“Apparently“, writes Rob at JoshuaPundit, “Rush Limbaugh meant what he said when he told his listeners, ‘Those advertisers who no longer want your business, fine, we’ll replace them.‘”

The conservative talker, who has apologized for slurring a woman who defended the administration’s contraception mandate, is taking in stride the handful of companies no longer advertising on his program:

Less than an hour after AOL officially became the eighth company to pull its ads from Limbaugh’s radio show, the conservative host cracked a joke [then] continued his broadcast in typical, pontificating fashion. . . .

While the conservative host said that the advertisers’ disaffiliation was a “shame,” at the end of the day he just doesn’t care.

“Those advertisers who no longer want your business, fine,” Limbaugh continued. “We’ll replace them. It’s simple, really.”

You know the Limbaugh-haters should have left well enough alone when the talker apologized.  I think that’s called quitting when you’re ahead, right?  Well, as they continue to demonize the popular broadcaster, his standing among conservatives will only strengthen.

Rush is not the only conservative to see a coordinated attack backfire.  Seems that HBO, despite massive promotions, had trouble scrounging up an audience for “Game Change”.  Only a handful of its subscribers, writes John Nolte, “bothered to tune into one of the most hyped movies in the history of television. Glitzy, glamorous premieres, all kinds of free publicity through the cable news outlets, controversy galore, and yet ‘Pawn Stars’ kicked its ass.”  He quotes the Washington Post:

One massive marketing and GOP-undies-bunching campaign later, the unveiling ofHBO’s Sarah Palin flick, “Game Change,” attracted 2.123 million viewers Saturday night at 9. HBO says “Game Change” brought in the biggest original-movie opening crowd in about eight years.

To put the audience in perspective, that’s slightly fewer people than sat down the next afternoon at 2 to watch a rerun episode of History’s “Pawn Stars” (2.129 million viewers). (more…)

Taking note of David Boaz’s comment that Rick Santorum is “frighteningly anti-libertarian“, Jennifer Rubin interviewed the Cato Institute Executive Vice President to get the lowdown on the former Senator:

Being philosophically minded, what scares me most about Rick Santorum is not his specific policy mistakes but his fundamental objection to the American idea of freedom. He criticizes the pursuit of happiness! He says, “This is the mantra of the left: I have a right to do what I want to do” and “We have a whole culture that is focused on immediate gratification and the pursuit of happiness . . . and it is harming America.” And then he says that what the Founders meant by happiness was “to do the morally right thing.” He really doesn’t like the idea of America as a free society, where adults make their own decisions and sometimes make choices that Santorum disapproves. In practice, I worry that he would continue and intensify Bush’s big-government conservatism, a federal government committed to reshaping individuals according to a religious-conservative blueprint.

Read the whole thing.  David adds hat Republican electoral victories occur in those years when “Democrats have overreached on their big-government agenda and Republicans campaign on lower taxes and limited government.”

Indeed, even Santorm’s economic policies more closely resemble Obama’s crony capitalism than they do Ronald Reagan’s free market ideals.  As Kevin Hassett and Glenn Hubbard put it in this morning’s Wall Street Journal:

And by proposing special tax breaks for manufacturing, Mr. Santorum follows Mr. Obama’s incorrect lead and introduces a significant economic distortion. (more…)

Just returned from the gym where they tend to play CNN on at least one of the television monitors. Normally, it seems their stories are culled from Democratic talking points, with an occasional right-of-center pundit included in the conversation to make their coverage appear balanced.

Well, today when I looked up saw they had on a Republican strategist talking about Bill Maher’s misogynistic rhetoric. They showed a clip of of the former funnyman next to one of Rush Limbaugh (who, unlike Mr. Maher, has apologized for his slurs), indicating the the coverage of “slut-gate” caused conservatives to raise the issue of media double standards.

CNN can’t help but cover stories outside their comfort zone.

And this on the day when we learn that David Axelrod has bailed on Bill Maher:

David Axelrod will not be appearing as a guest on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” despite reports last week that he was scheduled to do the show in the next few weeks.

“He’s not scheduled to go on at this time,” said Ben LaBolt, the press secretary for President Obama’s reelection campaign.

