Air America RIP-- A Guest Post From Former Air America CEO Danny Goldberg

The Real Story Behind The Demise Of Air America-- And Why Progressives Need To Pay Better Attention

-by Danny Goldberg

I think that the New York Times got it exactly wrong this morning in declaring that “the enduring legacy of Air America’s failure is that political media from either side of the aisle is more successful when run as a business instead of a crusade.”
 
That very attitude is what has hobbled the growth of liberal talk radio but conservatives have never thought about media that way and they still don’t. The week before Air America shut its doors the Rev. James Dobson announced that he was starting a new radio show with his son Ryan, a thirty-nine year tattooed surfer who shares his father’s ultra-conservative views. On Dobson’s Facebook page he asked his supporters to fund the new show. “Your participation will be greatly appreciated, especially during this time when startup costs will be very expensive. The budget for the first year, including the costs of radio airtime, will be about two million dollars."
 
Conservatives believe in doing whatever it takes to promote their ideas. Richard Viguerie, viewed as one of the architects of the modern conservative movement, wrote a book in 2004 called America’s Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media To Take Power, in which he explains how the right wing used talk radio among other tools. Viguerie stresses that conservatives understand that ideological change does not usually occur over night, that it takes patience and long term thinking to build a movement. 

In the early nineteen seventies the Washington Post and New York Times were instrumental in helping expose the Watergate scandal and publishing the Pentagon papers. Conservatives felt that liberals had an advantage in setting the agenda because of the influence of New York and D.C. newspapers on the national media. In 1976 Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post and it has lost money every year since, the total loss estimated to be more than half a billion dollars. In 1983, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon created the Washington Times, which has also lost money every year. Widely published reports place Moon’s losses at over $1 billion on the Times and other political media including a purchase the venerable wire service UPI. These money losing properties have put dozens of conservatively slanted stories onto the national radar screen, altered the framing of every important political issues, and nurtured virtually every right wing pundit who now thrive as TV talking heads.
 
More recently, Phillip Anschutz bought the money losing Weekly Standard from Murdoch and announced plans to invest in more conservative media and his fellow billionaire and former Republican Treasury Secretary Pete Petersen started a digital news service called The Fiscal Times.
 
The fatal flaw in Air America’s genetic code was the pretense that liberal talk radio was a great business opportunity, that progressives could have their cake and eat it too, do well by doing good, make big salaries and get a great return on investment while also pursuing an ideological agenda. Sure, every once in awhile political media like Michael Moore’s movies or Rush Limbaugh’s radio show will make money, but for those interested in influencing public opinion, media in all venues is vital whether they make money or not.
 
Air America’s lesser-known competitor, Democracy Radio had a more coherent rationale. It was set up as a non-profit and it spawned the Ed Schultz Show and the Stephanie Miller show both of which survive but which may never have been launched were it not for Democracy Radio’s initial funding. (Democracy Radio folded in 2006 as a result of a lack of financial support from progressive donors.)
 
Some progressives blame bad management for the failure of both Air America and Democracy Radio and since I spent one unhappy year midway through Air America’s life as its CEO I suppose I am one of a dozen or so who are in that category. But if progressives really wanted to address talk radio they could have started competing companies with different management. Instead, most of the monied progressive community did the opposite of their conservative counterparts and bought into the notion that media should stand or fall based on media market forces.
    
It’s not that the left doesn’t have money to spend on communication. Labor unions, public interest groups, and Internet activists have raised and spent tens of millions of dollars on TV spots and digital marketing.  

138 million people commute to and from work in automobiles in which they can look neither at computer or TV screens. For around one-third of them, or 48 million, AM talk radio is their entertainment of choice. Of the top 10 AM talk radio shows, 9 are hosted by extreme conservatives giving the right wing a captive audience of around 40 million listeners a week, at least 7 times greater than the combined audience for Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. Talk radio’s audience dwarfs that of every other category in the news political arena including the network news and Sunday shows, NPR’s public affairs shows, and political websites.
 
