Limbaugh: 'My impact will increase'
By JONATHAN MARTIN 5/11/08 6:21 AM EST
Diverted for now by Operation Chaos and the Democratic primary, Rush looks ahead to a McCain presidency and says he "will thrive."
Conservatives are despondent, liberals are as enthused about a presidential candidate as they’ve been in 40 years, and the candidate he has long loathed won the Republican nomination. But never mind the pervasive sense of GOP malaise: Entering his 20th year on the national airwaves, Rush Limbaugh is having a dandy 2008 cycle. Regardless of how many votes Limbaugh actually pushed into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s column with his mischief-making “Operation Chaos” plan to encourage his listeners to keep the Democratic primary going, the endeavor was a success in another important way. It reminded the mainstream media and others outside the conservative orbit of the following he commands. And that the “drive-by media” he so delights in tweaking would recognize his influence enough to put his stunt on the front page, as The Washington Post did last week, underscored another essential fact about the right-wing talk show host: Limbaugh is one heck of a showman. Even as the Internet supersedes radio, Limbaugh’s skills as a political provocateur, as much P.T. Barnum as conservative ideologue, are such that he can fuel buzz in the political-media world like few others. In other words, Operation Chaos was good box office, and that may well have been the point.
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