Chill Out, I Got This

It appears that the Obama Administration is off to a roaring start in its first hundred days. The man has managed to lead from the center, and he seems to be holding all of the credibility cards.

This is extremely bad news for Republicans and Conservatives.

If the Gentle Reader will recall, the original tactics have not worked out very well. Opposing everything that the Administration supports, screaming "SOCIALIST" really loud, and hoping that Obama gets recognition for everything proposed and passed have basically made Republicans look like the Hillbillies and neighborhood Yard Nazis that most of them are.


One will recall what a Yard Nazi is: a white male between 45 and dead who drives a full-size American sedan, and calls the cops any time he sees a neighborhood kid touch his grass. He is also the guy who got egged every Halloween. If somebody chucked an anonymous bag of used diapers out of a car, they went on his beloved lawn. And the Yard Nazi was always the number one target of getting his house rolled/tp'ed or his front door (excrement)-bombed.


They are the last ones listening to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity. For those readers who saw pictures of the Teabaggers at their local venue, who can honestly state that the people seen there were not a 60%-38% mix favoring Yard Nazis over Hillbillies?


One appreciates that there were some very sincere and honorable people at the Tea Parties. But when one's political activism only includes grievances and broad policy objectives without any specific method for achieving said objectives, the activist becomes his opposition's best advertisement. Thus by losing Reagan's optimism and pragmatism, Republicans are pushing the center away with a Snowplow.


This is something Obama pulled out of his ear. He is the first Democrat to get that optimism and pragmatism appeal to the center. Has President Obama managed to achieve all of his objectives from the campaign trail? No, because no one can live up to any campaign's litany of goals. Has he managed to move on controversial actions and prevail? More often than not, Obama has been successful.


By appealing to the center, where a third of the country's voters abide, he risks losing a few on the ultra-left by not being Liberal enough, and the perpetual right wasn't going to vote for him anyway. The further Republicans move toward the Teabagger mentality, the wider the center willing to hear Obama becomes. As the economy eventually recovers, the question will become that of the '84 Reagan campaign: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?


The moment is coming where one wish of Conservative pundits is about to come true, and it's going to backfire on Republicans. The hope was that President Obama be credited for every act of the new administration. Once economic recovery takes root, all of those "no" votes are going to haunt Republicans like Marley's ghost.


It begins now. The same talkers desiring Obama get full accountability for the measures to counteract the recent unpleasantness are working on borrowed time. Local conservative talk has imploded in California, with ratings now drilling for oil under Hell. Tertiary hosts are one, maybe two ratings books from gone, and secondary hosts will be out within a couple of years.


After this winnowing, the only ones left will be Rush, Sean, and a couple of hosts in deep-red local markets like Atlanta's Neal Boortz and Dallas-Fort Worth's Mark Davis. There are already indications that Conservative talk radio is beginning to infight and pressure lesser-known hosts into staying on the reservation. The same sub-national presenters are evidencing a use of the smaller programs as a source of callers to nationally syndicated broadcasts.

As things exist right now, the local figures are serving to identify callers who are still in step with the agenda of national programs. There is a case to be made that screeners are coaching the same callers to expel talking points in a prescribed order which leaves the shows feeling as spontaneous as the construction of a shopping mall.

Conservative talk is dying, and lives in denial of its mortality. An opening now exists which was not even believable a year ago. Liberal talk did not fail on the merit of ideas, as is so frequently suggested by conservatives. If liberalism had failed in the realm of ideas, Mitt Romney woud be the POTUS. Liberal talk became dormant upon a litany of mediocre broadcasters.

If a Jon Stewart or a Bill Maher were to begin a syndicated broadcast leaning upon Liberal ideas, it could succeed. The nation has already accepted a left-of-center president with enthusiasm. A left-of-center radio broadcast with an entertaining host and some semblance of spontanaeity could provide an offset to the structured ennui that has become Conservative radio.

Perhaps that could be the greatest accomplishment of progressive leadership.