Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One

by Zev Chafets

  Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, the Club for Growth, and other movement and media conservatives were incensed by the choice. Scozzafava was far from their notion of what a Republican should be, and with the notable exception of Newt Gingrich, they decided to back Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, an unknown accountant who hadn’t even lived in the district. A few days before the election, it became apparent to Scozzafava that she had no chance. She suspended her campaign and threw her support to the Democrat, making the conservative’s point that she wasn’t really one of them. Campaigning with Owens on the weekend before the election, Vice President Biden declared that his candidate was up against an opponent who had been “handpicked by Rush Limbaugh.” When Owens won, with just under 50 percent, Biden, Pelosi, and other Democrats said that El Rushbo and his fellow conservatives had cost the GOP a seat in the House and confirmed their thesis that hard-liners were electorally passé anywhere outside the South.

  Limbaugh didn’t read election night that way. To him the results in Virginia and New Jersey were the result of the pounding Obama had taken from the GOP guns of August. The following day he practically burst into song. “I’ll tell you what, folks, the results last night tell us one certain thing and that is that the Democrat Party is in trouble. It is led by a radical, it is stuck with extreme leaders in Congress who continue to defy the public and advance an extreme agenda that will undo that party . . . the Virginia victory is massive because it’s only the second time one party has swept all three statewide races. Combine Virginia and New Jersey and what you have is a blowout.”

  As for the 23rd, Limbaugh pointed out that Doug Hoffman had come from nowhere and received more than 46 percent of the vote as a third-party candidate up against both the Democrat and the Republican. Owens won with 48 percent and change. Limbaugh confidently predicted that the seat would return to the GOP the following year and that it would be part of a national trend. “The worst has yet to come for the Democrats,” he said. “The exit polls say that the economy is number one and jobs and taxes, I mean if that isn’t about Obama, I don’t know what is. Do you think they’re still voting against George Bush out there? I don’t think so, folks. How is that hope and change working out for you?”

  Shortly after Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, went platinum, callers to Limbaugh’s show began asking if he would support her for the Republican presidential nomination. Limbaugh cautioned that it was much too early to be thinking about 2012. “What we need to keep our eyes on now is 2010,” he said.

  Congressional elections are Limbaugh Time, and he made it clear that he wanted not just Republican victories but victories by the right kind of Republicans. This is both an electoral prescription—“real conservatism works every time it’s tried”—and an antidote to what he sees as the dangerous temptation of RINOs (Republicans in name only) to pander to the elites. His far enemy in 2010 would be the Democrats, but the near enemy was “blue-blood, country-club, Rockefeller Republicans” embarrassed by the party’s unsophisticated “Billy Bobs” and consumed with the need to be popular in Washington and the Northeast Corridor.

  The ballots were hardly counted in New Jersey and Virginia when Limbaugh began his onslaught on these heretics by announcing his list of the “Top Ten Republican Moderate Moments,” which included George H. W. Bush’s loss to Clinton in 1992, Bob Dole’s defeat in 1996, Gerald Ford’s failure against Jimmy Carter in 1976, McCain’s loss in 2008, and Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama. “Do you see a pattern here, folks?” he said. “Every one of them took us where? Backwards! Every damned one of them. These are the people and these are the things that should define the Republican Party?”

  There were plenty of Democratic strategists and pundits who were delighted by Limbaugh’s demand for ideological purity. “The more rightists who win G.O.P. primaries, the greater the Democrats’ prospects next year,” wrote Frank Rich just before the 2009 election. He pointed out that John McCain lost every demographic group in the country except for white senior citizens and rural voters, and applauded this as a permanent shift in the nation’s political demography. According to him, there was once an American majority of conservative, middle-class, white, Christian voters. “That America was lost years ago, and no national political party can thrive if it lives in denial of that truth,” Rich wrote. “Most Americans like their country’s 21st-century profile.”

  Moderate Republicans, the kind Democrats approve of, like Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, former Virginia Congressman Tom Davis, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and GOP Chairman Michael Steele, all call themselves conservatives. But they accept the idea that the GOP can’t win without reaching out to liberal-leaning independents and ethnic and racial minorities with focused messages. This theory of politics is known as being inclusive, a use of language Limbaugh considers Orwellian. He made the point in an interview with Chris Wallace two days before the 2009 election—the same day, in fact, that Obama was rallying his base in New Jersey and Frank Rich’s column ran in the New York Times. Wallace asked if Limbaugh wanted a small tent party, as his detractors said.

  He replied that he wanted a big tent.

  “But you sound like you’re kind of saying to the moderates, particularly on social issues, ‘If we lose you, too bad,’ ” Wallace said.

  Limbaugh shook his head. “The conservative message is not, ‘Okay, Hispanics, we have this plan for you. Women, we have this plan for you.’ Why be Democrat lite? Let them handle that. Let’s go after the big tent that is the country, and let’s go get every person in this country—I don’t care what their race is, what their gender is, what their sexual orientation. If they are told that there is somebody . . . who is actually going to strengthen them, give them the tools, get out of their way and let them make this country work, the Republican Party can attract a majority like they haven’t seen since the 1980s.”