(Also on POLITICO: Limbaugh laughs at Dems: “They thought I was finished”)

Maher, who donated $1 million to the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA, has increasingly become a target of right-wing attacks over the last week in response to the left’s attacks onRush Limbaugh. Maher has come under fire for calling Sarah Palin a “c**t” during his stand-up act and a “dumb tw**t” on his HBO show, among other sexist comments. (more…)

There are two stories coming out of yesterday’s primaries and caucuses, the first which has gained the greatest currency that Rick Santorum lost the two biggest contests, the second, mentioned mostly on pro-Romney (or anti-Santorum) blogs that Mitt Romney won a plurality of the delegates.

The former Massachusetts governor cleaned up in American Samoa, winning all nine of the territory’s delegates and won a big victory in Hawai’i, running twenty points ahead of Santorum, capturing an absolute majority on the island of Oahu and narrowly losing to Ron Paul on the big island.  As a result, as John Hinderaker pointed out, Romeny “added six delegates to his lead“.  Hugh Hewitt says he netted only 5, winning 40 delegates to Santorum’s 35.

That said, Mitt Romney’s failure yessterday to build on his showing in previous Southern contests (as per Jay Cost’s analysis) indicates that he still need do some serious “coalition maintenance” (to borrow an expression Paul Gigot coined in a January edition of WSJ.com’s Political Diary (available by subscription) back in January).

Not quite sure what he needs to do, but it might help him to reach out to some conservatives who have been critical of his candidacy.  Should Romney win the Republican nomination, he’s going to need a fully activated, energized and operational conservative base not just to win the presidency but to help his fellow partisans in down ballot races in order to have a governing majority come next January.

Council Submissions

• The Noisy Room – The American Spring Bears Poisonous Fruit
• The Political Commentator – Eminent domain: Being a bondholder ain’t what it used to be!
• Simply Jews – Maradona as a champion of Palestinian cause
• The Independent Sentinel – Anti-First Amendment Liberals-Hanoi Jane, Steinem & Morgan-Want the FCC to Shut Down Rush’s Radio Station
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Fake Syrian Military Intell
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Why Andrew Breitbart was important
• Rhymes With Right – Enough Of Stupid Comments About “The Establishment” Trying To “Anoint” A Candidate
• Joshuapundit-More ‘Diplomacy ‘ With Iran As Obama And The EU Team Up To Fend Off An Israeli Strike
• Bookworm Room – The Breitbarters launch their first barrage in their war against the American Leftist media
• Gay Patriot – How about a TV series treating Christians* with dignity?
• The Mellow Jihadi – Me and a Pakistani Captain Chat
• The Razor – Loving Sluts, Hating Liars
• The Glittering Eye -Okay, You’ve Caught It. Now What Do You Do With It?
• VA Right! - Thursday:First I Spoke With Senator Rand Paul – Then I Crashed George Allen’s Birthday Party
• The Right Planet – Bloody Revolution Pt. 2

Honorable Mentions

• The Grouch – Mitt Romney Flops Again – Reverses Stance on Minimum Wage
• Liberty’s Spirit – Reality: Obama Wants a Nuclear Iran
• Right Truth – Not Diagnosing and Treating PTSD and TBI
• Capitalist Preservation – Liberals and the Suborned Media Employ Hegel’s Dialectic

Non-Council Submissions

(more…)

Had I not seen polls earlier this week showing a Mitt Romney surge in Alabama and Mississippi, I might have more closely forecast last night’s result.  It was, to be sure, a good night for Rick Santorum and a lousy one for Newt Gingrich.

Mitt Romney ran almost exactly as he has run in other Southern states, capturing, as Jay Cost put it, “roughly the same share of the vote in all four states [South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi] – something within a very narrow band of 26 percent and 30 percent of the vote.”  I would add also Tennessee where he won 28% of the vote.

Interestingly, as well as Santorum did last night; he fell short of his Tennessee tally, winning 34.5% of the vote in Alabama and 32.9% in Mississippi.  (He had snagged 37.2% in the Volunteer State.)  Romney ran a close third in both states, fewer than 3,000 vote behind Newt in the Magnolia State and fewer than 2,000 behind in the Yellowhammer State.

He did very well in urban areas, winning the metropolitan areas of Biloxi, Birmingham, Jackson, Mobile and Montgomery.  Santorum pretty much cleaned up in the rural areas.

Had Mitt managed a win in either of the two states, even by the slightest of margins, he could have pretty much ended the contest.  Santorum did what he had to do to keep the contest going.

Earlier yesterday, Jim Geraghty (in his Morning Jolt available by subscription) linked a report that the former Massachusetts governor was spending the day in the Show-Me State which caucuses this weekend: (more…)