I am neither Liberal nor Conservative, but I tend to vote Liberal . . . only because Liberals make me want to puke, while Conservatives make me want to have a lobotomy.
Limbaugh is a fraud, a manipulator and an opportunist. If you take him seriously, that’s your problem.
Limbaugh is annoying but not all bad.
I liked Beck back when he was on around 10 in the morning - more funny, less dramatics.
O’Reilly can be entertaining, though overbearing.
Michael Savage is a blot upon polite society.
I think the most interesting numbers in the poll (at this point) is not the 97 liberal posters who rarely agree with him but the conservative disagree/agree numbers of 14/11.
Thanks for all the responses - from both sides of and those on the fence! It’s been an interesting read. And I’ll probably re-read again this afternoon, to digest it all a bit more.
To those who asked: I’m Australian. Yes, we do have shock-jocks here. I can pick our shock-jocks easily - but it’s not as obvious in a different cultural context, and I wanted to see some opinions.
Although we have a lot in common with the US, there’s some areas where we could easily be on neighbouring planets! 
Essured, here are a few links to pieces on Limbaugh which have run in the New York Times. The first one is fairly laudatory and it’s clear that the author finds himself liking Limbaugh despite himself. You are likely to find out much more in the way of accurate and legitimate information about him and whatever influence he wields by reading them than by what you’ll find here, which is mostly people who hate him because of his politics and what they’ve heard he’s said or how they’ve heard him characterized by other liberals. What I think you’ll find is a guy who is very good at what he does, has a good sense of humor, and wields much less electoral influence than you may think.
I chose “other.” I’m a conservative, but I have no idea if I agree with him or not because I don’t listen to him. I hear about his opinions second hand now and again, but not often enough to know what he’s on about lately.
:dubious:
If you want to know where liberals get the idea that Limbaugh’s top priority is saying what will make him the most money, well, they get it from Limbaugh himself. He’s completely upfront about it.
:dubious: Do you read your own cites, SA?
As the story in the link shows, Limbaugh himself is constantly touting his reputation as a major conservative political influence. Not surprisingly, because that reputation is a big boost for the star power that furthers his money-making ability.
Yes, he’s fundamentally an entertainer, but a big part of his entertainment schtick is projecting himself as a serious political thinker. His audience is attracted by the idea that this is somebody important and influential, not just a political comedian doing Democrat jokes on the radio.
Conservatives who find Limbaugh somewhat embarrassing like to downplay the idea that he really has a significant impact on conservative leadership and conservatives in general, but Limbaugh himself certainly wouldn’t agree with them. The idea that he has a significant impact on US conservatism is an essential part of his brand.
I voted “none of the above”. Speaking just for myself, probably what you’d call a liberal, Rush Limbaugh is simply irrelevant.
There’s not much use in my world for the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern or Alan Chartock. The first two are not entertaining, and the third I don’t take seriously as a commentator because I don’t believe he’s very objective. Never listened to Air America.
If I want entertainment, I watch John Stewart because he’s actually funny. If I want analysis I seek out actual analysis, not entertainment disguised as thoughtful analysis.
No, they didn’t say that his top priority was making money, they said that he’d become a liberal if there was more money in it, and there’s nothing in Limbaugh’s comment or any past comments which would indicate that this s so.
But of course.
Do you read my cites, Kimstu?
If you did, you would have noticed in the third linked article the folowing:
There is more in the article both before and after that quote, but that pretty much sums up the overall point, which is that Limbaugh’s effect on who gets nominated or who gets voted for at the polls is negligible at best.
Yes, he was a force in the '94 elections. But that was before the internet and before cable televison talk shows had taken off, he was the only nationally-known conservative commentator at the time, and his schtick was newer then.
Limbaugh currently commands a weekly audience said by ratings services to equal 20 million listeners. IIRC, this number is the total number of people who listen to him in a week’s time, even if they are the same listeners each day. In other words, 4 million of the same people listening to Limbaugh every day would equal an audience rating of 20 million people a week. So I think we can safely say that Limbaugh’s audience is roughly 4 million people, since most of the people who listen to him are regular listeners and listen each day.
So, even if we were to assume that Limbaugh had total control over each listener and every one would do exactly as he says come election time, they still amount to only 3.2% of the total electorate of around 125 million people. Limbaugh opposed McCain and yet McCain won the nomination, and Limbaugh opposed Obama and Obama won the election.
So how much influence does he really have?
I’ve posted about Limbaugh’s numbers before. I’ve also posted about his lack of influence, as evinced by McCain’s nomination and Obama’s election, and the third linked article bears this out.
People like you love to try to portray conservatives as being in lockstep with Limbaugh and you like to pretend they are incapable of thinking for themselves and that every thought they voice or every position they take is the result of something Rush Limbaugh has said, but the fact of the matter is that percentage-wise very few conservatives/Republicans listen to him at all, and those who do still vote how they wish come election time.
I must have missed that part of Kimstu’s post; could you quote the relevant passage, please?