It was not pre-ordained that all of the millions of people who identify with the “tea-party” movement would believe the conservative narrative that the economic ills afflicting the middle class are the result of liberalism. But given that tens of millions of them had no alternative explanations or solutions, it is not surprising that conservative ideas and candidates are ascendant.
 
Many progressives blame the current political climate on the Obama administration, and I disagree with a number of Obama’s decisions including his Afghanistan policy. But why should progressives expect any President to lead the way on our issues given the nature of our political system? At the outset of the Obama administration there were dozens of columns reminding progressives that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had told the liberal activists of his day to “make” him initiative progressive programs by mobilizing public opinion. Instead, most of the modern left spent the last year talking to itself while conservatives convinced millions of people that global warming is a hoax, that torture in required to keep America safe, that non-millionaires in Canada and Europe have worse health care than their American counterparts. The right wing could never have convinced 45% of Americans that the Democrats wanted death panels if their outreach was limited to Sarah Palin’s Facebook page and the three million people a night who watch Fox’s highest rated shows.
    
Perhaps the major liberal money people have become confused because focus groups and polling are very useful tools in predicting short-term public reaction to political messages. They can tell you if a particular TV spot will turn off swing voters two weeks before an election. But long-term political ideas have a more complex creative path. Conservatives understand the need to focus on both long and short-term political communication. Or maybe media advisors and consultants who advise labor unions and an assortment of progressive groups on media strategy are culturally uncomfortable with the crude language of AM talk radio and other mass culture, and who are often so nervous about losing control of "their message.” Whatever the reasons, the theory of leaving political media to the marketplace has enabled a status quo in which one third of the American public are never exposed to progressive ideas or even to facts that are incompatible with the right-wing narrative.
 
To be fair-- the radio business has an idiosyncratic culture that is hard for outsiders to grasp. In 1987 when the Reagan administration ended the Fairness Doctrine, the cultural landscape was such that many conservatives felt under-served by the mainstream media of the time and Rush Limbaugh was able to use his considerable broadcasting skills to attract millions of them as an audience and revive the economic fortunes of AM radio stations around the country. At the same time, as described in Viguerie’s book, conservatives focused on small market stations for religious and political purposes and helped create an infrastructure that continues to serve them well. Traditional radio stations attract audiences based on “formats” that grouped together demographic cohorts. Thus music radio is either R&B, pop, rock, country or various versions or hybrids of those genres. A listener to a country station would not want to hear a Metallica song programmed sandwiched in between Toby Keith and Sugarland. While liberals ignored AM radio, viewing it as a passé medium for troglodytes, conservatives honed their skill at talk radio and by the nineties, most liberal and moderate talk hosts had been taken off the air because they did not fit into what was now the “conservative talk” format.
 
Many of the radio executives who programmed the right wing radio stations that produced the shows did not agree with their politics but, like most business people, they gravitated to the easiest path to make the most money the quickest. These “radio people,” understandably, were not going to be motivated by an ideological agenda, even one that they agreed with. But activists and public interest groups are supposed to be motivated by ideology. 

When Air America and Democracy Radio launched in 2003 they faced, not only a lack of liberal talent with the broadcasting chops to entertain radio listeners, but also a lack of stations on which to place programs even by someone with the celebrity of Al Franken. One of the main reasons a sizable investment was needed (though nothing like the scale of the investment made by Murdoch and Moon in money losing right wing newspapers) was the need to create enough programming to fill up the time of stations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so as to justify a “progressive talk” formatted station.

Conservative talk had a 17 year head start and so there just weren’t enough experienced broadcasters with progressive politics to create a format, hence the need for experimentation. Identifying, developing and marketing talent takes a lot of experimentation with a predictable amount of failures in order to establish successes. This is part of the reason it took even an ultimately successful company like Fox News years to turn a profit.

Another need for investment was to market a brand new format with lots of personalities new to radio and to give incentives for radio station owners in smaller markets to give the new format a chance.
   
