A snapshot of what is happening nationwide.
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Rush Limbaugh critic Kevin Stevenson ousted as Marathon County Republican Party spokesman
By Robert Mentzer • Wausau Daily Herald • June 2, 2009

The Republican Party of Marathon County has stripped its spokesman of his title less than three months after he wrote a column critical of conservative talk radio star Rush Limbaugh.

Kevin Stevenson said he believes his March guest column in the Wausau Daily Herald criticizing Limbaugh turned local party members against him.
"They felt I was too moderate in what I was speaking and printing," he said.
Stevenson, who characterizes himself as a "John McCain-type of Republican," said the conflict was a microcosm of a national debate about what political message to put forward. A debate at a local Republican meeting on Thursday "got hostile and it got personal," he said.
When Stevenson criticized Limbaugh for saying he wanted President Barack Obama to fail, other local Republicans wrote to the newspaper, arguing that conservatives ought to want Obama's policies to fail.
"This is just part of what you're seeing nationwide," he said. "(Party members) know that I don't agree with Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh is hurting us more than helping us."
Full piece at: http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/apps/p ... /906020543


Also:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677#31073627

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90% of people are caused by accidents.

Limbaugh is Limbaugh and has been doing what Limbaugh does every since day one. Now all of a sudden he has become the lighting rod for the liberals to attack because Bush is gone and Limbaugh is the highest profile Republican out there.

Anyone that pays too much attention to Rush is a fool, rather you agree with him or not. Obviously Kevin Stevenson was one those fools.

Rush is an entertainer and no one should be setting their moral or political compos on what he is saying.

Every once in a while we have both Democrats and Republicans that will see the opportunity to take a shot at their party leaders just because they can get their name in the paper and make big headlines by doing it. As to making real impact on the party or how the public thinks in general or of the person attacked, there is usually none.

That’s not to say that Rush does not have a following, we all know he does. But it is pretty much limited to the radical anti-gay and anti-abortion religions right of the party. And there in lies the bigger problem for the Republicans, not Rush himself.

Democrats or Republicans, but mostly Democrats, that are concentrating their efforts on discrediting Rush are really doing the Republicans a favor. Rush is not now, nor will he ever be a candidate for anything, He loves money too much. Rush claims what 20 or 30 million listeners? But we know it takes at least 60 million to win a presidential election. Rush can continue to make mega bucks with his listener base and never have to worry about running for an office.

When the next election rolls around the Republicans AND the Democrats will have to run on or against Obama’s record, not Rush Limbaugh, so even if his distracters are successful at totally destroying Rush, they end up making a lot of noise and a lot of headlines but really accomplish nothing in the way of real political gains.

Also keep in mind that the major opposition and the only legitimate opposition to Rush is to his bombastic style, not his ideas. Most of those originated with the Reagan Conservatives. Rush has never had an original idea in his broadcast history that I know of.

Good post and well put Floyd. I started listening to Limbaugh in the '90's while I was in the Bay area. He was different, new, and I somewhat aligned to his comments but after awhile it was the same old stuff and I tuned him out.

As long as Limbaugh keeps selling advertizing he will stay on the air. He is a master of spin and hyperbole. And for now even the democrats are happy with that. It looks or sounds like Limbaugh is trying to break the republican party into at least two factions: the true believers and those slightly closer to reality (very slightly).

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If all the atheists left the United States it would lose 93% of the National Academy of Sciences but less than 1% of the prison population.

You got it mystic.

And I'll tell you something else that is funny about the advertising he sells.

I was a minor influence in the local radio station back when Rush first hit the airwaves. We were one of the original rush stations.

He was on for a week or so and people were complaining and yelling for us to get this madman off the radio. I and the company I owned at the time did a lot with political candidates and issues. So the managing partner called me and asked me what I thought. I told him to give it at least 60 days and call me back. He agreed.

Sixty days latter he called me again and said he was still getting a huge number of calls and complaints and a lot of it was form the same people over and over again. At the time we had a 90 day trial period that we were more then 60 days into to sign a log term commitment or they would shop rush to another station.

I asked how the billing was for the Rush time slot and he said it was the top billing time slot we had. I told him to sign as long a contract that he could get and forget about the complaints.

I based that the fact that not only were the same people calling over and over again, which meant they were still listening, but they were some of biggest liberals in the area and over half of them were buying ads in Rush time slot.

Today he is still the largest billing time slot in our market. Now I don't know if the liberals are still buying him or not because that station has been sold twice since I was involved with it and it is owned by Fox.

Just so we don't get the idea that I worship Rush and hang on his every word, I don't. I don't even listen to him and haven't for years. Although I am a fan of Rush, I am not a fan of his show.

We did a number promotions in that first two years of his affiliation with the station and I got to meet him on several occasions and spend some time with him. The Rush I got to know back then never was the same guy you hear on the radio. I don't know if he has changed or not.