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Tuesday, Jul 29, 2014 11:43 AM UTC
The Laura Ingraham moment: Is it time for the talkers to become the candidates?
Right-wing media stars and GOP candidates are now equally extreme. What if Laura Ingraham and co. ran for office?
Topics: Laura Ingraham, Immigration, xenophobes, Radio, conservative media, David Brat, toby harnden, profiles, primaries, Media Criticism, Editor's Picks, Politics News
Talk radio host and Fox News personality Laura Ingraham is, at long last, the toast of the right and the scourge of the evil backslapping GOP Establishment. We are in the Republican Party’s Ingraham Moment, in which her topic of choice, immigration, has returned to its rightful place atop right-wing bitching lists.
She was the subject of a flattering profile in the conservative Sunday Times this weekend, in which Washington bureau chief Tony Harnden describes her “striking good looks and her status as the most listened-to woman on American radio talk programmes.” She “is fast becoming the most powerful conservative voice denouncing any compromise on immigration,” Harnden writes, “and calling for the deportation of the Latin American children who are amassing on the southern border of the United States.”
The catalyst for Ingraham’s rise from influential right-wing talker to most influential right-wing talker of the summer was her role in Virginia’s 7th District Republican primary. While the national Tea Party groups ignored the race completely, Ingraham was vocalizing support and appearing at rallies for little-known challenger David Brat. Brat would go on to pull off one of the most shocking primary upsets in history by crushing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. A revolt against comprehensive immigration reform, which Cantor had merely dabbled in, played a major role in his ouster.
Ingraham has since continued campaigning for anti-immigration Tea Party candidates like Joe Carr, another shoestring long shot who faces incumbent Sen. Lamar Alexander in Tennessee’s Aug. 7 Republican primary. If Carr pulls off that unlikely upset, Ingraham’s popularity and the Republican Party’s inability to ever expand beyond its shrinking base would both be at all-time highs. Which poses the question — not really, but Harnden asked her, so whatever — would Ingraham herself ever consider running for office?
Ingraham hinted that her forays into Republican primary races this year could be the foundation for a political career of her own. “I’ve been approached by various people to get involved,” she said. “I’m keeping an open mind about running for office in the future.”
So what’s it going to be? Ingraham/Brat ’16? Ingraham/Santelli ’16? Ingraham/Cruz ’16? CRUZ/SANTELLI/INGRAHAM/BRAT/COULTER ’16 — like a sort of Politburo-type ticket thing?? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves — Ingraham is still a couple of cycles away from the Oval Office.
But it’s worth considering when these radio talkers, who command extraordinary audiences every day, will cease to be just talkers and take the plunge into a House or Senate race. Talk radio and other conservative media outlets used to serve as the rightward pole in a race, pulling Republican candidates in their direction, but never necessarily all the way. But given the rightward lunge of the Republican Party over the last few years, the gap has been closed: There’s no air between Laura Ingraham/Mark Levin/Rush Limbaugh and the right-flank candidates challenging incumbents for office. Since the crazies are running the show, why not have their most famous delegates finally slot their names onto ballots?
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