http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090917/pl_politico/27282

Beck vs. Limbaugh

Michael Calderone – Thu Sep 17, 6:13 pm ET


GOP media strategist Mark McKinnon thinks there are two people in the world who fear Glenn Beck — even if "neither will admit it."

The first is Barack Obama.

The second is Rush Limbaugh.

Beck is on a huge roll. Over the last month, the right-wing Fox News talker has claimed the scalp of the president's green jobs czar; motivated thousands of conservatives to turn out for town hall meetings and a Sept. 12 march on Washington; pummeled Democrats over ACORN and Obama's czars; and landed himself a spot on the cover of Time magazine.

"Beck is the man of the moment," says the Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb. "Everybody in town is watching him, waiting to see what he'll do next, who he'll take down next."

But if Beck is the man of the moment, where does that leave Rush?

In an e-mail to POLITICO, Limbaugh said any attempt to compare him with Beck in terms of Washington influence rests on a "flawed premise."

"I do not, and never have, measured my success in ways you describe, such as 'impact' in Washington," Limbaugh said. "I am a broadcaster and judge my success by those standards."

By those standards, the slimmed-down Limbaugh is still large and in charge.

He reaches a much bigger radio audience, with somewhere between 15 and 30 million listeners on more than 600 stations around the country. He's ranked No. 1 on the "Heavy Hundred" list put out by the industry magazine Talkers (Beck is fifth); he tops Mediaite's power grid of radio hosts; and this week, The Atlantic installed Limbaugh and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman atop its list of "the most influential commentators in the nation."

Back in April - when Time put Limbaugh on its annual list of the 100 most influential people of the world - Beck was called on to write the tribute. He wrote that Limbaugh was "on another level" and "attracts more listeners with his voice than the rest of us could ever imagine."

That may still be the case, but Beck's power has grown exponentially since then.

Newsmax president Christopher Ruddy, a conservative journalist who played a role in dredging up scandals during the Clinton years, said that right now, Beck is "the No. 1 populist, conservative voice in the media."

"Glenn's emergence reminds me of Rush's emergence in the early '90s," said conservative radio host Mike Gallagher. "People have asked me, 'Who's the next Rush,' because Rush is the gold standard."

The answer, says Gallagher, "seems to be Glenn."

While Limbaugh once had a television show — produced by Roger Ailes, now Fox News president — he never enjoyed half the success in that medium that Beck has now. Beck's nightly show on Fox News completely dominates the competition, drawing more than a million viewers more than any other prime-time show on MSNBC or CNN.

And Beck is using the power of his show in ways that Limbaugh never has.

"Beck is playing more of a rallying role than Limbaugh has or is," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "Rush is more broad-brush, longer-range in approach, and Beck's gotten specific," Norquist added. "Here's an appointee. Here's the czars."

In the days before last weekend's conservative march on Washington, Beck flogged it repeatedly. He became such a part of the story that, as CNN correspondent Lisa Desjardins tried to report live from the event, protesters drowned her out with chants of "Glenn Beck! Glenn Beck!"

Limbaugh's role in promoting the protest? He said it's not his thing.

"I don't rally people and haven't since the first year of my radio show," he wrote to POLITICO. "At that time, all local talk hosts were attempting to prove their worth by getting people to cut up gasoline credit cards, call Washington, etc. I thought it was cheap and disingenuous. The few times I did, early on, suggest people call Washington, the reaction to it from the media was that the response was not genuine (I shut down the House switchboard) because people only did what they did because 'Limbaugh told them to.'"

Limbaugh hasn’t abandoned the call to action entirely; last year, he launched “Operation Chaos,” urging his listeners to register as Democrats and vote for Hillary Clinton in Democratic presidential primaries to prolong the nominating process and weaken Obama.

But now he suggests that conservatives don’t need any egging on – and he seemed to downplay Beck's role in goosing the turnout for last weekend’s march.