If you can point to where I ever said it was in Kimstu’s post in the first place I’d be happy to.
If, on the other hand, it turns out you discover I was speaking in general terms, then I’m afraid your request becomes moot. 
Earlier tonight, Colbert had a segment about salt consumption and said concerns were being pushed aside because of a new street drug, “nackle” (NaCl).
How many members of Limbaugh’s audience would get that joke? How many would even recognize it as a joke? If Rush started talking about how “nackle” was infiltrating inner-city neighborhoods, how much of his audience would instantly and totally buy it?
I dunno. How many of Colbert’s audience got it? And how do you that if they did get it, they weren’t advised of it and told to laugh and clap beforehand? And why did you feel the need to spell it out parenthetically here for the non-Limbaugh audience if the gag is so obvious?
I gotta tell ya, these responses just write themselves.
I very much agree. I’ve never voted Democrat, but I can’t stand him. There’s a pair on the same station in L.A. in the afternoons who at least, while making a few inflammatory statements, which I wish they would cut out, at least they have detailed reasons for their points, and they’re not married to a political party exactly. They’ve been bashing the Republicans for about a year now for going back on their promise not to support tax increases in California.
My point is that in opposition to having a point of view and being wiling to support whomever he agrees with, Rush thinks the Democrats are the devil, W was Dr. Awesome, and he gets me so frustrated in five minutes that even I can’t listen to him. Even when I agree with his overall point, he’s so abrasive about it and skips so many logical steps in his explanations that I start yelling at the radio.
Of course, he was one of the early ones to discover that outrage an bombast get more listeners than a radio version of “Meet the Press”. I can’t believe that he supposedly holds some actual sway in the Republican party. Apparently he still has so many loyal fans that if he gives out contact info, the targeted people get swamped with calls, emails, faxes, etc. Even though I agree with many of his overall “principles”, I wonder if he’s been a positive overall for Republicans. Probably not.
I spelled it out because while Colbert said “nackle”, “NaCl” appeared on the corner of the screen, and since I’m limited to text-only in this particular medium, I’m required to provide more information to avoid obscuring my message.
Said message being that Limbaugh cultivates a fanbase for whom knowledge and facts are not high priorities.
Or perhaps Limbaugh cultivates a fanbase for whom high school or college chem courses are but a distant memory and for whom knowledge about such things as mortgages, interest rates, term vs. whole life insurance, mutual funds, etc. are high priorities, and who have perhaps advanced far enough in their careers to be able to hire someone who knows what NaCL is should they actually have the need to know it. 
I wouldn’t say that he’s fringe, foaming-at-the-mouth, nor shock jock sort of person. His views of the world and of society are pretty in-line with middle-center Republicans. His style is more a down-home common sense sort, with a good sense of humor.
He’s almost certainly an intelligent man who could probably be fairly learned on the topics he discusses, but he makes very little effort to educate himself and is quite willing to take the first poll or study that can be used to back his position and run with it as the truth for years on end without ever looking critically at the information nor being willing to accept that he was ever wrong if (after a decade) even he has to admit that it was obvious crap. Mention of the study will just silently pass into the night. He is also quite willing to use catchy ad hominem attacks on his opponents.
In British terms, he’s pretty equivalent to Jeremy Clarkson, I’d say.
Yeah, because his top priority is making money: i.e., making money is more important to him than ideological honesty or consistency. I’m not sure why you’re having such a hard time grasping this.
More closely than you do, apparently.
That wasn’t an article, that was an Op-Ed piece by David Brooks, one of the more moderate conservative commentators who tend to be embarrassed by Limbaugh. He’s the only one in your cites who’s claiming that Limbaugh isn’t really an influential opinion-maker among conservatives, and he’s offering that claim simply as his own opinion.
:dubious: Gee, I didn’t realize that “not being influential enough to unilaterally determine a nomination or election” meant the same thing as “not having any significant influence at all”.
And of course, it’s ridiculous for you to imply that it does. If the best objective evidence you can offer for Limbaugh’s unimportance as a conservative influence is the fact that he can’t actually make the Republican Party as a whole, much less the nation as a whole, pick the leaders that he personally prefers, you’ve pretty much blown your case.
Along with fretting about gay marriage, illegal aliens, the president being a nigger who wasn’t even born in the U.S., etc.
Just like Limbaugh, I see you’re trying to be funny, and someone who already agreed with you could easily be going “Whoo! You tell him!”, but there’s a hostility and childishness to it.
Sounds like somebody’s been drinking the Leftie Kool-Aid.
Gee, you mean sort of like the hostility and childishness to be derived from getting your audience to laugh at conservative adults well past their classroom years because they may not recognize NaCL as salt? Yeah, that’s some real intelligent, incisive and biting humor right there.
(And btw, you never did answer how many of Colbert’s audience got this so-called joke, assuming they did in the first place and that no cheating was involved. I’d bet I could go to any major university in the country and stop 100 kids at random and not 20% would know what NaCL was the chemical designation for.)