  The outcome in 2009 strengthened Limbaugh’s hand. He and his allies demonstrated in the 23rd District that, whatever else they could do, they were able (and willing) to keep a moderate Republican from winning. And in Virginia and New Jersey, exit polls found that a large majority of independents voted not for the Obama-approved candidate, but for the Old American conservatives. This was bound to have a sobering effect on anyone running for reelection in 2010 outside the most Democratic districts in the country. Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and Maxine Waters are as safe as Ba’athist candidates in Damascus, but they are a fortunate minority.

  The vote on the House’s America’s Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009, in early November, made the Democrats’ dilemma clear. Congressman Bill Owens of the 23rd took the oath of office just in time to support the bill. So did 218 of his fellow Democratic Representatives (and one Republican, Anh Joseph Cao of New Orleans). But thirty-nine Democrats voted no, and others raised their hands in favor of the legislation only after the Stupak Amendment—which banned public funding for abortion in any new health care system—was added. This amendment enraged liberal feminist groups and highlighted the ideological fault lines in the Democratic party. Mainstream pundits had, for months, been touting a Republican civil war between the forces of GOP reason in the center and the Limbaugh extremists. But the internal contradictions among Democrats were acute. On paper they had overwhelming margins in both the House and the Senate, but they were finding it nearly impossible to translate them into coherent legislation. The Progressive caucus of the House, which represents the party’s left-wing base, had seventy-nine votes. On the other side, there were fifty-two Blue Dog moderates, Democrats who represented moderate to conservative constituencies. Most of the Blue Dogs had voted for Obama’s stimulus bill and had been hearing about it from disgruntled voters ever since. On health care, even with the addition of the Stupak Amendment, almost half the Blue Dogs voted with the Republicans.

  The problem of moderate Democrats in the era of Obama became clear in the Senate when sixty Democratic senators were unable to come up with a bill that included th
e heretofore critical “public option.” Half a dozen Democratic senators up for reelection in red states began to reevalutate their prospects. Limbaugh would make them all targets, but he had a special bull’s-eye reserved for Dingy Harry Reid.

  Thanks to Limbaugh’s refusal to accept the concept of “bipartisanship,” the Democrats owned a whole agenda of unpopular spending measures—not just health care reform (which got just one Republican vote in the House and none in the Senate), but cap-and-trade (just eight Republicans in the House, one of whom subsequently resigned to work for Obama) and the stimulus bill (no votes in the House, three in the Senate—one of which belonged to Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who later left the GOP and became a Democrat). For months, pundits had been promoting the idea that Republican moderates and conservatives were engaged in a civil war. If so, Limbaugh was Grant at Appomattox.

  The Obama administration thought it was scoring points when it claimed that Limbaugh was the de facto head of the Republican Party. In 2009, they discovered that the ploy had backfired. Limbaugh really was the dominant Republican voice. It is easily possible to visualize the Republican Party without Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Michael Steele, Colin Powell, or even George W. Bush (whatever happened to him, anyway?). But not without Limbaugh. As long as he is on the air, his program is the most audible voice of the party, and 12:00 EST will be the hour that the GOP’s rank and file get their marching orders and their talking points.

  Those talking points rest on the unchanging principles of Limbaugh’s conservative worldview. His seventy “Undeniable Truths” are still in effect, although the emphasis has shifted and become more focused over the years. They can be condensed, I think, into ten absolutely absolute Limbaugh beliefs (my list, not his):1. The world is governed by the aggressive use of force. American security and prosperity rest on its unquestioned military superiority and the will to use it.

  2. There is a God who has endowed humans with freedom and moral precepts. Morality is not a matter of individual choice and it is not relative; it is absolute and found in the tenants of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

  3. America is an exceptional nation because of its Constitution. It is a unique force for good in the world and an example to the rest of mankind.

  4. There is a distinct American culture based on individualism, self-reliance, capitalism, and a common language. Immigrants should accept and embrace this culture.

  5. Economic prosperity flows from free markets, low taxes, and a minimum of government regulation.

  6. When the virtues of equality and freedom clash, generally speaking, the latter trumps the former.

  7. Freedom of speech is absolute.

  8. The earth and its ecosystem are not fragile, and they cannot be ruined by human effort. Those who claim to be saving the planet are actually motivated by schemes to get rich, redistribute wealth, weaken America, or establish a one-world government.

  9. In government, character and a conservative philosophy are the most important qualities in a leader, and Ronald Regan is the model for presidential greatness.

  10. All Democrats are liberals. The worst Republican candidate is better than the best Democrat.

  Any GOP candidate who wants Rush Limbaugh’s support in 2010 (or beyond) will have to agree to these principles and the ways in which he translates them into specific policies. The specific agenda is easy to predict. It will begin with Limbaugh’s belief that Obama is not only a failed economic chief executive but a dangerous one. Rush sees this administration, with its appetite for control and regulation, and its ownership, via bailout, of major American industrial and financial companies, as uniquely unfriendly to the private sector. Bush-era spending and fiscal policies may have done serious damage to the economy—Limbaugh really doesn’t dispute that—but this president, Rush believes, has intentionally exacerbated crises in order to step in with new central control.