"The rally Saturday was special and important precisely because there was not a single, charismatic leader behind it," he said. "I never mentioned it, on purpose. People are rising up from genuine passion and concern, they are NOT being whipped into a frenzy. This is REAL and not inspired by anyone. This outpouring has been effervescing for years and Obama has brought it all to the boiling point. PEOPLE DO NOT NEED TO BE TOLD. They are living it."

If Limbaugh is suggesting that Beck's influence is overstated, he's not the only one.

Radio host Mark Levin, whose book "Liberty & Tyranny" just surpassed 1 million sales this week, laughed off the suggestion that Beck may be eclipsing Limbaugh as the voice of the right.

"Are you kidding?" Levin said in an e-mail. "Comparing Rush Limbaugh to Glenn Beck is like comparing George Washington to George Jefferson. Beck can be very entertaining and even informative, but he is neither the face nor the voice of the conservative movement. He is one of many."

And while Ruddy says that Beck is the No. 1 conservative populist now, he's quick to say that doesn't mean Limbaugh is No. 2.

"The rise of Beck doesn't diminish Rush or [Sean] Hannity," Ruddy said, "but he seems to be adding a new subset, a new group of people ... more of the populist, Ross Perot-type voter."

The opposition has clearly taken note. Six months ago, Democratic Party leaders made a concerted effort to portray Limbaugh as the de facto leader of the Republican Party. This week, the Democratic National Committee accused Republicans of "carrying out the marching orders of Glenn Beck and other right wing propagandists," and both People for the American Way and the Center for American Progress Action Fund sent out fundraising appeals invoking Beck's name.

I like em both...but there is no denying....Rush is the King.

No need to pit them against each other, but you'll see exactly that in the coming months. MSM and Lib talking heads will do anything they can to get them to turn against each other instead of focusing on exposing our current sham administration for what it is.

Whether it is Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent or .......on and on. The libs are going to continue to use the old divide and conquer ploy.



Among conservatives there is always conflict about the personalities that represent our different views. see ARFCOM GD! Media will always capitalize on this. They will always try to make it seem that there is no common voice in the conservative movement, and sadly we will often supply them with the necessary ammo.





I love what Beck is doing, I don't listen to him.........or Rush. Hats off to Ann, Sarah and Ted as well. I say whether you like them or not, if they are forwarding the cause.....we better have their backs, because the gloves are off.





If we are lucky, we will continue to add to the list of names of people pissing off the left.

liberal media trying to divide and conquer..
Rush for president, Beck VP..
Wouldnt that make liberals jump off fucking buildings..

Fire and Brimstone preachers are just as vital to spreading the gospel as the Evangelist with PhD after his name. Each reaches a segment that could never hear the other.

Guess who doesn't give a shit about anything in that article?

Rush and Beck.

They are both doing their part.

Nuf' said.

Beck gets shit done.

They serve different purposes.

In ARFCOM tradition there's no reason not to get both.

Yep, the ol' divide & conquer.





 

Not for long.

Yup, they are trying to marginalize our two biggest voices.  Be that as it may, Rush is and will always remain the Godfather.

Rush is God and Beck is Moses.

I thought his talent was just on loan from God?

I like Neal Boortz a lot, and I've been listening to him for nearly a decade, but his show is slipping and Glenn Beck must be nipping at his heals.  If he's not careful, Glenn will own the 9-12 time slot.





 

I don't think Boortz is anywhere near Beck in the time slot.  That game was over long ago.

I've listened to him for a couple of years.  He seems to have the biggest ego of all the talk show hosts.  Considering that Rush claims his "talent is on loan from God", thats saying a lot.  He also doesn't seem to understand that sometimes things aren't simply black or white, there's a huge gray area.

This is nothing more than the liberal media's attempt to divide conservative talk radio and get its audience to be at odds with one another.

