Top Dems Planning Amped Up Efforts To Elevate Rush As GOP’s Public Face
Top Democratic operatives are planning a stepped up campaign to promote Rush Limbaugh as the public face of the GOP — an effort that will include recruiting Dem governors to make this case on talk shows, getting elected officials to pen Op eds arguing it, and running more ads pushing it, a senior Democratic operative says.
Key leadership staff in the House and Senate, and in all the political committees, have been encouraged by senior Dem operatives to push this message wherever possible, the operative says.
“I’m encouraging everybody to go out and say this,” Paul Begala, the well-known Dem strategist, just told me by phone. “I’m hot for this. Let’s get this out every way we can.”
Begala is emerging as a major cheerleader and public face for this effort, though he says he’s not formally directing it. He described the effort as “organic” right now, though senior Democrats are discussing ways to formalize it.
Another sign that Dems will be amping up efforts to stamp Rush’s face on the GOP is the fact that Brad Woodhouse, a major proponent of this strategy, will soon take over as communications director at the Democratic National Committee. Woodhouse’s current group, Americans United for Change, just launched a new ad pressing the Rush-owns-the-GOP message.
“I’m encouraging every Democrat, every progressive, to be pointing out this powerful but painful truth: The party of Lincoln is now the Party of Limbaugh,” Begala continued. “We should make every Republican answer this: Why do they want our president to fail?”
Begala’s partner on CNN, James Carville, who first articulated the Rush message in early February, is also pushing Dems to blare this message, he confirms. “He is the embodiment of the Republican party, circa 2009,” Carville said.
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Well, until someone in the Republican party has the guts to stand up to Rush and be a leader,they are getting exactly what they deserve.
This isn’t merely a good PR move, it reflects something quite true. And it’s been true for years.
Tom DeLay, 1994 – Limbaugh was setting the standard for conservative ought”.
Richard Viguerie – “In 1993 and 1994, he was the salvation of the conservative movement. Every day Rush Limbaugh would give us our marching orders, if you would
Sorry, both quotes from “Echo Chamber”, Jamieson and Cappella, p. 46.
The titular head of the GOP is an oxycotin-addled, draft-dodging, extremist radio comedian/entertainer/screaming skull? Yep, sounds about par for the GOP course. To paraphrase Michelle Bachmann at today’s CPAC freak show as she introduced RNC head Michael “I only speak jive” Steele: Rush, you be da MAN!
Its about time. The same Achilles’ Heel problem the DNC has had for the last 10+ years is that there’s not coherent message system like the RNC has.
Its so incredibly easy to expose the Republican Party for what it really is…paper tigers.
Maybe a few of the Dittoheads will get the message.Rush the King maker.Just to name a few hopefuls,plumber Joe.,Gosh-o-gee Palin and now Bobbie Jindal. I wish the elections were tomorrow I need a few laughs.
“Begala is emerging as a major cheerleader and public face for this effort, though he says he’s not formally directing it. He described the effort as “organic” right now, though senior Democrats are discussing ways to formalize it.”
– this quote shows why too often the Democratic party loses the “day” in media coverage. If there was a liberal Rush Limbaugh, the right would have dozens of talking heads out from day one.
Now that D’s are back in charge of washington they need to good at this hyper quick day-to day **** so the administration can get by without even acknowledge it.
Limbaugh’s power has come from the ephemeral, quasi-samizdat nature of conservative talk radio. Digital archiving and transcripts have been bad for his power base. Treating him as a spokesman for the Republicans forces even more attention on what he actually says every weekday, and simultaneously dilutes his capacity to make more overt ideological statements, while forcing elected GOP leaders to cleave to things that he says which go beyond the dogwhistle politics they prefer.
Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.
i dont think people understand how this works.
first off, there is “liberal” rush unless you seek them on alternative stations.
the MSM is supported and owned by corporate america and pay hacks like rush to keep repeating their lines.
thats why there is no liberal equal to rush because corporate america wont pay them to speak the truth.
secondly, i said at the time that congress needed to push a resolution condeming rushs remarks and force a vote on who agreed with him that they hoped the president would fail.
that was a win-win situation.
having failed to seize the momoent this is good too because it forces the repigs to side with rush or to throw him under the bush.
either way it cause further split in the party.
i hope the dems are smart enough to pay begala and push this hard.
>The Fat Guy on the radio,
>is the leader of the party,
>THAT JUST SAYS NO !!!
I sure have made it a point every chance I get. However it is true. I think the Democratic party should also file a formal complaint concerning Hannity America’s website which is clearly insiteing an overthrow of the government. This is no longer a first amendment issue, this is very serious.
