his supporters to vote, but the fact that he is not on the ballot will be enough to keep millions of his cultish followers from ever tuning into politics. They simply will not hear his pleas. The entertainment media will not campaign for the Democrats like they did for Obama. Their audience won't tolerate such 'boring' talk. Even if Letterman and the others do campaign with Limbaugh as the chief demon, most of these Obama voters simply won't care. Limbaugh's public profile is nowhere near as large as Bush's was. Many of these Obama voters probably don't know who Rush Limbaugh is.
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Rush Limbaugh commands a huge following. While not as large as Obama’s, it is every bit as passionate. Picking a fight with Limbaugh can only serve to spur them to contribute, knock doors, and vote in larger numbers. This is the formula that led to the Republican Revolution. While well over one-hundred million people voted in the last election, the 2010 election will probably not see more than seventy or eighty million voters. Limbaugh has twenty million listeners a week. When you add Limbaugh’s listeners to all the Republicans, Independents and some Democrats who do not listen to Rush, but will be weary of the in-party’s policies, a tried and true trend in almost every election after a new president is elected, another Republican Revolution could result.
Whether this happens or not depends in large part on the degree of determination the partisans have on both sides. Attacking Limbaugh just serves to enliven the conservative base even more than it already is. And yes, there are Limbaugh listeners out there who would not vote if Limbaugh were not attacked, probably millions of them. It’s easy to forget to vote in off-year elections for many, but not when a personality you love is attacked. One is tempted to assume that all Dittoheads will vote automatically because of their strong political interest, but any group of people, no matter how politically interested, will have those who sit out elections.
Despite this reality, the White House and MSNBC have targeted Limbaugh hoping to make him the default leader of the Republican Party. The problem for them is that much of their audience has already tuned politics out and won’t tune it back in until 2012, when Obama is back on the ballot, but as always the Dittoheads are watching closely. The backlash to the White House Limbaugh strategy will likely be bigger than the intended effect.
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