The writing on the walls.

Official MOSU Chemist's brother in law has a neat piece up that I think goes along nicely with my stem cell post in the sense that it gives perhaps a nice perspective on the bigger picture. It's not intended as a political piece, rather a an academic spot about lack of knowledge and procrastination.

If you're scratching your head wondering just what in the hell I'm talking about, I'll explain it to you:

Wingers, who've avoided expanding their world view for a very long time, are ignoring the writing on the walls and putting off the obvious - which is to abandon dead end flag waver issues and come up with a new way of thinking.

Writing on the walls? The most obvious example would be the '06 trouncing that we received - although, I can see how the more strident of my conservative pals can ignore it. It was a national trend. They can marginalize us getting spanked by simply putting it all in the perspective of a national kick in the teeth. I know how hard it is get folks to self-reflect on things that they don't want to - and I know most definitely if you bring up to conservatives about how we got obliterated, their first response will definitely to talk about the larger scale.

I think it's more than fair to judge a political party's health, it's by taking a good look at the party's infotainment apparatus. To put it in a national perspective, the GOP has the advantages of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Levin. Whether intended or not (and I tend to be on the not side, btw) these people serve as ministers of information for the GOP. They provide clearing houses for information and perspective in an entertaining way which keeps GOP voters engaged and informed so that when election time comes around, we can count on the base to be up to date and motivated.

The methodology is so effective that we've seen numerous attempts by the left side of the aisle to copy it and create their own version of it, most notably with the bastardized launching of Air America which is still in the midst of failing, last time I checked.

Now, that being said, Chicago is a radio hub. Arguably it's one of the larger talk radio markets in the country and stations like WLS are continuously able to earn top ratings with benign water cooler talk shows like Don Wade and Roma and the snark humor of guys like Roe Conn. In the middle and at the end of their line up, you have hard conservative talk from Limbaugh and Hannity. WLS is also one of the larger talk radio stations in the country.

It would stand to reason that on a station that clearly has no beef with putting Conservative infotainers on the air and has listeners that are right leaning already that we would have prominent local conservative voices on the air next to them, complete with prime or semi-prime time slots.

Well? Do we? We did. A year ago we had Terri O'brien and Eileen Byrne. Byrne was good hearted I think - she just wasn't very good at talk radio. O'Brien was toxic to the point of being obnoxious. Both have since been canned or otherwise sent packing. O'Brien still maintains a screech fest blog which you can view at any time you're interested in seeing that she's less convincing in text than she is on the air.

So what happened? Why would WLS let'em drop? Idea one: that Terri O'Brien was too hot to handle for the Disney owned radio station. Her rants could easily cross the line from the 'classy' (and I use that term loosely) Limbaughesque to the classless kind of crap you'd otherwise only hear from Air America's most unlistenable and obnoxious host, Randi Rhodes.

Of course that doesn't quite fit the bill either. Limbaugh has assuredly generated some nasty incidents over the years, but he commands millions of listeners and whatever controversy could be easily over looked by the benefit of having a guy with a dedicated audience. Eureka! That's it.

Wait. Dan are you telling us O'Brien probably got the boot because nobody was listening? Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying.

Had O'Brien (whom is the epitome of Illinois right wing) and her hard right brand of Illinois political talk had an audience, she'd still be there today - but she didn't. There's no agenda in radio other than selling advertising and drumming up listeners to hear the advertising. O'Brien and Byrne couldn't hack it.....because nobody is listening. In fact, if you sift through the WLS line up, you won't find any other local conservative talk, save for *I think* Tom Roeser who runs a late evening one hour show....on Sunday.

Now I'm sure, that O'Brien or Byrne will at some point turn up at some point with the rest of the B-String infotainers over at the doomed to fail 560 WIND that will come with all sorts of cheers from the wingers, but will ultimately be short lived. Write it in stone. Save the rock.

Use it as a metaphor, Oh-hard-right. Nobody wants to listen to you. Average conservatives are disengaged from your ideas. The sooner you get it, the sooner we can move on and win an election or two.