by Nancy Seddens

Created on: February 11, 2010

Rush Limbaugh is both the most popular radio personality in the country and the most hated man on the air although Glenn Beck may take that second title away from him in the near future. Limbaugh has been described as many things: a big fat slob, ego maniac, hate monger etc. but the one description that best fits him is that of marketing genius. How else could a man with only a few college credits, invent a whole new entertainment genre; that of political talk radio. Not only did Limbaugh develop it but he has stayed at the top of its rating for over 20 years.

 Rush Limbaugh, even if you can’t stand his political views, made politics entertaining and interesting while simultaneously saving AM radio from disappearing into oblivion. Let’s face it, politics is a complicated tangle of red herrings, back door deals, and deliberate miss directions carried out by a large cast of characters who only step out of the shadows and into the spot light when they are up for re-election. Television news cast barely scratched the surface of Washington DC’s antics before Limbaugh. They do better now but a surprisingly amount of their political reporting is now Rush inspired as they replay comments made by Limbaugh or comment on his comments themselves.

 How does he do it? He invents nicknames for those politicians he feels are on the wrong track (primarily democrats), he plays song parodies with political themes (Barak the Magic Negro, the most famous), and claims to understand the Democrat/liberal agenda better than anyone (due to talent on loan from GOD).  Limbaugh takes few calls and conducts even fewer interviews. The vast majority of his three hour radio show is what appears to be a stream of consciousness soliloquy concerning the news of the day aided by audio clips taken from the mouths of politicians and rival pundits.  Although his primary topic is politics Rush also on occasion talks about his other passions: football and golf. Basically whatever crosses Rush’s mind appears to come out his mouth and that’s mostly politics and a few personal antidotes about his cat punkin, family get togethers at his house and famous people he has recently met.

 Rush is a  shameless name dropper a characteristic that his fans find endearing. To his faithful listeners Rush Limbaugh is an ordinary person like themselves who happens to have an enormous brain and ego and is living the life they would like to. He is generously filling

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