• December 27, 1993

Rush Limbaugh

The Conservative Kingpin Expanded His Audience as Well as His Bank Account—and, He Proclaims, That's the Way Things Ought to Be

It's debatable whether future historians will record our times—despite Rush's frequent boasts—as the Era of Limbaugh. But it is indisputable that 1993 was a very good year for America's controversial conservative crusader. Twenty million people now listen to his daily radio show, many of them gathered in restaurants in specially designated Rush Rooms to savor communally his attacks on "Bill Clinton's Raw Deal." His television program is viewed by 4 million. And Limbaugh's two immodestly titled, critic-proof tomes, The Way Things Ought to Be and See, I Told You So, have topped the best-seller lists. All told, the man who claims his "talent is on loan from God" pocketed some $20 million this year. Presumably the Supreme Being is charging a great rate of interest.

All this success is no surprise to Rush Limbaugh. "I always had a sense that whatever I did would be wildly successful and bring me notoriety," he says confidently But it took a while for the man who flunked his Cape Girardeau, Mo., Central High School speech class to find the right formula. In the 1970s, Limbaugh languished on midwestern radio stations as a little-noticed Top 40 deejay using the names Rusty Sharpe and Jeff Christie. That changed in 1984, when he unveiled a new persona as a kind of Sun King of right-wing beliefs on Sacramento's KFBK-AM, espousing the politics he learned from his father, Rush, a Republican lawyer. Four years later he went national, attracting an army of "dittoheads" endorsing his sometimes questionable political gibes. (Last month, on the 30th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's death, Limbaugh solemnly ordered listeners to phone in and reveal "where you were and what you were doing on the day...when you first heard me.")

His show is an unabashed—and unchallenged—solo act. There are no guests, and few ditto deviants make it on the air. Limbaugh scoffs at the notion of allowing critics equal time. "I'm giving voice to what a tremendous number of people already believe but do not hear in today's dominant media culture," he says. Although Ronald Reagan has anointed him "the No. 1 voice of conservatism," Limbaugh won't consider a Perot-like run for the Presidency, preferring to play the role of conservative kingmaker in 1996. In fact, this man of the people—who was mobbed by 30,000 at a Colorado "Rushstock" meeting of the faithful last spring—has curtailed public appearances of late, squirrels away his money and says his "one indulgence" is to travel by chartered plane. The twice-divorced Limbaugh is often seen at New York City events with his editor, Judith Regan, but laments that he "hasn't met anyone yet who sparks my interest."

So Limbaugh has plenty of time to lay plans to develop a new generation of dittoheads. "I wouldn't mind countering some of the crap kids watch on television. Why not have a cartoon Rush character teaching kids about the founding fathers?" he says, in all seriousness. "We could have dolls, maybe even a Rush Limbear." Rest easy, Democrats. Turns out Limbaugh doesn't want Bill Clinton's job. But Barney should watch his back.