Everblight posted:

Rush always wanted to be an announcer for the KC Royals.

I would guess that, with the repeal of the fairness doctrine still happening in the early 90s, we get a few other blowhards, but Rush was special, because he took the Howard Stern model of "say shocking things for ratings" and pointed it at political talk radio instead of morning zoo crew nonsense.

Rush really is a special talent who was able to connect with the fans. I'm sure Neal Boortz or a very young Sean Hannity tries to form the coalition that Rush does, but they fail, not having his charisma (whatever sort of charisma one needs to be a right-wing blowhard jerk)

Without Rush doing meganumbers, Fox/Murdoch doesn't try to form Fox News as an extension of the RNC, or Murdoch does but it's relegated to the third-tier cable packages, since it makes no money and isn't watched. The Clintons may have been loathed by Republicans, but in the 90s they were bulletproof and both the shutdown and the impeachment backfired horribly. Without the echo chamber to retreat to, I think Bush is unable to motivate his base on a platform of "we will take your social security and prescription drugs away", gets handily trounced by Gore, and 9/11 leads to SEAL teams in Tora Bora, rather than $2trillion wasted in an innocent country.