RUSH IS THE LEADER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party
The conservative radio host loves to talk about himself -- and the GOP base loves to listen, as the rapt throng at CPAC Saturday proved. That makes party bosses nervous.

By Thomas Schaller

Rush Limbaugh speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference

March 1, 2009 | WASHINGTON -- Seizing the opportunity to speak to a national TV audience, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh told a packed house of cheering supporters at the 2009 Conservative Political Action Committee's annual meeting in Washington to resist President Barack Obama's plans to expand government and not "think like a minority."

As Fox, CNN and C-SPAN carried his speech live and commercial-free, Limbaugh closed CPAC's 37th national convention by rallying conservatives still smarting from the Democrats' 2008 sweep of all branches of the national government and expanded electoral reign in the states.

Limbaugh exhorted conservatives to stay upbeat, blasted the alleged socialist agenda of the "Democrat Party," and called out the new president, the one he hopes will fail. "President Obama: Your agenda is not new, it's not change, and it's not hope," Limbaugh thundered, to wild applause in the Omni Shoreham's packed Regency Ballroom, as overflow crowds in three of the hotel's other convention rooms watched by live feed. "Spending a nation into generational debt is not an act of compassion." Conservatism itself, preached Limbaugh, was the sole bulwark against the frightening possibility of Obama destroying the country and the Republican Party. "[Conservatism] is what it is and has been forever," he said. "It is not something you can bend or shape."

But strip away the platitudes and cheap applause lines about freedom, self-reliance and the virtues of capitalism, and you're left with the subject that really interests Rush Limbaugh: himself. The conservative talker with the self-professed "talent on loan from God" spoke incessantly in the first person: there were more "I's" in his CPAC address than in an Idaho potato field. One clear message emerged from the speech:

"Le mouvement conservative, c'est moi."

And it's a message that makes some of the nominal leaders of the Republican Party uncomfortable.

The reliably self-aggrandizing Limbaugh referred about nine times during his speech to it being his first ever live televised national address. While that ignores the four years during the 1990s when he had a syndicated television program, taped live before a studio audience (and produced by Roger Ailes), it does underscore his relative importance to what remains of the national Republican Party. He spoke on the heels of a CPAC poll that revealed no clear choice among attendees for a 2012 GOP nominee, at the end of a week in which new Republican National Committee head Michael Steele kept finding fresh ways to make America cringe, and in which Louisiana's Bobby Jindal went from Next Big GOP Thing to punch line. Republicans, and some enablers in the media, have complained that "the left" wants to make Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin the de facto heads of the Republican Party, but, in fact, it seems to be the right's beloved free market that is doing that. The other contenders have failed -- including the ones for whom Rush Limbaugh admits he used to carry water, and those, like Jindal, for whom he still does. The Republican base votes for Palin in polls like this one, and as his radio ratings and the massive crowd at CPAC demonstrate, for Limbaugh with their ears, feet, hands and voices.

Moments before bringing Limbaugh to the CPAC stage, American Conservative Union president David Keene had gleefully reported a record attendance of 8,500, noting that when Reagan spoke at the first CPAC conference in 1973 only 125 people attended. Keene said the conference, which has steadily moved to larger venues over nearly four decades, had now outgrown the Shoreham and will move to "bigger quarters next year." In a statement that harkened back to Bill Clinton's defiant claims of relevancy in the wake of the Republicans' 1994 electoral victories, Keene assured the audience that "We're here, we're alive, and we're interested in ideas."

Slated for 30 minutes, Limbaugh spoke for more than an hour. His address started out quite strong, interrupted regularly for throaty ovations. In an early, not-so-subtle dig at the president and what he cheekily refers to as the "drive-by media," Limbaugh clarified for anyone wondering that he doesn't need a teleprompter to deliver a speech. He acknowledged Obama's persuasive powers, and even said the Democratic president had the "power to destroy" the Republican Party were he to use his communication skills to inspire Americans. (Apparently, Limbaugh watched a different national election, transition and opening month of the Obama administration, given that three-quarters of the country currently approves of the new president's performance.)

But Limbaugh limped through the final half-hour, rambling and repeating points he had already covered. He may not have needed a teleprompter, but by the end of the speech what he most needed was the hook. And despite buzz in some quarters about a possible Limbaugh bid for the presidency in 2012, if he truly had electoral ambitions, he would speak more often in the second person or first person plural, rather than solely about himself.

--salon.com