They should have done this year’s ago. Limbaugh’s ego won’t let him back away. It will be a delight to watch the downward spiral.
I actually like the “Party of No” more – at least from the politicians. I’d leave the Limbaugh stuff up to the net roots and the unions. However it will force Republicans to either defend Limbaugh or distance themselves from him. This is finally using wingnut radio against them – there is nothing they can come up with that would be comparable as there is nothing the Dems can offer near the stature of loony Limbaugh.
i am so happy this is being done. it is 20 years that limbaugh has controled the repubs. they bow at his feet . he gives them marching oreders. i just wish the media pundits would be asked by someone how is limbaugh an entertainer. that seems to be what they say so they dont have to disagree with him. its expected on fox but chris mathwes is the worst. limbaugh could use( and he will one day ) the n word and mathwes would laugh and say oh thats just limbaugh hes so funny. i just wish someone would go to http://www.newsone.blackplanet.com/ and log in and u will get rush greatest racist rants. and then make the repubs condemn it. one of the rants limbaugh says we should give james earl ray a medel for the king assasination. i was shocked when i saw that.
I’ll be over here clinging to my bible and guns, you folks have fun watching O plot the new course for America. Yes your guy won with a 52% or so percent of the vote and you have a majority in the house and senate so your party has total control at the drivers seat. When we get there, wherever that is, you may or may not like the new landscape. The 48% who voted for the other liberal already know we’re not going to like it. I’ll keep listening to Rush, thanks very much and remember, say your prayers and keep your powder dry.
No one should have a problem with Fat Boy (who sucks at golf) and his tribe of Ingrham, Boortz and second rate Hannity, from spewing out their opinions. That is their right.
It was their day in and day out attack of Obama instead of their building up Johnnie Mac and the Ditz that turned me to vote Dem for the first time in 40 years. The best was their collective declaration after the loss that they are not Republicans but rather Conservatives. Funny I could not find that box to check in the voting booth
Very mature discourse going on here, calling him “fat boy who sucks at golf.” Yeah this type of discussion pretty much cements what I think about Obama supporters, whiny, nasty and ill informed. I doubt highly any of you actually listen to Rush Limbaugh, I would love to see any one of you debate him and watch how quickly you are put in your place. Not one of you is his intellectual superior. But please, talk amongst yourselves, this is clearly the highest intellectual plane any of you will ever achieve, commenting on a blog. Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh will enjoy his massive audience, his money and never know or care who any of you are. Now please, go back to your hateful blathering you all clearly enjoy it immensely.
Nancy, you seem to be mistaking intelligence with a rather banal junior high-school debate tactic. Limbaugh’s a one-trick pony and while it doesn’t surprise me that kicking a scarecrow over and over and over and over for three hours a day, five days a week for a decade and a half still, astoundingly, mesmerizes a certain segment of the population, it really ought not be mistaken for intelligence, any more than a two-bit parlor magician’s card trick should be mistaken for supernatural powers. Have you not noticed that Limbaugh never appears anywhere he doesn’t have total control of his environment? Recall that the only time he allowed himself to be on an even playing field (his ESPN gig), he made a complete *** of himself? Rather than throw insults like “whiny, nasty and ill informed” around, perhaps it would benefit you to pick up a book on debate and find out for yourself how banal Limbaugh’s one-trick really is.
The “Party of Limbaugh” is befitting these Republican congressmen because they truly fear Rush.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-jenkins/worst-week-ever-republica_b_170378.html#postComment
Why does POL remind me of the band PIL?
Eh, works either way.
Fitch – I was reading along the comments then all of a sudden – Bachman introducing Steele. It stopped me cold. I mean I knew they were in the same room and all but you know how you know something but you don’t realize the full impact. That is like stupid to the 7 power or something. Yikes. I hope I don’t have nightmares. I probably shouldn’t have started reading this thread when it was about Limbaugh. Only thing worse – they get paid for being so stupid.
I don’t care about his golf game, but the fat boy is also a drug-abusing crypto-fascist. And his album, “2112″, sucked too.
Nancy – you claim that Rush would put would “put me in my place” if I debated him. However, when I call his program for such a chance, I can’t get on. Rush is a coward with whom I would love to debate, but he is only capable of spitting and hissing at the mic in his little cloister.
