Rush Rules

The media, especially the liberal/progressive folks, have been aware that so many folks listen to Rush Limbaugh every day that Rush himself is really the leader of the Republican Party, no matter who the GOP leaders chose (Michael Steele).

What I'm not hearing is that Rush's voice pounding away at the stimulus bill for weeks has led to undermining public and congressional support. At one point, a progressive group sent out a note asking their supporters to write to Congress immediately because the conservatives were were sending letters at a rate of 100 to 1 over progressives.

The President went out into the country this week to counter the impression that the opposition to his bill is the majority.

And President Obama was successful.

But will he have to do that every time he needs to get people behind his program?

The reality is that conservative talk radio covers so many people in the U. S. and is not countered with facts by the rest of the media. Even normally moderate to liberal folks have him on their radios because there isn't that much else to listen to. Most radio stations are owned by wealthy conservatives who want their point of view to dominate.

But now we have a new problem. Analogue TV ends and the little boxes to translate digital TV signals won't work in many (most?) places in the U. S.

That means the only voices heard by a lot of folks will be that of Rush and his like. Even the main stream media won't reach them any more.

President Obama mentioned concern about extending analogue broadcasting until mid-June. By then the severity of the problems with the small black boxes will be much more widely known. Meanwhile, AM radio will be alive and well.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.