I grew up in the Fargo-Moorhead area. Ed is the type of guy who will do anything to make a buck, including pushing Liberalism. His radio station, KFGO, was the Country & Western channel with a fairly sizeable market share. Their major rival, WDAY, was the city channel with a news format. One of early talk radio's finest was WDAY's Viewpoint program with Bob Arntson, a McGovernick Leftist whom WDAY tolerated because of the novelty. Bob cut off callers, insulted conservatives and generally made an arse of himself. However, the format was a novelty in those days and he drew viewers to WDAY. One summer he took a vacation and a WDAY fill-in named ??? Miller took over the show. He was balanced, polite and, when Bob returned, a number of listeners said they liked the other guy better. Bob's diatribes had run its course and the ratings of the show actually
improved when he went on vacation and all callers had a chance to air their viewpoints, not just the Kool-Aid drinkers who were Arntson's regulars.
WDAY never fired him, but shortly thereafter he found a job in Minneapolis and left the area. WDAY then begin to go after KFGO's listeners bigtime with more farm reports, rural news and even Country & Western music. KFGO was starting to go for a younger audience when I moved away-- more of a contemporary music format. Ed Schultz was their sports announcer with no particularly large following even with a few well-publicized loony-tunes moves like shooting his hunting dog. The guy does, however, have talent and know how to exploit a market. Bob Arntson is his role model and he will likely ride this bandwagon for as long as it lasts.
Ed would be a Conservative if someone paid him more to do a show. Trouble is, the competition and talent in conservative talk radio is considerably higher and more refined than Ed's talent.