Nancy:
I listen to Rush all the time. I also check his facts on the Internet. I’m not just comparing them to lib websites. I mean comparing what he said to things like official records or transcripts. Do you know that Limbaugh lies to you almost constantly? How dare you call us nasty? You idolize a man who says we hate God, have a culture of death, want everybody to be poor, hate America and want to destroy it etc. Limbaugh rants this hatred for half his show. It takes a really sick individual to be entertained by that kind of hatred. You even admire Rush for spreading it.
Whiny? The man and his followers are nothing but. They go into complete outrage all the time over the slightest reasons. They think they are holy and everybody else is a traitor or something like that.
I’m very well informed. If you follow Limbaugh though, you are worse than uninformed. You are disinformed.
I would destroy Limbaugh in a debate. He’s a punk who can’t defend himself so he never lets anybody have a chance. If a liberal caller does put up any kind of decent challenge, Rush just cuts off his mike and attacks the caller. Limbaugh says every liberal is a monster and anyone who questions him is a liberal. No wonder he never loses!
Rush will soon find out who we are. The only reason he’s still around is nobody ever went after him and because of the strong protections against libel the Supreme Court created. When he’s confronted he’ll look like a fool and he’ll cry and run just like any other punk bully when he’s stood up to.
Here’s a test for you. A blind disciple of Limbaugh is unable to do this. Here’s a quote from Limbaugh where he says Obama’s tax credit will be taxed as income. Find any valid source that says that. You won’t, because its a lie.
RUSH: These are transfer payments. These are tax credits and all that. There’s no tax cut here. I should have been able to think of this on my own here, absolutely right. You’re getting income, you’re going to be taxed on it next year.”
This is just one of many lies he told today.
This is perfect. We are finally learning how to frame in simple terms. Calling it the party of Rush dovetales so nicely with calling wingnut talk shows “hate radio.” If we all do this, it will work. The repubs are the party of hate radio.
Hey Morons, I hate to tell you this, but its Media 101….anytime you mention someone’s name, all it does is cause more people to see what that person is doing/talking about. All this does is expose more people to his show, which by the way, probably has a bigger audience than all of the air america hosts combined, if there are any left.
It is just free PR, you are just creating more listeners.
I am delighted that the gop is taking orders from Rush Limbaugh,for this simple reason. The gop have been branded as being racist,and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that Rush Limbauch doesn’t like people of color,so to all of the decent white people who don’t like to be branded as racist,I believe that he will hurt the republican party more then he will help them.Keep up the good work Rush.
I saw the commercial tonight in NoVA.
priceless–that when Obama got the ball rolling on this, it was Obama, not Carville, all the pundits on tv said it was bad of Obama to elevate him. Now we see just how ‘bad’ this really was. I love it.
I loved the message from Nancy saying the discourse was ‘ immature’. I saw a clip replayed on Jon stewart where Rush was just “GiDDy” with excitement because he was going ‘mock’ and show everybody how Joe Biden didn’t remember the exact name of recovery.gov in the interview. He gave the answer about 10 seconds later but said( .com) The big RushBo was just so happy to point out that he got the dot part(.gov) wrong.He laughed in glee!… so excited… like a Child. He ‘tried’ to make the point that Joe was wrong… how dumb is That! He then exclaimed.. He didn’t know the name of the website was recovery.ORG !
Oh… poor Rush….You try to mock somebody for not getting the .gov part wrong and you made the ‘ mistake ‘ of saying .ORG..?
YOU ‘mocked Yourself’… while attempting to mock somebody else.
I guess that mocking stuff is hard for you…. based on the Facts. Rush never was good at Facts anyway.
“Yes your guy won with a 52% or so percent of the vote … The 48% who voted for the other liberal already know we’re not going to like it.”
That’s 52.7% of the popular vote, and 46% of the vote for you. And no single candidate gotten as high a percentage as 52.7% of the national vote in 20 years. And McCain’s an arch-conservative.
Thanks for sharing, Greg.
Why not just call it the Limbaughclican Party? Gets the message across
the racist pillhead junkie is the bloated twisted face of today’s
GOP. As Harry Truman used to say ‘ i just tell the truth on
Republicans and they think it’s hell.”
YES, this is the way to eviscerate the Republican party…tie Limbaugh tightly to their party’s core and the whole ship will sink like the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
It is fascinating though that this tactic is pretty much out of Karl Rove’s playbook…attack your enemy at his seemingly strongest point. As a tactic, it is brilliant because it undermines the very foundation of your enemy.
I seem to remember this election back in 2000 where the democrat actually won the popular vote by 600,000 votes but some republican named Bush became President of the United States and destroyed everything we stand for. Hide with your bible and guns in your trailer for the next four years because small-minded ignorant fools like yourself are an embarrassment to this country.
