When Talk Radio Talks, Congress Listens? More Like When the People Talk

I’m not sure how to take this piece from Roll Call about the power of talk radio.

Welcome to Congress in the echo-chamber age, where outside influencers have an increasing sway on how Members shape their agenda.

At a time when Rush Limbaugh reaches as many people as vote in Florida and California combined, and when Jon Stewart can draw several hundred thousand people to the nation’s capital, these outsized personalities based far outside the Beltway have become as much a part of Washington’s political ecosystem as the lawmakers themselves.

This phenomenon was most prominent during the long health care debate but has been seen again vividly in the weeks following the Tucson, Ariz., shootings, during the Republican transfer of power and as President Barack Obama prepares his budget.

[…]

If Limbaugh or Beck pushes an issue, his audience picks up the phone and taps out e-mails, asking lawmakers to take action. “These Members understand that their constituents are listening to this, and the consequence will elicit action that will place pressure on them,” the strategist said.

We really often forget of the phrase “deriving their powers from the consent of the governed,” don’t we? The same is applicable to talk radio.

I have a couple of minor issues with this piece.

The focus is misplaced on the favor of the hosts who are nothing more than methods through which news is delivered to conservatives. These hosts rely so much upon blogosphere sources and I think eliminating that crucial step in how we process and deliver information today follows the same path as the MSM in ignoring new media. Because of new media, many traditional sources of information no longer hold the monopoly over information distribution. Granted, some can instantly hit a larger audience, but considering the viability of viral potential with large stories such as ACORN or Van Jones – which blew up online way before making it to the microphones – the story will win out at some point.

Rachel Maddow’s comment was interesting:

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow told Roll Call she believes the right “has long had a wider-reaching, more fully-formed messaging apparatus than the left.”

I’m not quite sure how the left squandered the advantage they’ve had with new media and the netroots apparatus since the days of Howard Dean when they pioneered netroots and online fundraising.

If congress pays such close attention to talk radio – and blogs – as Roll Call suggests, that’s a good thing because talk radio, the blogosphere are excellent indicators of public will. The reason people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have such large audiences is because people actively, not passively listen. They continue to listen because they identify with the shows’ content. A show which isn’t resonating with an audience won’t maintain ratings for long, to say nothing of Limbaugh’s multi-decade dominance over the airwaves.

This is where the article fumbles: it’s not that congress is listening to talk radio so much as congress is listening to the indicators of public desire. That’s their job, it’s what they do. The bigger story would be if they didn’t listen at all.