NYT: As Talk Radio Wavers, Bush Moves to Firm Up Support [View All]

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As Talk Radio Wavers, Bush Moves to Firm Up Support

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: October 17, 2006



White House photo by Eric Draper

President Bush discussed his policies with conservative radio hosts last month at the White House, including, from left, Mike Gallagher, Neal Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Michael Medved.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 — On an overcast Friday morning last month, White House aides ushered an influential group of conservative radio hosts into the Oval Office for a private audience with the president.
The meeting, which was not announced on the president’s public schedule, was part of an intensive Republican Party campaign to reclaim and re-energize a crucial army of supporters that is not as likely to walk in lockstep with the White House as it has in the past.
Conservative radio hosts are breaking with the Republican leadership in ways not seen in at least a decade, and certainly not since Rush Limbaugh’s forceful advocacy of the party in 1994 spawned a new generation of stars, said Michael Harrison, publisher of the industry’s lead trade publication, Talkers.

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The White House and the Republican National Committee are hammering home that point in interviews, talking-point bulletins and a healthy dollop of pomp that only a White House can provide.
The effort will peak on Oct. 24, when the administration will hold something of a talk-radio summit meeting, inviting dozens of hosts to set up booths on the White House grounds, where top cabinet officials are expected to sit for interviews.

The party chairman, Ken Mehlman, has already been working overtime on the talk radio circuit. From Wednesday to Friday of last week, he was interviewed a total of 20 times in Missouri, Tennessee and Ohio, promoting party stances on tax cuts and terrorism.
But, several hosts said, the most telling development so far this year was the White House decision to invite some of the most popular hosts to the Oval Office for off-the-record time with the president.
Kevin Sullivan, the White House communications director, said the meeting was among the latest examples of the administration’s effort to put Mr. Bush in front of more news media as his own best spokesman. The president also gave interviews recently to several television anchors and held an Oval Office chat with a group of conservative writers.

And Mr. Bush granted an on-camera interview to Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel. The first of three parts ran Monday night.

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And the fight against terrorism dominated the discussion at the meeting.

“This was clearly, clearly an effort to kind of rally the troops when the troops need rallying,” said Mike Gallagher, who attended the meeting and whose daily program reaches at least 3.75 million people each week. “They know that we’ve got an audience of people who may or may not be on the political fence right now.”
Mr. Gallagher said that he and the other hosts — Mr. Hannity, Ms. Ingraham, Neal Boortz and Michael Medved — talked about the experience on their programs “for days and days and days.”
(Mr. Limbaugh said that he met with Mr. Bush and Karl Rove, the president’s chief strategist, in the Oval Office in June, but generally tried to keep his distance to maintain independence.)

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