Former Godfather’s Pizza maven and GOP Republican Presidential hopeful Herman Cain is going to get a lot of dough: conservative talker Neal Boortz is retiring and Cain will replace him on this high profile gig:
After more than four decades on the airwaves in Atlanta, Neal Boortz this morning announced that he is ending his syndicated talk show on January 21, 2013, replaced by former presidential candidate Herman Cain.
Cain will take over that day when the next president is officially inaugurated.
“I’m going to miss everything associated with doing a talk show,” Boortz said on air as his producer Belinda Skelton teared up.
He said he is not doing this for health reasons. “I am not doing this because I’m fixing to die,” he said. “I have absolutely no health problems period.” Rather, he wants to travel with his wife Donna, something he said is difficult to do as a full-time talk-show host. He even purchased a tour bus to rove the country.
“We’re going to call this Neal’s happy ending,” he added later with a glint in his eye.
After his first break, post announcement, associate producer Christina Gonzalez popped the champagne. Cain ambled in a few minutes later and grabbed a glass. “Mr. Boortz,” he said. “Your announcement was pure Boortz.”
Two things: Cain has done talk radio and will be the perfect talk radio host. His Presidential campaign may have eventually fizzled, but he still is the kind of personality who could get invited on other talk shows or late night comedy shows.
And Boortz? I had a personal experience with him and liked the guy.
In February 2011 while in Florida doing some school programs CNN called and wanted me on the panel Don Lemon used for a while containing independent voters. I was asked to go to TV studio in Naples. And who should walk in but Neal Boortz, who was supposed to go on Ed Schultz’s MSNBC show.
Boortz was a breath of fresh air. He happily made small talk and had a lot of pizazz. At one point he saw a commercial and made an observation about it that was not politically correct but…correct. He said, “Now, if I said that on the radio I’d set off a firestorm. (Pause). I have to remember to say that on Monday…” The studio techs and yours truly found him a delight.
It was even more fascinating watching him handle a minor situation with MSNBC. He had been invited on but was waiting and waiting and waiting while Schultz chatted with Democratic strategist Bob Shrum. He asked the studio tech to deliver a very pointed but funny message to Schultz’s staff about how long he had waited and how he might just leave. And he got right on.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.