There are some who claim that liberals are not good at talk radio. Right-wingers considered the liberal talkers elitists who didn’t understand radio entertainment. Some on the left felt that the talk radio audience demanded simplistic angry polarizing tone that is incompatible with progressive values. I don’t believe that is true. I am an unabashed Al Franken fan, but even if one disliked his style or politics, the fact is that his show attracted several million listeners a week on AM talk radio stations and because of the under-development of the liberal talk format, it could only be heard, at its peak, by around half of the country's radio listeners. Ed Schultz has reached a comparable number and he too has not been able to get broadcast in markets where “conservative talk” is the only game in town. The apex of Air America’s penetration was in 2005-2006 and it not only helped broaden the audience for progressive bloggers who were regular guests, but it gave activists like Cindy Sheehan access to Americans who do not listen to the Amy Goodman Show or read The Nation. Just as conservative investment in the intellectual worked eventually produced legitimate conservative academics and writers, so would liberal investment in the populist media result in more Rachel Maddows.
 
In Viguerie’s final chapter he wrote that Air America “was the most ambitious effort by liberals so far to compete with conservatives in the alternative media marketplace." He nervously acknowledged Air America for “turning to articulate entertainers with liberal political convictions.” But he was confident that it would not succeed because of what he called liberals “fear of long-term commitment,” adding “Conservatives didn’t build their alternate media empire overnight. It was the result of decades of hard work.” Viguerie observed that Air America had “inadequate capitalization. Starting a network with clout will cost a lot more than the $20-30 million they claim to have raised. And to start to expect to make a profit in just four years in unrealistic. Ask Rupert Murdoch.” 
 
Although the earliest and wackiest group of Air America owners overspent on a few items like studios and initial salaries, within months the primary characteristic of Air America was a lack of cash for marketing, for affiliate growth and for talent development. The pressure from wealthy liberals was not to create a long-term strategy as conservatives had done but to show a business model that would turn a profit in a year or two.
 
Thus, several ill-fated iterations of Air America were driven by delusional projections of traditional business viability and consequently misled themselves and staff regarding what resources would be available and then inflicted onerous cuts on a business that was already underfunded. (During my brief tenure I got thousands of hate mails form fans of comedian Marc Maron whose morning drive time show (the time when most commuters listen) was canceled to move Rachel Maddow from the obscure 5 AM time slot into the morning drive. Given her talent and discipline it is likely that Rachel Maddow’s success was pre-ordained, but there is no question that the audience she developed in drive time was one of the assets she brought to MSNBC. But if there hadn’t been such a cash crunch, there would have been a way of developing Maddow and keeping Maron and also giving more talent a real chance. 
 
By 2004, the radio business, after years of robust growth that made it a darling of investment bankers, was beginning to feel the erosion of its business model experienced by all “old media.” The idea that conventional investors would find a liberal talk syndication company a sexy investment was laughable. Contrary to published reports, there were and are numerous “radio people” involved in running various versions of progressive radio but they all found that it was not a particular good business based on pure economics. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t and isn’t a good political investment for progressives whose agenda is to battle conservative ideology.

Thom Hartmann, Bill Press, Randy Rhodes, Stephanie Miller, Ron Reagan, and many other liberal radio survivors deserve all the credit in the world for their resourcefulness and their commitment. But the broader progressive community should not be leaving them to a Darwinian world while the likes of James Dobson continue to raise ideological money to further broaden the hold of right wing mythology on the minds of 48 million commuters who happen to like talk radio’s rhythms.

A Few Thoughts On The Demise Of Air America-- A Different Narrative

By Noah
 
Much, perhaps, too much, is being made of the demise of Progressive Talk Radio Network Air America. My wife and I, listeners from the beginning, were surprised that it lasted as long as it did. We both enjoyed its good points and marveled at the corporate ineptitude of those running it. On Thursday, Air America announced that, come Monday, it will cease to be. On Friday, the New York Daily News columnist, David Hinckley, addressed some of the reasons for the end of Air America, but for whatever reason, not all of them.
 
