Talk Radio Is Hurting Conservatism

I’m finding myself troubled by talk radio. In particular, I’m stunned at how ignorant and how pointlessly incendiary their coverage of the Republican primary field has been. Not only is talk radio doing a major disservice to the candidates (and by extension the country), but it’s doing an even bigger disservice to its listeners and to the conservative cause.

Here’s the thing. Talk radio is a resource, much like Commentarama, where conservatives and conservative-leaners can collect information that is not generally covered by the MSM. Some of these hosts (like Rush) reach millions of people each day. And if they are doing their jobs right, they will investigate the candidates in the primary and let their readers know what they have discovered. . . the goal, after all, is to promote conservatism. We’re doing that in the 2012 Contender series and we’re not even paid to do it. Nor do we have a staff who can look these things up. Nor do we have the reach to interview the candidates. Thus, if we can do it, there is no reason these radio people can’t do it.

Yet, they aren’t doing it. In the past month, I’ve heard a dozen different talk radio people, and not one of them has done any research into the candidates. Oh, they openly and vehemently opine about who the audience should support, but they have nothing to back that up.

Rush, for example, is pimping Palin, despite his claims of neutrality. Yet, unfortunately, at no point has he ever laid out a single minute of her record or explained her supposed beliefs. Instead, he just calls her a “conservative” without proof, attacks her conservative critics as gullible, somehow personally insecure or lying about being conservatives, and keeps repeating the argument that she must be a good conservative because the left attacks her so much. Yet, that is deeply flawed logic. Do we attack Joe Biden because we fear him? Hardly. We attack him because he’s an easy target because he’s stupid and gaffe prone. Do we attack Pelosi because we think she’s effective? No way. We try to associate the entire left with her because her views and personality are unpalatable to middle America and it helps us disgrace liberalism by claiming that all liberals are like her. The left attacks Palin for the same reasons: she's an easy target and she turns moderates off conservatism. But even putting that aside, my point is that Rush has yet to give a single reason why we should support Palin other than doing the opposite of what the left tells us. Was she a good governor? Did she act according to conservative principles? Does she understand conservative principles? You wouldn't know from Rush.

Some guy who sat in for Laura Ingraham (can't think of his name, don't care either) was pimping Romney because of “his business record.” Yet, he clearly didn’t know what that record was. He also categorically excused every criticism of Romney’s time as governor by saying “well, he was governor of a blue state.” Yet, he calls Pawlenty, who governed like a red-state governor in an equally blue state, a RINO without ever saying why. If anything, these labels are entirely reversed, yet this guy doesn’t know that because he's never actually looked into either candidate. Yet, he's happy to tell his listeners to trust him.

Some guy out of Denver was pimping Trump as a genuine conservative until he dropped out. Now he's jumped on the Christie bandwagon because "man, you saw all you need to know in that youtube video." Ann Coulter too keeps appearing on different shows to pimp Chris Christie and to label him as the only conservative who can keep Romney from getting the nomination. But on what issue does Ann think Christie is a conservative? She's never said. And you’ve seen the report on him, he fails the conservatism test on. . . every. . . single. . . issue. He makes Olympia Snowe look like Barry Goldwater. In fact, he went far left on issues even the Democrats would have expected him to go to the right on -- like appointments. If she had done even five minutes of research, she would have known this. But like Rush, Ann never looks into his record, yet she happily anoints him as the conservative savior.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. These people are out there making these categorical statements: “candidate X is a true conservative and everyone else is a RINO,” and not one of them has any idea what they are talking about.

This is horrible for conservatives and horrible for the Republican Party. If there is a true conservative in the race, these people not only won't find them, they will actively smear them as a RINO just to promote the RINO they think is a true conservative based on nothing more than faulty logic about things said by the MSM or youtube videos. That’s how we'll end up with a RINO sitting in the White House as all the talk radio guys scratch their heads wondering how they were fooled. . . “gee, he seemed so conservative in that ONE youtube video I watched.”

And let me tell you, I see these same "arguments" mindlessly repeated at websites like Big Government, where it's clear that a majority of the commenters not only aren't even reading the articles, but are just self-righteously repeating what they heard on the radio verbatim: it's become a slogan shouting room for the hopelessly ignorant.

This blather is destructive as it depresses conservatives who need all the enthusiasm they can gather for this next election. Right now conservatives should be looking over candidate websites, digging into records and listening to interviews to find the best candidate to represent their views. When that person is found, conservatives should volunteer their money and time to that person. But instead, conservatives are sitting at home frustrated because talk radio is blaring out every single day “there ain’t nothing but RINOs in this race!” The Democrats couldn't have paid for a better voter-suppression plan!

What's more, if you listen to talk radio, you get the impression that no one is happy with the field. Yet, a poll released the other day shows how deeply misleading that is. Take a look at this graph (right). While dissatisfaction is up slightly from 2008, 61% of Republicans are actually happy with their choices. Thus, what talk radio is doing is presenting a view held by only 11% of Republicans (or 39% if you include leaners) as if it were universally held and are using that false claim to drag down a field that 6 in 10 people like. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Because that's the same thing the MSM does to boost the 40% in polls who support liberalism -- make them out as the vast majority.

And let me be clear.... if there are no good candidates, then it is a proper role for talk radio to point that out and to seek out better candidates to enter the race. But that’s not what’s going on because these talk radio people don’t have a clue if there are good candidates or not because none of them have done the research.

I understand that talk radio is all about generating outrage and controversy, but they have a responsibility too. That responsibility comes from their claim to speak on behalf of conservatism. And that responsibility is to verify their opinions before offering them. Do the research before you speak. Stop misleading your listeners, because right now, talk radio is a worse enemy to conservatism than the Democrats, the RINOs, and the MSM combined.