Eric Boehlert in Salon, March 4, 2000

http://www.salon.com/politics2000/feature/2000/03/04/rush/index.html

March 4, 2000 - Sen. John McCain may or may not replace President
Clinton in the Oval Office, but the Arizona Republican and the Democratic
president now share at least one experience unique to American politics;
they've both been ripped a new one by Rush Limbaugh.

Ever since McCain scored his 19-point New Hampshire victory over
Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the conservative talker, heard by
nearly 15 million listeners on more than 500 radio stations nationwide,
has been shredding McCain hour after hour, day after day. Longtime
listeners say for Limbaugh to conduct this kind of sustained scorched-earth
policy against a fellow Republican is unprecedented.

And the sharp blows have left more than a few Limbaugh loyalists,
who happen to be McCain supporters, scratching their heads in disbelief
as the self-proclaimed "Truth Detector" gives McCain the full Clinton
treatment; questioning his honesty, his integrity and running parodies
that make the senator sound like a stammering, incoherent twit.
(By contrast, Limbaugh, a Lincoln Bedroom guest during
 George Bush's presidency, has found no fault at all with W.)

"There's a real sense of betrayal among McCain supporters," says
Chris O'Brien, a Republican attorney from Albany, N.Y., who's been
listening to Limbaugh for the last 10 years, and agreeing with
the right-wing host "80 percent of the time." "It's not the issue
of his disagreement, it's Rush's vehemence," says O'Brien.
"He's trying to turn McCain into Clinton, and that's ridiculous.
 He's just out to get this guy, and I think he's hurting McCain."

 This is incorrect.
 Rush tried to turn Clinton into something he's not,
 and now he's doing the same to McCain.

While Limbaugh's influence in general elections has proved to be
negligible over the years, his ability to seriously damage a candidate
during the Republican primary season is far stronger.

"He can have that effect because he reaches activists, the people who are
highly motivated to go out and vote," says Randall Bloomquist, program
director at news/talk station WBT in Charlotte, N.C., which airs Limbaugh's
syndicated weekday shows.   Newsday's Paul Colford, who wrote an
unauthorized biography, "The Rush Limbaugh Story," agrees:
"What Limbaugh has to say during this [GOP] slugfest should not be discounted."

What Limbaugh has been saying on-air is that McCain is a shameless
manipulator  who's borrowing "the deceitful politics of Bill Clinton."
That there's "intellectual dishonesty" flowing from the McCain camp.
That "you can't rely on what McCain says," because he lifts policies
"right out of the Bill Clinton/George McGovern play book."
And that "McCain is the unsuspecting tool of the Rockefeller
Republicans who want to reclaim the party from Christian conservatives."

Limbaugh welcomes callers to his show who denounce McCain as
"an intellectual bigot" who "lies, lies, lies" and is a man who "has
no set core values." Online, at Limbaugh newsgroups, fans are now
posting questions about McCain's Vietnam military service ("Has there been any
corroborating evidence by McCain's fellow prisoners that he was 'brutally tortured'?")
right next to the "Is Clinton a murderer?" rants.

"Limbaugh's just beating the hell out of McCain," notes Michael
Harrison, the non-partisan editor of Talkers, the talk radio industry bible.
"He's found McCain to be a temporary replacement for Bill Clinton.
And Limbaugh needs another Clinton just to be Limbaugh.
He's an entertainer and he's got a show to do. Talk-show hosts
are like movie theater owners -- 'we need new films.'"

Limbaugh's intense dislike for McCain seems to be due to two factors:
the media's positive response to McCain, and the support he's attracted
from independents and Democrats.

No, they have this all wrong.
Rush Limbaugh is simply a whore.
Bush's tax cut is bigger than McCain's.
That's all there is to this.
Rush needs a big tax cut like you and I need air to breathe.
Rush doesn't care about anything except more and more money
Rush would endorse Farrakhan if his tax cut was a nickle larger than Bush's.

When non-Republicans gave the senator a victory in Michigan, Limbaugh decried
the "love-'em-and-leave-'em liberals who, in effect, gave McCain a little Lewinsky."
(Limbaugh seemed to have sex on the mind during his post-Michigan analysis:
"Watch the media elite have orgasm after orgasm after orgasm over McCain.")

Not surprisingly, Limbaugh sees the liberals-are-taking-over-the-GOP
conspiracy at every turn of this primary season. When Joe, an Al Gore
supporter from Queens, recently called and pointed out Democrats fear
facing McCain in November, the recently slimmed-down talk show host coolly
deduced Joe's ruse and announced the caller was trying to trick Republicans,
so listeners should take the opposite of Joe's advice.

"It was a double-cross and it was a nice try. But this ain't some local show,"
Limbaugh crowed triumphantly. (He occasionally allows McCain supporters on the air,
but often mocks them after they've hung up, like the McCain backer Limbaugh accused
of "parsing his language like [former White House council] (sic) Lanny Davis.")

For now, the McCain camp remains mum on Limbaugh, opting to shy
away from a public spat. "He's entitled to his opinion," the senator told a
Seattle radio interviewer who asked about Limbaugh's relentless attacks.
It's a wise move, says Colford: "That's not a good fight to pick,
not when he has a microphone that big."

McCain supporters who for years have reveled as Limbaugh lampooned
their shared enemies on the left, find the assault on their own
candidate bewildering. They insist Limbaugh often contradicts himself,
won't own up to botched predictions (just days before the senator
unleashed his public attack on Pat Robertson, Limbaugh told listeners
"to keep a sharp eye on this, McCain is going to move to the right"),
and distorts the candidate's record. Sound like familiar accusations?

"We've documented for years the problem with Rush's logic and facts,"
says Peter Hart, an analyst with Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting,
a liberal media watchdog group. "And maybe conservative listeners
didn't pay much attention to those distortions. But now that they're
hitting closer to home, at least with McCain supporters,
it might startle them that Rush plays so loose with the facts."

What also angers some listeners is what they see as Limbaugh's
feverish loyalty to the Republican Party. "Rush really has gone
overboard in his bashing of McCain, but I guess it's understandable
since Rush represents the status quo, and Senator McCain is attacking
the status quo," says Tom Abbott, a conservative from Oklahoma
who's listened to Limbaugh for years.

"Nobody should be surprised" about Limbaugh's aggressive defense
of the Bush candidacy, says Bloomquist at WBT. "When Rush started
out he was doing guerrilla radio, the voice of conservative reason.
Then Republicans took over Congress and suddenly Rush came down
from the mountain and became establishment radio."

No doubt at the outset of his campaign McCain pondered the pitfalls
of taking on the Republican powers that be, and plotted ways to
get around hostile senators, governors and fund-raisers. The problem
is McCain never devised a strategy to combat perhaps the meanest
and most influential GOP backroom player of them all: Rush Limbaugh.