Many of the reader comments appended to the piece (although certainly not my own) are typical of the Republican Beavis and Butthead crowd. They are filled with Repug talking points and an over-flowing measure of gloating and smirking monosyllabic grunts delivered in an orgy of high-fiving surpassed only by their reaction to the Massachusetts $enatorial election. But, this is a war and those who pride themselves on their ignorance and unfamiliarity with the concept of intellect should take note of the history they fear might one day be taught again in schools. It shows that participants in war don’t have to win all of the battles in order to win the war. 
 
Hinckley’s column covers some good points but, as I said, it also misses some. He rightly points out that a main problem at Air America was that there were too few true radio people involved in the enterprise. And, as even Rush Limbaugh states, being entertaining to your target audience is key. I certainly like Al Franken more than Norm Coleman when it comes to politics, but as a radio host, he left something to be desired. Often, when Air America had people whose personalities leapt through the airwaves, they got rid of them, as they did with Sam Seder and Mark Maron. Like the music business that I have worked in for decades, the corporate suits, in their constant search for the lowest common denominator, view the way to success as a process of sanding off the rough edges that appeal to people in the first place. The result is inevitably bland and doesn’t command attention from anyone. Clearly, Air America suffered from that Democratic Party disease of not wanting to offend anyone, to the point of dismissal if not derision. It was as if DCCC types like Rahm Emanuel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz were providing the safety first vision for Air America. Howard Stern, they were not!

There were, of course, times when Air America brought in a seasoned broadcasting professional, but that would too often be someone like Jerry Springer or the superficial Lionel. In the case of Springer, the powers that were at Air America seemed to be oblivious to the fact that there was no way that Springer was going to be taken seriously by the audience they were attempting to reach. In fact, Springer made Air America laughable.
 
Another reason that a lack of success was pre-programmed into the very DNA of the Air America experiment was, as progressive broadcaster and former Air America host Randi Rhodes said on her show on Friday, that since banks were not involved in the investing that funded Air America, the money had to come from greater numbers of investors who not only wanted equity but a seat on the board. That could only have made for a crowded and chaotic boardroom full of people who had little or, for the most part, no experience in broadcasting. It amounted to a bunch of folks saying “Hey, let’s play radio!” My college radio station had brighter people with more natural radio sense and many of them have proved it since with their résumés.
 
Current economic factors are also a factor. Conservative Citadel Broadcasting, the third largest radio broadcaster, has also had to file for bankruptcy and broadcasting tip sheet Radio and Records has gone out of business after decades of prominence. In the reporting of the death of Air America, these additional facts have gone largely unmentioned. With their rightist agenda, the media is only interested in the demise of Progressive enterprises, and prefers that we not notice when conservatives go down. Context and back-story don’t matter when the “mainstream” media has an axe to grind.
 
Air America was not only staffed by people who weren't radio people and horribly mismanaged by founders who were clueless about radio. It’s important to note that, unlike the righties, they launched their enterprise during a recession. Maybe they should have started up in better times. Launching an underdog is tough at any time. In discussions of the subject, the media hacks like to point to the success of FOX. They never mention that FOX lost millions in each of its first 5 years. But, FOX started up in economic boom times and Rupert Murdoch has very deep pockets, as do the corporations who have more to gain in the success of wingnut media than just product sales.

 

