Of all the idiotic things to dismiss Rush Limbaugh on, this was the one thing that upset people:
A lot less people are interested in what conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has to say after he called Georgetown University law student a “slut” and a “prostitute,” according to one industry ratings source.
Politico reported on Monday that Abritron’s key demographic ratings between March 29 and April 25 showed Limbaugh’s show had fallen 27 percent in New York City, 31 percent in Houston, 35 percent in Jacksonville and 40 percent in the Seattle-Tacoma market.
“Clearly Sandra Fluke isn’t the only one who didn’t like Rush calling her a ‘slut’ given how many viewers that comment incinerated,” a listener told Politico‘s Dylan Byers.
In late March, Limbaugh had claimed that he ratings were up by between 10 percent and 60 percent after he called Fluke a “slut” because she advocated that health insurance cover contraception for women.
“The advertisers who hung in here are going gangbusters, yes,” he told his listeners. “I mean, that’s the simple truth. The only ones who got hurt are the ones who left.”
A radio insider speculated to Politico that Limbaugh’s ratings had briefly surged as new listeners tuned in to hear him respond to the controversy.
Earlier this month, Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey said that his company had lost millions dollars after dozens of advertisers pulled their sponsorship from Limbaugh’s show. Dickey added that the radio giant was “hit pretty hard” by the loss.
The Arbitron report also indicated that ratings were up by as much as 79 percent in both the San Francisco and Las Vegas markets.
OK, of all the things that Rush Limbaugh has said over the years, such as admitting he was carrying water for the Republicans, declaring that Ron Paul would destroy the [Republican] party, and that morality comes from the State. Of his hypocrisy with pain killer addiction while talking smack about drug users and supporting the institutional rape of addicts to non-government approved substances, of his support for a war without a defined endgame or Congressional approval, his mocking of the atrocities committed by our troops at various detention centers, and of so much more that he has said over the years, this is what breaks him?
Sandra Fluke is a slut and should have been regarded as such. There is no reason to assume not to since she is a 30-year-old college student demanding free birth control. What other reason would a college student have than to be regularly taking birth control than if she was having regular sex with strange men?
Secondly, he should have been taken to task for his ideas, not any offensive statements. The fact that the Fluke incident is what has damaged him so much confirms my suspicions that women are stupid and they can’t stand it when a man calls a woman out on her sexual habits. Think about it. Most of his lost market share, if we are to believe this report, are probably women. Most men you talk to would be asking what the big deal is?
I suspect though, that this is only the surface reason and that the real reason is because Rush Limbaugh represents the dying group know as Mainstream Conservatives. Most people are looking at the solutions offered by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and they only solution seems to be “vote Republican”. This is the same tired playbook that has been trotted out every election cycle and it clearly isn’t working.
Perhaps his listeners, who are probably smarter than the average street idiot, are starting to understand that simply voting for the Republican is not the solution, especially when they are consistently backing out on their own promises. Even the Tea Party candidates who were pushed into Congress in 2010 have been a huge disappointment as the debt ceiling is still being raised and the necessary cuts aren’t being made. Meanwhile, the Republican leaders are just telling us to vote out the Democrats and they’ll be able to fix it.
But history has proven that Republicans are just as big spenders as the Democrats are, so there is no good reason to vote for either one if you want real reform. Instead, vote for the individual, or should not good individual be available, write your name in.
In any case, I am hoping that it wasn’t Rush’s Fluke-slut comment that got him lower ratings and revenue. But given human nature, I have my doubts.