GOP is the Limbaugh party of hate. Instead of coming up with intelligent well thought out ideas, the party has reduced itself to slandering everyone person that doesn’t agree with them with hopes that the unintelligent in this country believe them. What other party would still be questioning Obama’s citizenship when the birth certificate has been presented and verified to be authentic. The average IQ of a GOP supporter is below 80 the last I read.
Why don’t Dems try and debate Limbaugh ? Instead of trying to demonize him with Saul Alinsky tactics. Afraid? Its the ISSUES than count.
Why don’t Dems try and debate Limbaugh ? Instead of trying to demonize him with Saul Alinsky tactics. Afraid? Its the ISSUES than count.
Why in the world would anyone waste time trying to debate an irrational blowhard?
Rush is superior in intellect? To whom, I might ask? When has this clown ever been right in recent memory? He was wrong about Bush, wrong about the war, wrong about the economy, wrong about McCain wrong about Palin, need I go on wingnuts? When this uneducated nitwit comes out from behind the dittohead curtain onto the national stage, he is immediately pulled back because of his assinine comments or offensive, racial comments. Who knew that Donovan McNabb was only in the NFL because he is black?
btw….I do feel sorry for the morbidly obese, drug addicted dude. He is just a few cheeseburgers and fries away from the biting the dust. Rest assured dittoheads, there will be plenty more rightwing nut call in shows to give you your daily talking points. Do you folks not work? Get a life!
Tena: Dems can’t debate Limbaugh. Limbaugh won’t show his face where he can be contradicted. Any Democrat that criticizes Limbaugh is slandered with a landslide of lies.
Demonize? Saul Alinsky tactics? Limbaugh is the champ of demonization.
How is anything the Dems are doing about Limbaugh now different than the GOP trying to tie Democrats to Michael Moore except that the GOP had to lie about Moore?
“Why don’t Dems try and debate Limbaugh ? Instead of trying to demonize him with Saul Alinsky tactics. Afraid? Its the ISSUES than count.”
Remember Mr. Limbaugh’s brief disaster on ESPN? The minute he leaves the safety of his studio and his ability to cut off a caller, he’s roadkill. You can’t put him in the same live studio with Chris Berman much less Rachel Maddow or Paul Begala.
Everyone knows that no one has seriously listened to Rush Limbaugh since the early 90’s. Even Colbert got that right on his show! Paul Begala’s remarks about spreading this lie demonstrate that the Democratic party is the party of lies and hatred.
Topaz:
What has changed since the 1990s isn’t Limbaugh’s listenership, it’s his influence. When he was a relatively new voice and could define Bill Clinton in the early days of his presidency, I would argue he was influential.
These days, he still has a hard-core audience of conservative listeners who seek to have their biases confirmed on a daily basis. The real question: Is he changing minds? Judging from Limbaugh’s approval ratings, I doubt it.
Great quote: “I didn’t say that most conservatives are ignorant morons, what I said was, most ignorant morons are conservatives.”
If a person is not capable of articulating a thought or understanding someone else’s thoughts, it’s just easier to say,”Ditto!”
The brilliance of this strategy is that there is not a single Republican out there willing to go on the record to against Rush. They are terrified of him, his followers, and the supposed “power he wields.” Tides turn quickly, as we saw between 2004 and 2006, but right now they really are a regional party of Rush cultists.
the left needs a villain to distract from their own failings. Same approach as Chavez and Iran. Obama seems to over saturate, shock and awe in terms of rapid fire liberalism to keep normal people off-guard, confused or overwhelmed. Probably is – many of us are keeping very close attention.
Don’t sell the Repb’s short.. They’ve got the right ideals they just need the right guy to articulate them.. No Dem. wants to debate Rush tho. You can rant all you want to but you can’t refute anything Rush says..
I think this is a great idea, but feel it is important to make it clear every time, that the “family values” Republican party’s spokesperson is a thrice divorced college drop-out; a war-lover who got out of the Vietnam war because of a “boil on his rear-end”, an anti-immigration proponent who had an illegal immigrant housekeeper; a drug addict who said anyone who does drugs should be thrown in jail and then had his poor housekeeper go and pick up illegal painkillers for him; an obviously impotent guy who got caught smuggling illegal Viagra into the country. Oh, yeah-and a guy who hopes this country fails. Yeah–that’s the face of the Republican Party. Unpatriotic. UnAmerican. Unbelievable.
I have not met a Rethug yet who believes Michael Steele is the leader of the Republican party. They just regard him as the star of the 2009 “magic negro” Christmas card.
