Talk radio as down on GOP establishment as they are on Obama

Wall Street Journal:

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A decade ago, Republicans touted conservative talk radio as a foolproof medium to communicate directly with their most ardent supporters. Democrats and liberal groups tried to replicate that success by building their own left-leaning television and radio stations, with far less success.

Now, the tables have turned. Republican leaders in Washington are under siege from their own activists, in part, because conservative radio hosts are almost as likely to rail against the party brass in Congress as they are to lament Mr. Obama’s failings in the Oval Office.

Those views are informing the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

The most avid conservative talk-radio listeners ranked retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson as their top pick, followed by celebrity businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Just 3% gave the nod to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the heir to the party’s longest-standing political dynasty, and only a third of these voters said they were even open to voting for Mr. Bush, down from half in September.

Republican presidential contenders would be unwise to write off this bloc; roughly a third of Republican primary voters strongly identify with conservative talk radio, about 10 percentage points higher than the share of GOP primary voters who consider themselves moderate or liberal, according to the survey conducted by the Democrats at Hart Research Associates and the Republicans at Public Opinion Research.
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If you do not like President Obama's polices it is not surprising you would not like those who help pay for the agenda they dislike.   That is the real problem for the establishment.  What talk radio does is let people know that they are not the only ones unhappy with Obama and the Republicans who facilitate his agenda.  There is a real sense of betrayal especially with Congressional leaders who think it is more important to keep things going than to make a stand against really bad policies.  It is not helpful to their cause to describe these people as crazy as some in Congress tend to do.  If they do not understand the anger Congressional leaders will find themselves increasingly isolated or learning to work with people like Ted Cruz.