Is Rush Limbaugh A Sex Tourist?

You decide

From a reader:

Limbaugh is a 'Conservative', not a republican and if anything a centrist in the Conservative vain.

Please help me to understand.

How is Limbaugh a conservative? He cannot be a social conservative with his divorces, drug abuse, and indifference to organized religion.

He cannot be an economic conservative as he was in the amen corner with George Bush for the last eight years.

I struggle to comprehend how he can be a centrist on anything either ideologically or in terms of his disposition.

Limbaugh as well as O'Reilly, Hannity, and Coulter has found a lucrative marketing niche that has made them money by being a nay sayer to all things Democratic. But even the most generous estimate of their following-- rightist radio, cable, and columnists-- must be less than 30 million people-- and that isn't enough to win a national election. So what you now have is a confluence of interests. It's in the interest of Limbaugh to have their following. But it also is in the interest of the Democratic Party for them to have their following. So long as these loud know-nothings embody the Republican Party, the Democratic Party will thrive. While it is true that these folks have riled up the base, they have also radicalized the vital center of the electorate, causing a decisive shift of electoral votes into the Democratic column. My estimate is 50 net electoral votes. It is especially important that Democrats continue to personify political ideology as the animus toward George Bush and Richard Chaney recedes. Democrats need to run against the straw man of racist, hypocritical, resentful, and rich white Republicans. It is amazing that these so-called conservatives have so artfully created these straw men.

I can visualize Republicans winning several Congressional new seats in 2010 and possibly the electoral votes in 2012. Most counties vote Republican in the first place, while districts are concentrated in three areas...LA, Orange and around SF. With out going through all their referendums, they basically went conservative, emphasized by Prop 8 on same sex marriage rejection and have a very strong history of restricting government over many years.

If the economy doen't turn the corner by 2010, you may be right, especially if it looks like Obama's increasing controls on the national economy makes things worse. But you will only be right if the Republicans can offer a pragmatic alternative to Democratic policies. And I don't see that happening so long as they remain fixated on how such peripheral concerns as how gays live their lives Don't you see the inherent contradiction of your own statement: "they went conservative (by rejecting) same sex mariage and ... restricting government."

I predict that this ideological contradiction will keep Democrats in power for several more electoral cycles until the Republicans come to their senses and start giving us leaders who can solve real problems.