Congressional shift makes their day
Democrats’ coming to power may provide more
grist for conservative talk show hosts’ mills
by Nick Madigan
For conservative radio talk-show hosts, the power shift in
Congress is not necessarily a cause for gloom.
In fact, some of the hosts say, the new Democratic majority presents them
with a golden opportunity.
"It probably gives talk radio another two years of things to talk
about," said Frank Luber, co-host of The Sean
and Frank Show in the mornings on Baltimore's
WCBM. The station broadcasts shows by several conservative commentators,
including Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, who was
widely criticized recently for his mimicry of Michael J. Fox's ads in support
of Democratic candidates' backing stem-cell research.
"If you can believe what the Democrats say, there's going to be some
changes, so there'll be a field of opportunity to challenge the things that they
propose to change," Luber said.
Luber, who considers himself conservative but
remains a registered Democrat despite his disenchantment with the party, said
conservatives will be "pecking away at the Democrats, looking over their
shoulders."
By their own admission, most conservative talk-show hosts enjoyed a surge in
popularity and ratings during the Clinton
administration, when the Monica Lewinsky scandal and other travails provided
fodder for criticism and disparagement. In recent years, as the Bush
administration cemented its hold on power and prosecuted its war in Iraq, many
conservative commentators had less to attack, and their ratings declined.
Now, with the midterm elections giving Democrats one, if not two, houses of
Congress, some conservative commentators appear to be shaken by the results,
at least initially, but eager to go after the new power structure. Liberals,
meanwhile, seemed pleased to observe a humbling of their ideological
adversaries.
"They will be clucking about the
sky falling, which I will enjoy watching," Rachel Maddow,
a liberal talk-show host on Air America,
said from New York.
"Their whole reason for being is to tear down the opposition, so now
they have a bigger target. They've been going after [California Rep.] Nancy
Pelosi with both barrels for months. Now that she's going to be speaker, some
of the criticism might finally land."
But Tom Marr, another conservative host at WCBM, relishes the thought of a
full-throated battle.
"It'll be heyday again," said Marr, who has been in the Baltimore market almost
continuously since 1967.
"It'll be very interesting keeping an eye on Nancy Pelosi -- she has a
record. She's got an ultra-liberal record. And there are numerous
chairmen-to-be that are far to the left of the American mainstream. Talk
radio is going to have a field day."
Marr acknowledged that he had been hoping for better news on Tuesday night.
"Every conservative talk-radio host was beating the drum for the
Republican Party," he said. "Yesterday was an unmitigated disaster."
Al Franken, Air America's
most well-known host, said conservative commentators would be "licking
their wounds for a few days," after having tried hard during the
campaign to get Republicans elected and failing.
"They would literally only tell their listeners about the most
optimistic polls, and ignore the rest," Franken said. "It was
really funny. They were just doing their propaganda thing, and it didn't
work. It didn't matter if it was true or not."
For its part, Air America,
which recently sought Chapter 11 protection from creditors, plans to
"start doing new stuff," Franken said, including putting new
committee chairs on the air.
At Baltimore's WBAL, where outgoing Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. had
his own show, Stateline, on alternate Saturdays -- and made regular
appearances on talk shows like Chip Franklin's -- news director Mark Miller
said yesterday that he would offer Gov.-elect Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, a
program of his own after he becomes governor.
Miller said a similar offer will be made to Sheila Dixon, who stands to
become Baltimore's
mayor.
O'Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said yesterday
that his office had not yet received an invitation from the AM station.
"There's plenty of time for us to discuss this and figure it out,"
he said.
"At this point, we have no plans to do a WBAL Radio show. We haven't
been on WBAL in a while. I'm not sure that they were a real factor in this
election."
Ehrlich was such a presence on WBAL that local wags dubbed the station WBOB,
a play on the governor's first name.
"Nothing has made me chuckle more these last few months than hearing
some accuse WBAL of becoming 'WBOB,'" Miller wrote last week in an
article that he submitted to The Sun for consideration on its Op-Ed page.
"Clearly, Governor Ehrlich feels comfortable speaking with the talk
radio audience and to WBAL's listeners
specifically.
"It's his home turf, dating back to his first days in the state
legislature."
But, he said, the perception "that the station is WBOB is as much the
result of Mayor O'Malley's reluctance to appear as it is the governor's
willingness to appear."
Miller wrote that O'Malley had appeared on the station's airwaves early in
his tenure as mayor but by late 2002 "was regularly missing his own
program." Finally, he stopped appearing at all, Miller said.
"With every appearance of Governor Ehrlich on the station since July,
the mayor has received an invitation to appear from station management,"
Miller wrote. "They have all gone unanswered."
Abbruzzese differed: "They have sent us one or
two letters inviting us on the station; to that, we've said they were more
than welcome to cover our events and news conferences during the campaign. We
just determined that it was more effective to communicate with the citizens
in other ways."
nick.madigan@baltsun.com
Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun
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