Air America is gone, but, perhaps the typical Republican cavedweller crowd should not be as joyous today as they are. One loon who supplied a typical wingnut comment to the Daily News column said that Air America is dead because it was “based on the big liberal lie” and “I never listened, not for even a second”. Now there’s a typically informed opinion that shows your average Republican lack of a sense of contradiction and irony! I mean, if you never listened, how do you know? The successes of people like Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Stephanie Miller, and even the oft-hated Al Franken have proven the viability of Progressive Talk Radio as a format of the future. Phil Boyce, former program director of the wingnut ABC Hate Radio Network once said of Air America, “Why does anyone write about them. They don’t matter.” Are your sure, Phil-boy? Are your really sure? Why don’t you take gander at the election results of 2006 and 2008. The Progressive Caucus in Congress is growing and one of the very big reasons is the dawn of Progressive Talk Radio and the information it provides to voters. Rush Limbaugh used to constantly say “Has anybody EVER heard of Rachel Maddow”. Well, yes Rush. They have now, and she has a growing and growing influence on American discourse. I suspect that she will be around long after you keel over on the air someday, leaving all of your ex-wives to fight over your money and tell stories to the tabloids about your self-loathing and the real reason they left you. It’s interesting to note that Randi Rhodes routinely beats Blubberboy Rush in the ratings game in markets where they go head to head. Both Randi and Rush are Clear Channel broadcasters, but, boosting Randi at the expense of Rush does not suit either their financial or their well-known political agenda, so it will take longer for Rhodes to grow her audience. Much of the original Air America on air talent has already gone on to bigger and better things. Most of the talented broadcasters that served on Air America will eventually find themselves in healthier environments with larger, more powerful signals or platforms that will enable them to continue the discussions of our time. Contrary to what righties think, and the MSM would have you believe, when it comes to Progressive media, Air America was not the only game in town. The future of all media is rapidly evolving. Stay tuned.

If This New San Diego Radio Station Takes Off, Francine Busby Will Be Elected To Congress Next Year

The Air America affiliate in Los Angeles, KTLK, is probably the worst-run radio station I've ever heard. It couldn't be worse if the program director was trying to make it suck-- and I often think he is doing just that. The rise of Air America was one of the key factors in the Democratic landslide in 2006. Here in L.A., Clear Channel immediately destroyed the station. It's barely listenable now and often not listenable at all. They have right-wing hosts; they have hours and hours of paid programming from hucksters and crooks selling bogus cures, intestinal cleanses and hemorrhoid medicines; sports takes precedence on most nights. Other than Thom Hartmann's show there is nothing that can be counted on to be worth switching away from KCRW, the NPR station. I hear it's like this across the country, even if few stations are as terrible as the one in L.A.

A year-- almost to the day-- after the 2006 elections, Clear Channel pulled the plug on their San Diego station, replacing it with a redundant 4th sports channel (which has been a predictably gigantic failure). Nationally they have a great blog and they have Rachel Maddow in the morning. After that it gets kind of sketchy, starting with lame, right-wing talker Montel Williams. But even that isn't available in San Diego. Our friend Jill Richardson reports on an exciting, game-changing new development down there.

When San Diego lost its station, Jon Elliott (who was on Air America for the last 3 years) began working to found a new station. His plan was to make a station with a strong signal that could be heard all over San Diego and to make sure that liberals controlled it so that a conservative company like Clear Channel couldn't pull the plug on it if it was helping liberals win elections. It took Jon Elliott about 18 months to put all of the plans in place, but he's done it. And it's not just a station for San Diego. The first station will be here in San Diego on 1700 AM but the goal is to have 30 stations by 2014. We're setting the station up in a way that will be easy to franchise in other cities, particularly ones that had successful AAR stations and lost them (a growing list, sadly). Our radio line-up will be all of the favorites who are no longer on Air America (or in some cases never were)-- Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, Jon Elliott, etc. We'll also have local shows in each city.

The catch is that with the craptastic economy, we can't get ourselves off the ground on advertising alone. We're going with a hybrid model, in which we're asking people to become members. The real benefit you get is that the radio station exists - but additionally you get podcasts and invites to member-only events.

The station started broadcasting in San Diego today at 3pm. Membership is $10/month and you can join here at www.jontalk.com. The plan is to expand as they increase their financial capacity.

Attention, Morning Sedition fans: Planet Bush Bureau Chief Lawton Smalls is back, and he insists indignantly, "I will not be stimulated!"

"Congratulations, Marc, you got your wish. The United States of America is officially a Communist state. Everything you wanted -- redistribution of wealth, atheism, nanny state, meth orgies, enforced homosexuality, abolition of sports, mandatory drug addiction, on-demand abortion, preschool prostitution, free jazz, beards -- it's all there. We've gone to hell in a handbasket, hell in a tie-dyed handbasket, and I'm pointing a finger at you."

