Posted on 03/18/2004 8:09:06 AM PST by Mich0127
Is "shock jock" Howard Stern's voice powerful enough to affect the upcoming presidential election to the extent of sending President Bush packing?
That's what the Boston Globe wants to know, explaining that the liberal talk show host the newspaper describes as a "stripper aficionado, champion of misfits everywhere, all-purpose radio provocateur," has turned his raunchy show into a Bush bashing marathon.
Writes the Globe's Matthew Gilbert, Stern has been devoting hours of his broadcast every weekday "to impassioned criticism of President Bush and support of Senator John Kerry."
Stern, he writes has been "Railing tirelessly against the president, attacking Bush's alleged yoking together of church and state, questioning the legitimacy of Bush's National Guard service, his use of images of Sept. 11 in his campaign ads, his stands on First Amendment rights, his handling of Iraq, and his stands against gay marriage and stem-cell research.
"Join me and friends of this show who are outraged," Stern said on the air last Friday. "Vote out every Republican you can find."
Moreover, Stern is also asking his listeners to send money to Kerry's campaign, calling the Massachusetts Senator "a good man" and praising both his record in Vietnam as well as his anti-Vietnamese war activities.
Stern's voice is powerful, as his ratings show. "With all the talk of liberal talk radio," Michael Harrison, the editor and publisher of Talkers magazine told the Globe. "... we're seeing emerging from the ranks of `shock jocks' one of the most potent and articulate liberal talkers we've seen in years."
Stern's recent crusade, he added, is "historic. Anytime you have somebody suddenly igniting political interest with an audience who has the kind of loyalty factor Stern has, it could turn an election."
Harrison explained that a large percentage of Stern's listeners -- some 8 1/2 million a week - were leaning in favor of Bush. "If Stern could turn several million supporters away from Bush, that has even more impact than Rush Limbaugh, who's preaching to the choir."
"On a national level, I don't know how much influence Stern could have," Chuck Todd, editor of The Hotline, a Washington-based daily briefing on politics told the Globe, adding that "we assume too little at our own peril when it comes to Stern and talk radio in general. . . . Does Bush really need to worry about him? If New York were a swing state, we definitely would take this more seriously. Is Stern's popularity as devoted outside of New York? We only know it is ratings-wise."
Stern's audience, Harrison said, is broader than most people realize. "They're not just 18-year-old, beer-drinking yahoos. They're 20- and 30- and 40-something professionals. They're mainstream American citizens who are well-educated and affluent and socially active and politically interested, though not politically active. But they're being motivated. Wouldn't that be amazing if millions of people vote who otherwise wouldn't, because of this issue?"
Adds Todd, "Some people will dismiss Stern not ... because they believe his listeners don't vote. I would argue that a swing voter is just that; they swing between not voting and voting, not between the two parties. So if he brings some nonvoters to the polls, then that's a big impact."
And, Todd pointed out, Stern has used his clout effectively in the past. Stern was briefly the 1994 New York Libertarian Party candidate in the governor's race, before withdrawing and endorsing Republican George Pataki. "One could argue that he had an effect on that New York governor's race, that he was an impact player," Todd says.
Stern's anti-Bush crusade began in earnest, the Globe reported, after the FCC crackdown on "indecency" had inspired Clear Channel - which he calls "Fear Channel" - to remove his show from six cities the week of Feb. 23.
Although Clear Channel's stations provide only a relatively small part of his audience, the action angered Stern.
Says the Globe, "his outrage has boiled to a head with news that Congress is currently considering a radical increase in the amount of FCC indecency fines (from a maximum of $27,500 to $500,000).
"It's over," Stern said on the air. "When the Senate passes that bill, it's over. The show is over. . . We can't do a radio program that's cutting edge . . . if the government keeps second-guessing everything we do."
Stern also insists that Clear Channel dropped him last month not because of indecency on his show but because of some of his Bush criticism earlier in the year. "There's a real good argument to be made that I stopped backing Bush and that's when I got kicked off Clear Channel," he told his listeners earlier this month.
"He is self-aggrandizing if he thinks he's being singled out here," Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a Washington-based advocacy organization told the Globe. "Congress is engaging in this kind of witch hunt generally. I don't think they're singling out Stern for his alleged critical comments against the Bush administration."
Chester says it is unclear whether Kerry will indeed be Stern's "savior," adding "I'm no fan of Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh... Congress is stampeding to censor a whole range of speech."
Well maybe the opposite will happen - if he continues railing against Bush, the Bush supporters will leave Stern... I'm one of them.
Baloney. If you've listened to both Howard Stern and Don Imus, a huge difference between the two audiences is evident within ten minutes. Stern's advertisers include a bunch of no-name local companies that I've never heard of, while Imus' advertisers include Mercedes Benz, Jeep, and the New York Stock Exchange.
This is why Imus laughs at all the grief he gets from Howard Stern supporters over Stern's superior ratings -- Stern's ratings are much higher than Imus', and yet Imus advertising revenue is substantially greater.
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