Talk Radio And The Case Against Barack Obama For President

BUTTONWILLOW, Ca — Thank God it’s Saturday. That means I can turn on the radio dial and not be flooded with the most painful part of a 500 mile drive up California’s coast: going from market to market and getting only conservative talk radio. The reason: unless you’re a Republican partisan, this week conservative talk radio seemed infiltrated by Democratic Party moles doing caricatured, extremist off-the-wall broadcasts guaranteed to convince independent voters listening in to vote for Democrats.

And that’s an unfair reaction…since there ARE other Republicans out there who aren’t in talk radio mode.

You think the rhetoric, verbal extremism and unbottled rage displayed at Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s recent rallies is something?

This is the week conservative talk radio was seemingly-unhinged.

Here are just some of the paraphrased statements I heard while driving from San Diego to Los Angeles for a job, then from Los Angeles to San Francisco for a job, then from San Francisco here to Buttonwillow last night. This is compiled from listening to various national and local talk radio shows up and down California’s coast:

1. Obama is a Marxist.
2. Obama hates America.
3. Obama wants to hurt America.
4. This could be the last democratic election in America for some time once Obama gets in power.
5. The association with Ayers shows Obama really associates with terrorists and what his true political leanings are.
6. The liberal news media is actively, consciously working to elect Obama and only conservative talk radio and Fox News offer fair coverage.
7. McCain doesn’t want to win and it has been somehow arranged by big powers behind the scenes to give the election to Obama.
8. When Obama gets in power he will be a radical who will bring socialism or worse to America.
9. Repeated use of his middle name “Hussein” to imply he is a Muslim…or, rather, a dangerous Muslim and fellow traveler of terrorists.
10. All Democrats portrayed as manipulative, lying pols who want to lose the war.
11. McCain is not a real conservative and shows he doesn’t have the stomach to win an election. If he did, he’d turn the last few weeks into a debate about Ayers, Obama’s associations and use the Wright issue and bring these issues up in the final debate. McCain is weak and if these issues were used, he could win.
13. You never know, Obama could put Louis Farrakhan or Jesse Jackson in his cabinet…
12. Bush is being unfairly blamed for the economy but Bill Clinton and the Democratic Congress had a lot to do with it.

Is it fair to judge McCain and all Republicans by talk radio hosts — some of whom make Rush Limbaugh seem enlightened by comparison?

Absolutely not.

In fact, there are indeed thoughtful, serious people in the Republican ranks who are drowned out by the yelling heads on radio and on cable television who get their ratings by convincing audiences to return to entertaining broadcasts that in some cases imply that the Republic as we know it could fall if Obama is elected. These non-talk-radio, thoughtful people can be found in the both new and old media punditry. They don’t hurl adjectives at people disagree with: they discuss the actual issues.

They’re not hard to find — but they’re often hard to HEAR because of the way 21st century American political culture is set up.

Rather than quote from it here and take anything of it out of context, make sure read THIS MUST-READ POST which seriously looks at issue-oriented concerns over what an Obama victory coupled by a massive Democratic win in Congress could mean. Even those who disagree with this post, will agree that it is American political discussion at its very best.

These people do exist, but they’re drowned out in old and new media noise about the campaign. These people don’t scream about Ayers, Reverend Wright and they’re not not hurling accusations that Obama is a Marxist. They’re not yelling “traitor…off with his head..” They’re not putting rhetoric out there that those of us who lived in the polarized 1960s remember created a climate in which the lives of some young political leaders of the left, right, white and black, were cut short by bullets.

Former Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, writing in The Huffington Post has the same reaction to the over-the-top rage being shown at McCain rallies that McCain himself is now apparently trying to rein in:

But there is a threat here too that is all too real. When I heard someone in a Palin crowd yell out “traitor” as the candidate lashed out at the Democratic nominee, I thought of the full-page ad that appeared in a Dallas newspaper on the morning of Nov. 22, 1963. The headline–”Wanted for Treason”– was sprawled across a poster-sized photo of President John F. Kennedy.

Political debate can be done without anger and rage. You CAN differ with a politician or writer without detesting and demonizing them. Demonization is exaggeration (often erroneous) that attempts to discredit someone rather than make a more affirmative case on an issue.

And now, it’s time to jump in my car and take out something inspired by listening to a week’s worth of talk radio: CDs talk radio inspired me to buy so I don’t have to listen to talk radio, even the small doses offered on Saturdays….