The leader of the opposition - political commentator Rush Limbaugh - Cover Story

National Review, Sept 6, 1993 by James Bowman

Which is the real Rush Limbaugh - the merry prankster of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, or the unifying voice of conservatives across the country? Just tune in . . .

To begin with, he's not Mr. Limbaugh. You've got to call the ornament of the EIB (Excellence in Broadcasting) network, the man so used to the adulation of his fans that he long ago asked them to skip the praise with which they prefaced every phone call and just say "Ditto," the man who likes to claim he has "talent on loan from God," just plain Rush. That's what the ever-courtly Ronald Reagan, who has never met him, calls him. A month after George Bush's defeat by Bill Clinton last year, Reagan sent him the following unsolicited note:

Dear Rush,

Thanks for all you're doing to promote Republican and conservative principles. Now that I've retired from active politics, I don't mind that you have become the Number One voice for conservatism in our Country.

I know the liberals call you "the most dangerous man in America," but don't worry about it, they used to say the same thing about me. Keep up the good work. America needs to hear the way things ought to be."

Sincerely, Ron

To some of those close to Reagan, the letter is evidence that the former President is losing his grip. "If [Limbaugh] is leader of the opposition in the true political sense," one of them told me, "then we're in serious trouble." Fred Barnes in The New Republic ended a piece on the Republican resurgence under Clinton by drawing a contrast with the Carter era: "When the GOP rose in the late 1970s, it had Ronald Reagan. Now the loudest Republican voice belongs to Rush Limbaugh."

Passing the Torch

The unspoken premise there is that Limbaugh, unlike Reagan, cannot be taken seriously as a political leader. But to a surprising number of conservatives there is a solemn appropriateness about Reagan's passing the torch to the 42-year-old former disc jockey and college dropout. Certainly if any conservative is in line to inherit the mantle of "The Great Communicator," it is the idol of the "dittoheads," the man who presides over the country's most listened-to radio talk-show. But his twenty million listeners a week on 616 stations also make him the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the cage in which American conservatism is languishing. "One reason he unites the Right is that he's the biggest kid on the block," says Terry Eastland, editor of The Forbes Media Critic. "People don't want to be lampooned on the air; politicians don't want to offend him because he's so popular."

Certainly, of those who might themselves be considered leaders of the opposition, no one to whom I was able to speak has a word to say against him. Their compliments sound as if they have been rehearsed in front of a mirror. "When Rush Limbaugh talks, you know you're listening to the real world," says Bob Dole. "He's a powerhouse antidote to the liberal cheer-leading you hear all the time from the national media. That's why Rush is such a refreshing addition to America's airwaves. He's smart, he's tough, and he isn't going away, much to the annoyance of the liberal crowd." In amongst such unmitigated praise, do we detect just a hint of condescension in the word "refreshing" or that mention of the "airwaves"? Is there the tiniest smidgen of resentment of Limbaugh's popularity in "the real world" as opposed to the power in the political world that Dole wields? If so he is not saying so. On Rush as leader of the opposition he had no comment.

Phil Gramm says Limbaugh "has had a profound impact on conservative thinking in America . . . He says things other people are afraid to say. As an opinion maker and thinker he is very intelligent and, like Ronald Reagan, a very effective communicator. There are many days when I think he's doing a lot more good than the Republicans in the Senate are doing."

Dan Quayle agrees: "He's certainly out there carrying his fair share. I'd say he's leading the charge right now. It's only in the three months since I returned to Indiana that I've realized how big he is. . . . I know the Republican Party listens to him. He's got the pulse of our rank and file."

Jack Kemp, who compares Rush's influence among Republicans to that of Will Rogers among Democrats in the 1930s, adds that he's certainly leading the fight against some of the far-left policies of the Clinton Administration and doing it with wit, wisdom, humor, tenacity, and an irrepressible style. He shows people that the Democratic Party, and especially Bill Clinton, who ran as a centrist, are not |New Democrats' at all but old Democrats who are not trying to empower people but government."

But it is Kemp's partner in Empower America, William Bennett, who must take the prize as the most convinced Rushophile among Republican leaders. He has gone from being a listener to the show, to being an occasional contributor by phone, to being a close personal friend and something of an intellectual mentor. Rush, says Bennett, "may be the most consequential person in political life at the moment. He is changing the terms of debate. He is doing to the culture what Ronald Reagan did to the political movement. He tells his audience that what you believe inside you can talk about in the marketplace. People were afraid of censure by gay activists, feminists, environmentalists - now they are not because Rush takes them on. And he does it with humor. We have a reputation as somewhat prim and priggish, and Rush is absolute death to liberals: a conservative with humor."