If Rush didn’t want to officially endorse anyone until after the primaries, the LEAST he could have done was have Duncan Hunter on his show for many interviews, and help Hunter with name recogntion. As Hunter said, as a congressman, he didn’t have that much name recognition.
Here’s from a thread that someone (maybe you) posted about a caller to Rush’s show:
“RUSH LIMBAUGH: I like Duncan. I have great admiration for Duncan Hunter.”
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_072707/content/01125121.guest.html
OK, Rush, like the old Connie Francis song goes: “Who’s sorry now?”
RUSH: Look, I hope he can break out. I don't mean to be rude, but I want to go on to one more caller before I have to go. But I want to tell you this. There's a story, I didn't get to it today, the Drive-Bys talking about McCain's explosion and so forth. The Drive-Bys are saying, "You know, it probably is a good thing. We've reached a threshold in this country now: military men are being rejected by the voters. John Kerry, McCain, so forth and so on." Put that in the hopper. We'll talk about it next week.
Now, I don't oft have the chance to listen to Rush, but I know blamedasted well he's given more mouth-time to Romney, Guiliani, Huckabee, Thompson, and McCain.
(Darned - that sounds like a partnership of lawyers.)
He scrambled and endorsed Fred in the last couple of weeks because he saw that the RINOs were marching unabated. Too little, too late, wrong guy.