Say it ain’t so, Joe! “You can rant all you want to but you can’t refute anything Rush says.” Huh?? Nearly every other word out of his mouth can be refuted. See some of the comments above — it’s easy to prove that Limbaugh is a liar. He makes it all up as he goes along. And he’s nothing but a coward, as he won’t face anyone for honest debate, because he knows he’ll be shown for the liar he is.
We´re in a liberal reform period right now, for the first time since the 1960s, so the conservatives won´t be winning any elections again for the next 10-12 years. In the past century, the reform eras were the early-1900s, 1930s, 1960s, and today, with the conservative periods in between. During reform cycles, the Republicans are on the defensive, and even look ridiculous to many voters.
Besides, Limbaugh forget that we finally did borrow and spend our way out of the Great Depression, but it took World War II to finally force the government to spend enough. Look at the new budget with the big deficit spending in that light and it makes sense.
By 1945, everyone knew you could spend your way out of these depressions.
I’ll believe in this “stepped up campaign” when I see it. So far I haven’t seen anything, and on past form, the Dems are incapable of concerted action. Any coordinated effort would be a radical departure for this bunch of inept, incompetent, complacent, supine asshats.
At some point the current Republican party will have to formulate coherent answers to real problems. There is a reason honorable Republicans, like Chuck Hagle, John Warner for example are getting out of Dodge. The party of Lincoln degenerated to the party of Limbaugh. Gross. How does somebody dodge the draft for cysts on his *** and paint himself as a patriot? Is a patriot in favor of cutting programs for vets, some of whom have deployed five times? For shame! Obama and his supporters elites? It’s a good thing most of your supporters don’t like to read. If people like Rush Limbaugh are the voice of the new Republican party they deserve what they get, or in the case of elected representation, don’t get.
A sweaty, bald, hillbilly heroin junkie who can’t keep a woman despite making millions a year, takes the little blue pill in order to have *** with under age Dominican boys, and has a following of millions of trailer park losers with an IQ the equivalent of our last weak and stupid coward of a leader?… Yep, makes perfect sense to me that he’s the leader of the closeted homosexual party.
I live in Idaho, where our Republican governor is debating the acceptance of the stimulus bill, our one Democrat and three Republican congressmen voted no, and the governor did not have the courtesy to attend the governors’ meeting with Obama. So during a visit to north Idaho when I could not find NPR, I decided to listen to Rush for a few days. The negative energy I had to absorb was overwhelming. Over and over again, the tone of voice, the choice of words, the way he treated another opinion was so unconstructive. If I were hearing far left rhetoric in this manner if would feel the same – dirty. When people listen to this regularly – or expose themselves to only one perspective – it is a form of self brainwashing. It is lazy thinking. It is our responsibility to be well-informed, to consider all perspectives. It is revealing to watch both FOX and MSNBC, for instance, after an Obama speech. Sadly, we grunts out there in America are easily manipulated by anyone with an agenda. They know we don’t want to do the heavy lifting of fact-finding, sift through the silt of obsfucation and complexities. It requires more time than we have, is too hard, and makes us accept personal responsibility for our positions. It is much easier to live off sound bites, blame ‘them’, and feel superior. The harder times are, the more we seek our comforts. I don’t want to take care of others, I don’t want to be scared of terrorists, I don’t want to pay taxes. But to wish the stimulus to fail? To wish our President to fail? To ask the public about revolution? Just when we need to draw together the most… I think of when I was in corporate work: we all debated an issue, presented different concerns, but when the chairman made the decision, we all got on board and did our best to make it work. I own a business with $1M payroll, my father survived the Bataan Death March, I live in Idaho – Republican fodder, right? But Rush and his ilk embarrass me, and it’s about time the light was let into this room.
Hey Nancy- I guess you bought into Johnnie Mac’s feeble attempt to grab Hillary’s women with his choice of the Ditz. Her foreign intelligence experience based upon her being able to see Russia seems to be right up your mental base. Your Reps had 6 of the last 8 years to make this country right and they spent their way out of power and now have the nerve to suggest that the Dems are spending too much. Whatever Obama does now is new and can’t be disreguarded until it doesn’t work. Take a breathe and sit back for a couple of years
Can you provide more information on this? i have read other websites that are on similar subjects.
Hey, found your site by accident doing a search on Google but I’ll definitely be coming back. As for your post… I agree with a lot of what you’re saying here but wouldn’t it be just as easy to move on? I mean why mess with your quality of life if you don’t have to?