The following is still nice regardless of what Rush and the naysayers are saying.....
Republican approval is at 96% in the current poll, off one point from last week but just above the average level since March.
It was either Jerry Spinger or Lou Dobbs who said controversy generates audience. A news talk show with out controversy dies in short order. The worst thing that can happen to a news talk, is for his guy to get elected and be wildly popular.
Rush needs to keep his 22 million like Jay Leno needs to win 11:30 eastern. It is ego and drive. The radio talk show audience is finite. It is about 30 million listeners. Rush has about 22 million of them. Reseach shows they will on average listen no more than 3 hours a day each to talk. So if someone grabs an hour in the AM that is an hour Rush doesn't get in the PM.
The days of Rush being the only game in town are over.
And just like Springer did in his show,when faced with competition, Rush will ramp up the controversy. The controversy to be real controversy must involve Bush.
This is not about political theory. This is about the audience threat of O'Reilly, the guy on before Rush on Clear Channel, Savage, Sean, Reagan and other talk show hosts cutting into the total audience.
But mostly this is O'Reilly puting the fear of God in Rush. Rush is just making a normal radio reaction of a guy running scared.
I didn't think Rush needed to be scared of O'Reilly, but Rush thinks he does.