  There is a limit to how far Limbaugh can go with his economic critique. Bad economic news is a slippery commodity. Blaming Obama and the Democrats for high unemployment, inflation, the falling value of the dollar, and the size of the national deficit is standard GOP operating procedure; the Democrats, in a similar situation, would do the same. But by emphasizing negative economic markers and pessimistic forecasts, Limbaugh risks sounding like he’s cheering for higher unemployment or a continuation of the recession. At the height of the Iraq War he often said (correctly) that bad news from the battlefield was treated as good news by the left. That’s a charge that can easily be reversed on the economic front and turned on Republicans.

  The same applies to Afghanistan. In late November 2009, in a speech at West Point, President Obama announced that he was ordering thirty thousand additional troops to Afghanistan—and that he would begin to withdraw forces in 2011. Limbaugh had been attacking Obama for months for failing to give the generals the reinforcements. He could have followed Newt Gingrich’s lead and praised the president for finally coming around. Instead, he accused Obama of being too late with too little and attempting to appease his anti-war base with the withdrawal pledge. Here he was staking out a position. By Election Day 2010, the president’s surge will be in full swing. In the nature of military operations, it will probably succeed in some areas, fail in others, and leave a good deal unresolved. But nothing short of Osama bin Laden’s head on a stick in the White House Rose Garden will stop Limbaugh from deriding the president’s efforts and charging Blue Dog Democrats who back the president’s war policy with supporting a commander in chief who doesn’t really believe in victory and whose real goal is to get out of Afghanistan in time for the 2012 presidential election.

  Obama’s foreign policy offers a lot of opportunity for Rushian mockery. The president is very popular around the world, and American popularity abroad is extremely important to some of his key supporters—especially those in the entertainment industry, whose business plan depends on the goodwill of foreign consumers. But Obama’s good standing overseas is less critical to average Americans, who are apt to wonder with whom Obama is popular and why. Jocular photo ops with the anti-American Hugo Chavez, or kowtowing to the Emperor of Japan and the King of Saudi Arabia, are not likely vote getters in most of the country.

  The policy of engagement hasn’t shown many results, either. The reset button with Moscow jammed. The Iranians are building their nuclear weapons undisturbed. Obama went to China and got a cool reception; its leaders even warned him not to endanger the value of their dollar by inflating U.S. currency with profligate spending. During the presidential campaign, he promised to remove U.S. troops from Iraq and close the prison at Guantánamo Bay during his first year in office, but did neither. His appeal to the Arab world in Cairo, in which he went so far as to equate the plight of the Palestinians to that of the Jews after the Holocaust, got him nothing in return. Obama went to the UN Global Climate summit in Copenhagen and brokered an obviously meaningless deal. His only foreign policy success was winning the Nobel Prize, an honor even he admitted was undeserved.

  A poll published by Vanity Fair in its January 2010 issue found that 26 percent of Americans think that Limbaugh is the most influential conservative in the country. Glenn Beck was a distant second, with 11 percent. Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin tied for third place with 10 percent. Sean Hannity got 8 percent. The highest-scoring currently serving Republican official was House Minority Leader John Boehner, with 4 percent. In 1994 Rush came out of right field to sell Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. This time, the election is Limbaugh’s to win or lose. If the results of 2010 resemble the landslide of 1994, Limbaugh will want more this time than to be named an Honorary Freshman.

  The momentum of 1994 was squandered in 1996 by the nomination of Bob Dole, a moderate Limbaugh viewed with disdain. Rush didn’t have a candidate of his own that year, but he won’t make that mistake again. He will be backing somebody next time. It won’t be Mike Huckabee, whose “Club for Greed” slams at the corporate wing of the GOP have made him Rush’s idea of an irrespo
nsible populist. It won’t be Gingrich, either; Newt has gone soft in Rush’s opinion. And it very likely won’t be Bobby Jindal. Limbaugh has stopped referring to the Louisiana governor as “the next Ronald Reagan” and scarcely mentions him at all these days.

  Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty is a possibility. Rush said good things about Pawlenty when he was being considered for the vice presidential nomination in 2008; and in 2009 he took note of Pawlenty’s endorsement of conservative candidate Doug Hoffman. Limbaugh respects Mitt Romney, but probably not enough to push hard for him. Right now, the frontrunner for his support is Sarah Palin, whom he calls “the most prominent, articulate voice for standard, run-of-the-mill, good old-fashioned conservatism.” When Palin’s autobiography was published Rush gave it a rave review in the Limbaugh Letter, and spent an hour with her on his show—the sort of gesture he usually reserves for Republican presidents and special friends. In that interview, Rush noted approvingly that Palin was unpopular with the Republican Party establishment, by which he meant the McCain-Steele moderates. Listeners came away with the impression that if the nomination were being decided tomorrow, she would be his candidate.