Mort Kondracke blames talk radio for GOP perils

[underpants]

First Steps to GOP Recovery

How can the Republican Party rebound? The first step would be to quit letting Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham set its agenda.

But Step One is to fire Rush Limbaugh and his ilk as the intellectual bosses of the GOP. They shouldn't be muzzled, as some liberals want to do by reviving the "fairness doctrine" in broadcasting, just ignored more frequently.

In recent years, Republicans have let right-wing talk show hosts whip the GOP base into frenzies -- over immigration, brain-damage victim Terry Schiavo and same-sex marriage -- that have branded the party as troglodyte.

The result is that the demographic groups representing the future of American politics shifted decisively to the Democratic Party in 2008 -- Latinos, young people, the well-educated, moderates, working women, first-time voters, suburbanites and "seculars."

Immigration scarcely was an issue during the fall campaign. But the damage was done over the past two years as the radio screamers roused the rabble, who then beat on GOP Members of Congress, presidential candidates and even the Bush administration not just to control the border but treat undocumented residents as felons.

Actually solving big problems -- not pandering to a shrinking demographic base -- is the key to Republican success. Good luck.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/first_steps_to_gop_recovery.html

[lamp_shade]

1. Kondrake is dead-on right.

[dkf]

2. Was Kondrake always a conservative?

I always thought he was the supposedly token liberal/moderate.

Not that I watch that show...I can't stand Fox.

[rocktivity]

3. Rocknation blames GOP for right wing talk radio.

They "scream" about what the Rethuglicans ORDER them to scream about. And it was the prospect of continuous war, economic degradation, corporate encroachment, and political corruption that that "shifted the demographics," not "worries" over immigration, Terry Schiavo and same-sex marriage--all neocon-fabricated wedge issues. Oh, and is Kondracke aware that the GOP Congress made Rush Limbaugh an honorary member? Now I'm supposed to believe that they're innocent victims of his "intellectual bossing!"

:eyes:
rocknation

[lisa58]

4. Right Wing Talk Radio was the reason Bush was able to steal two elections

[underpants]

5. Be careful what you wish for GOP

you just might get it

They created this monster and it turned on them. McCain had to appease this crowd in the third debate especially after he picked talk radio in human form as VP nominee.

[Jade Fox]

10. Yep, it's their Frankenstein.....

They created right wing radio, and now it's out of control.

[slackmaster]

6. I have to say this is one of the best pieces Mort has written in a long time

Competition is healthy. I hope the GOP listens to him.

[BlueManDude]

7. He's actually right - I used to fear talk radio, now I see it as helping Democrats.

[Jade Fox]

11. It may be helping Democrats but.....

it's also creating a large segment of the population which is not only ignorant, they are getting more and more out of touch with reality. I know. I sit next to a woman at work who listens to Rush all day, and you can't talk to her about anything, because you can't start at a point located in reality.

This is how so many people could believe that a woman who was a piss-poor student, a (not very good) mayor of a tiny town, and the ignorant, inarticulate Governor of a sparsely populated state for less than two years was somehow qualified to be the second most popular person in the world.

The aggressive ignorance of Right Wing radios junkies scares me.

[BlueManDude]

12. this is true as well. n/t

[creeksneakers2]

8. I'd love to see Limbaugh and Hannity and the

rest of those guys go, not by forcing them out but like Kondacke said, because people stop listening to them.

[Daveparts]

9. Success has many Fathers

Failure is an orphan, the Republicans including the warmed over corpse of Kondracke are looking for villians to crucify. It wasn't Hannity it was sanity, it wasn't Rushes boast it was an economy that's toast. It's easy enough for these blow hards to piss on people and tell them it's raining but it gets alot harder when the shit hits the fan for them to say, "Look snow!"

[Tutonic]

13. I want to thank Rush and the rest of the sycophants. They have

ensured the American public that for the next 30 years we will have Democratic administrations. We will finally be able to get back to where we need to be as a nation. Now if we can only get Palin nominated as their next Presidential pick--we'll be able to drive that stake in the heart of the monstrous GOP.