Glenn Beck, who moved from CNN’s Headline News to FOX News in January, is experiencing a boom in ratings which is being attributed to his unabashed criticism of the Obama administration.
Beck describes himself as a Libertarian and goes after politicians on both sides of the aisle but his show has been particularly vocal about the perceived socialist slant of the Obama administration. The LA Times reports:
“In making the jump to the top-rated cable news channel from HLN, where he had a show for two years, he hoped to alert more people to one of his consuming fears: that the government’s handling of the economic crisis is ushering in an era of socialism.”
“Look in your rear-view mirror; we just passed France,” he said. “I think our country is on the verge of disintegration.”
“I look at the ratings every day shocked,” Beck said on a recent afternoon, sitting shoeless in his Midtown office as snow pelted the Manhattan skyline behind him.”
“But he believes he knows why viewers are tuning in: “People know in their gut that something’s not right. They’re not getting the truth.”
Beck’s show now ranks third among cable news shows behind only Hannity and the O’Reilly Factor.
Beck is clearly striking a chord with Libertarian minded conservatives. Hopefully this hasn’t gone unnoticed by the GOP. The more the Obama White House drifts to the left, the more support Republicans will receive from Libertarians in 2010 and 2012.
April 1st, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Ok, deep breath, and all together now: Liberals watch Faux News to keep their eye on the enemy. Conservatives don’t watch MSNBC or The Daily Show because they don’t want their meme pool damaged by any kind of critique of their untenable world view. The Libertarian silent majority meme doesn’t seem to have much of a basis in reality. Finally, this protip: The White House, in their assault on Republican media, was TRYING to increase attention on Beck and Limbaugh. Come on, they didn’t win the White House by being politically stupid. They won it by being very adept. The best thing for Obama and the Democrats is to have people tuning into Limbaugh every day and hearing him talk about how great CEOs are and how stupid and worthless everyone else is.