Media Outlets Work Rush Limbaugh Into St Louis Obama Rally Story

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What's Limbaugh's Connection To Obama's St Louis Event?







For Barack Obama's mainstream media supporters, it was a sight to behold: a "record-setting" crowd gathered in St Louis Saturday to hear their Dear Leader speak. Even the Fox News Channel couldn't seem to contain its excitement over the 100,000 estimated turnout for the event.

But what does it have to do with Rush Limbaugh? Not a thing, you say?

Tell that to Obama's media friends: from the Chicago Tribune to the Daily Mail (UK) and the San Francisco Chronicle, news outlets found sneaky ways to work in mentions of the talk titan.

From the extreme-left San Francisco Chronicle:

Several independent fact-checking organizations have said the McCain campaign is exaggerating Obama's connection to Ayers, a former founder of the Weather Underground who is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The suburban battleground will be in St. Louis County communities like Clayton, a 15,000-resident, well-to-do suburb and office hub nestled between the more Democratic city and the more Republican suburbs - sort of the Walnut Creek of St. Louis. McCain and Obama yard signs alternate in front of the large homes of Clayton's upper-middle-class, white-collar workers.

At the Starbucks along Clayton's main drag one recent night, Wayne Hanebrink is "more confident" of Obama winning Missouri. But as someone who grew up in Rush Limbaugh's hometown of Cape Girardeau in the southern part of the state, Hanebrink said "he's got to get every living soul in the big cities to vote for him. And this is a very (racially) divided city."

From the Daily Mail:

As it has in other states, economic stress in Missouri has boosted Mr Obama’s campaign here, as voters express strong frustration with the nation’s current direction.

If he is to win the state, Mr Obama will need to boost turnout in the urban centers of St. Louis and Kansas City to counter the state’s strong base of conservative evangelicals.

His campaign, however, has been aggressively registering new voters, especially in the major urban centres of St. Louis and Kansas City, where it hopes to dramatically increase voter turnout.

Even before Obama secured his party’s nomination, he started making trips into the state, including one in May where he met with workers in Cape Girardeau, the boyhood home of ultra conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

‘We’re going to spend a lot of time in Missouri making sure we win this state,’ Obama said during that stop.

And from the Chicago Tribune:

Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said she expects her state's outcome to be close because of its tradition that "sometimes a one-point victory in Missouri is called a landslide."

McCaskill also criticized Republican running mate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for a comment she made this week about campaigning in "pro-America" places.

"We have reached a new low in American politics when someone dares to say that one part of America is more pro-American than another part of America," McCaskill countered.

Even before Obama secured his party's nomination, he started making trips into the state, including one in May where he met with workers in Cape Girardeau, the boyhood home of conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

"We're going to spend a lot of time in Missouri making sure we win this state," Obama said during that stop.

Note the near- verbatim lifting of words from the Tribune for use in the Daily Mail piece, oddly, no credit is given to the former by the latter. It's merely cut-and-pasted into the UK publication's story, save the addition of "ultra" in front of "conservative".

This sometimes occurs when papers add AP elements to a reporter's story, but that isn't apparently the case here.


So why make such a point to include Limbaugh in a story that has nothing to do with him? Your Radio Equalizer's theory: Obama's mainstream media friends would like to make the Missouri results a referendum on Limbaugh's true political influence and are sowing the seeds for that now.

They're willing to bet Obama's rally turnout is indicative of November's final result and will be ready to use it against El Rushbo when the time comes.


ELSEWHERE: Obama's ties to Bill Ayers are clearly more direct than the candidate would have us believe

ON-AIR MELTDOWN OF THE WEEK: libtalker Ed Schultz flips out on the Fox News Channel

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Rally image: Chicago Tribune