Glenn and Rush compliment each other. They both do different things and I have a feeling they like each other

The one who's butthurt in all this is Hannity. He'll be overtaken my Glenn eventually and has a much less to offer the conservative movement in general. It's funny that he never mentions Glenn's name or gives him credit for anything. I saw he is doing a "ZOMG, radicals in the White House around Obama. I'm going to expose them1!1!". I lol'd because Glenn did all that 3 months ago. I could identify 6 of the 10 people he was going to expose in the 5 sec they were on the screen for his promo. He's lagging behind and is basically a republican mouthpiece. I can't stand him and his freaking catch phrases that he says 100x in every show. He's like a parrot: Squawk, Obama mania media. Squawk, Rahmbo dead fish. Squawk, unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.

Actually I disagree.  Things are black and white.



 

yep, Hannity is almost impossible for me to listen to.  Repub parrot is right.

No kidding.  Hannity is down right useless.





 

No joke.

Long ago I said that Beck would be Rush's heir. It looks like that has begun to develop. While I certainly see Beck catering to a younger, hipper crowd, he still can't hold a candle to Rush when it comes to radio creativity.

Still, it's like comparing a Ferrari to a Porsche. Yeah, one's definitely better than the other, but they both ROCK.

Rush Limbaugh > Glenn Beck

Any day of the week.

Oh, man! I'd pay good money to see that!

No..because they'd clearly win that election after telling people how Rush eats a puppy with a side of bunny for dinner every night.

But remember!

Talk radio is irrelevant.

I like both Glenn and Rush.

I don't think it's a "vs." at all. This is arfcom, guys:

GET BOTH

I deny that.

Rush was the King...of right-wing "entertainment".

Beck is entertaining, but not in the "look at me" way that Rush is.

The Constitution has no "Gray Area"...please explain your post.

Rush was kind enough to come on Glenn's TV show. Rush would not have done that if he did not want to see Glenn get ratings because of it. Rush is not the kind of guy to help support or send viewers to his competition, but I do believe that Rush is guiding Beck behind the scenes. Rush is more like a Father figure to Beck than competition. Rush would expect Beck to succeed on his own merits, not ride Rush's coat tails.

I think this is the reason you very rarely hear Rush or Beck talk about each other except in passing.

This.  If you listen to them talk about each other it is clear there is some sort of relationship there.  

Hell.  Glenn even talks about going out to dinner with Savage and called him a nice guy, even though Savage calls him a hemorrhoid on his show.

Yep.

Rush is good, and when he came on the scene in the mid 80's I was floored that here was someone who thought the same way that I did.

And I still like to listen to Rush, but really he has nothing new to say for me. He validates what I think, but I really don't need that any more.

Beck is a go getter. He gets it right, and is not so jaded that he doesn't expect a half assed victory or brownie points for the Republicans.

For intelligent conversation, I will default to Dennis Prager.



 

I don't listen to either one of them much except youtube clips, cause I don't watch tv much but I catch them when I can. I was thinking of threads like this when I was listening to rush today for 20 min or so. He must have been off today. He made fun of obamas dad, which was all well and good, but for the most part he was just wasting time, like when david letterman would constantly ask paul "how much time do we have" every 2 seconds in his monologue. Then a caller called in about an organic farming issue (they are in danger of being eliminated - surprise surprise - by the government. I got to the dentists office so I missed the rest.



Heck, I think there should be a bunch of conservative talk show hosts. I don't see what the complaint is about hannity either. If you get tired of it just turn to something else. If there was only one it would not signal a good thing. It probably would have no impact at all, but now the conservative media is starting to affect the process.

I swear, nothing will make some of y'all happy. If someone gave you a gold brick you would complain that it was too heavy.

Hannity pissed me off last year the way he treated Guiliani and Romney one way, and the more conservative group another.  He really jumped the shark, IMHO.





 

I like Beck but intellectually he can't hold a handle to Rush, atleast not yet, too emotional sometimes too. On the other hand Rush took lessens years ago from the master of modern Conservatism, William Buckley.