Rush Limbaugh

In a memo sent out today by the Clinton campaign, the campaign seems to boast that "In Mississippi, he [Barack Obama] won only 25% of Republicans."

I asked Howard Wolfson on today's generals-for-Clinton conference call why he thought Republicans had come out for her. At first he argued that it was their message of Clinton's strength that was penetrating Mississippi's Republican electorate.

"I think you have seen in both Ohio an in Texas and Mississippi some renewed strength and improvements by Senator Clinton among Republicans," he said. "We believe that is due to the more recent focus in the campaign on issues like those being addressed on this call. We believe that independents, Republicans and of course Democrats are concerned about questions related to Senator Obama's readiness to be commander in chief in day one. And as the election turns on those kinds of big issues we have seen our numbers among independents and Republicans increase."  read more »

John McCain has a new problem with some of his far-right critics. Having made his life miserable in the primary, they seem now intent on wrecking his general election effort before it even starts.

At a campaign event last week, radio talk-show host Bill Cunningham used Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, multiple times in his warm up act for McCain. The very next day the Tennessee Republican Party was back with the same stunt, sending out an official press release using Obama’s middle name.  read more »

Following John McCain’s victory in Florida last week the chorus of McCain-hatred grew louder on talk radio shows and on many conservative blogs.

Rush Limbaugh declared that McCain was not conservative and unacceptable as a candidate. Formerly respectable conservative figures took delight in criticizing McCain’s war record—yes, his war record—by tallying up the number of planes he had lost in combat. Ann Coulter and James Dobson, a social conservative leader and head of the Focus on the Family organization, declared McCain so indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton, the featured villainess in any conservative drama, that they would vote for her or stay home.

In short the McCain villifiers doubled down on their bet that they could derail McCain and lift their favored alternative, Mitt Romney, to victory.  read more »

Certain conservative opinion makers are not pleased.

Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, much of the roster at the National Review and many (but certainly not all) of their more conservative talk radio and blogger colleagues are beside themselves at the prospect that one of the Republican contenders they deemed to be “not conservative” might be nominated. As Mike Huckabee won Iowa, John McCain took South Carolina and Fred Thompson bestirred himself to draft a note withdrawing from the race, the fretting has intensified. How could the voters reject their advice?  read more »

The controversy over what Rush Limbaugh meant when he uttered the phrase “phony soldiers” last week isn’t just another broadcast sideshow.  read more »