Was it a year ago? Wild-eyed and arms flailing, Ann Coulter was telling anyone-willing-to-interview-her that, "if Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination, we will lose" the election.
Fast-forward: Now Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners Romney "is not a Conservative." And he's right. It'd be more accurate to call Romney "a chameleon," as primary opponents' ads will demonstrate, documenting policy flip-flops in a way that recalls John Kerry's "I was for it before I was against it" blooper.
Radio righties love Flavor-of-the-Month candidates because they don't trust Romney.
Listen to Limbaugh, and the legion of Rush wanna-be's who dominate Talk Radio's political narrative.
Fickle? They embraced Michele Bachmann after she escaped her first debate flub-free. Then Rick Perry announced. His plain talk -- sans "g" at the end of any word ending in "g" -- had talkers smitten, until debate gaffes got the horse laugh.
Now that Herman Cain has found center stage, he'll be their guy, until experts put-a-pencil to 9-9-9. Only recently has anyone said "National Sales Tax" aloud. To Conservatives, "tax" is a four letter word, and they're fundamentally wary of sending money to Washington.
Romney wears the same halo of inevitability that adorned Dubya's march to the 2000 nomination.
So it's tempting to think that Rush has painted himself in a corner by calling Romney a sheep in wolves' clothing.
Nope. Crafty Limbaugh is two chess moves ahead. He expects Romney to win the nomination, and he believes Coulter.
So when Romney loses, Rush can say "I told you so," and play back the tape. And Rush gets four...more...years...of shock jock shtick, without having to go to school on a new target.
"Remember to enter Promo Code 'Rush.'"
It is not in Rush Limbaugh's business interest for Obama to lose.
Witness the history of Talk Radio, which attained critical mass as Bill Clinton took office.
Until recently, Conservative broadcasters tended to do better when they've been the-party-on-the-outs. It's been easier to rail against Clinton and Obama than it was to defend Bush/Cheney fiascos, or feign admiration for Sarah Palin when the McCain campaign was tanking. Radio righties needed those two in the White House like a hole in the head.
The Stimulus-Response trick doesn't work as well any more.
This gets semi-nerdy, but indulge me. The way radio audience has been measured since the 1930s is changing.
Old method: Those polled kept a diary for a week. The lab coat guys call this "unaided recall." Write down what you listened to. It was a memory test, a popularity contest, that favored better-known shows.
New tech: Meters are replacing ratings diaries, and meters log what the sample actually listens to. And ratings for Talk Radio's biggest acts are suffering, in big markets.
Listeners are complaining about the additional commercials these shows have jammed-in. And I keep hearing the words "angry," "repetitive," and "shrill" to describe a prevailing narrative that demands hard-right Conservatism, rather than that pesky electability Romney offers.
How Rick Perry can still win (the nomination).
He's the unapologetic ideological purist radio righties prefer. And after 8 years of hearing Dubya saying "nook-u-lur," talkers are undaunted that Perry is less-than-loquacious. Recent debates will be ancient history next November.
Romney may have the discipline and poise and organization it takes to win. But Perry has money. Piles of it. Enough to go hard at Romney and drive up his negatives. So much for The Gipper's Eleventh Commandment.
If Perry can do well-enough in Iowa, take whatever he gets in New Hampshire, then slam-dunk South Carolina and Nevada, next stop is Super Tuesday, including Texas and Oklahoma among others. Again Florida threatens to go early, and again it's must-win.
But, at every stop along that trail, there'll be Mitt, perfect posture, not a hair out of place. By convention time, voters will have heard 'em both trash each other ad nauseam.
4 years earlier, the newcomer candidate Rush Limbaugh still calls "Barack Hussein Obama" demonstrated The Art of Not Peaking Early; and this time he'll enjoy the power of incumbency. Heck, Jimmy Carter still led Ronald Reagan in polls in October, 1980. And Obama won't have a Ted Kennedy-size primary challenge to block his glide path.
And Rush gets four...more...years. Stay tuned.
More: It's all about the message, as Ed Schultz and I discuss on his show. Listen at:
http://survivalspeech.wordpress.com/...