-- former Morning Sedition Planet Bush Bureau Chief Lawton Smalls (at 21:18), on yesterday's Air America Radio Break Room Live

by Ken

We have important stuff to talk about, like whether Senate Dems will muster the 60 votes they need to be able to proceed to confirmation of Hilda Solis as a secretary of labor who's actually concerned about the interests of working people. (And why is that Americans are so hostile to working people, and do we pay a price for it?)

And what's the deal with the Obama Justice Dept. apparently asking the remaining 51 U.S. attorneys (out of the total 93 -- did the other 42 really just disappear?) to stay in place, at least temporarily. Aren't these the worst of the Bush-DoJ-worst USAs? Were they at least asked for the letter of resignation standard at the start of a new administration, so that they can be replaced, as per custom, in the first year or two? You know, so the Republicans don't screech "politicization" when they're finally replaced?

Important stuff, but meanwhile, although I've known that Sam Seder and Marc Maron are doing something on Air America Radio in the afternoon, since I don't have afternoon radio access, it's been murky to me exactly what. But I just stumbled on a half-hour clip of yesterday's Break Room Live, where Marc -- with Sam in Los Angeles this week -- among other things greets old Morning Sedition friend, erstwhile Planet Bush Bureau Chief Lawton Smalls.

In case you're wondering what Lawton is so worked up about in the above excerpt, it's:

"That stimulus package. Uh! Lord, it even sounds dirty. Now what secretary from the Department of Gay thought that one up?"

Marc rattles off a list of provisions with the package, and to each one Lawton declares, "Pork!" But doesn't the new president have to do something about the economic disaster? The solution to everything, Lawton insists, is, 'Tax cuts, Marc, the bigger the better -- they're straight out of the Bible!"

"Hussein Obama Fearcard scared everyone into believing there's a, quote, recession -- I'm doing that thing with my fingers -- so he could strong-arm this stimulus poison down America's throats."

And of course, as always, as soon as Marc issues Lawton a reality check, the poor fellow is reduced to bawling like a baby (as illustrated in the AAR video images) -- for a while, at least. Welcome back, Lawton!

Note: I think you can play a clip of just Lawton's appearance from the AAR website, but I couldn't get an embed code. Eventually I've got to go back there and try to figure out what the heck this BRL thing is. AAR does like to keep its secrets.


UPDATE: I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THAT LAWTON
SMALLS IS REALLY OUR FUNNY FRIEND KENT JONES

Most of us first encountered Kent, who now does the "Just Enough" segment on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, as one of the hugely talented writer-performers on Air America Radio's brilliant and brutally unsupported morning show, Morning Sedition. Those of us who made the move from Morning Sedition to Rachel's totally different but also quite brilliant AAR morning show continued to hear Kent on that. Now I've turned to Wikipedia to fill in the picture a bit:

After the cancellation of Morning Sedition in December 2005, Kent continued to write and perform on The Marc Maron Show until its cancellation in July 2006. He most recently appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show, with daily Sports and "Kent Jones Now" segments and additional co-hosting, especially during her "Ask Dr. Maddow" and "Pet Story" segments. The Lawton Smalls character still makes "calls" to The Sam Seder Show and was on the Nov 7th 2006 live webcam election coverage with Rachel Maddow.

Kent left Air America on Friday, December 14th, 2007, as a result of a "business decision" by the management.

Somehow, "business decision" doesn't seem quite the word to describe what's gone on at AAR since, well, its creation.

#

Happy Channukah to all -- and fry up a storm! (Including my latest morning-radio rant, complete with the traditional dumping on Air America)

by Ken

I suppose I should really check it out before going into a public whine, but I'm wondering if the powers that be have really thought through the scheduling of The Takeaway, the alternative public radio morning show produced by PRI and WNYC in association with the BBC World Service, the New York Times, and WGBH Boston.

Here's the thing: As I've mentioned countless times here (well, I'm not about to try counting them), I've been adrift for media support for my morning get-out-of-the-house routine since Air America Radio cut us New Yorkers adrift. (It appears that AAR hasn't been able to figure out any way of muscling its way into the cutthroat New York radio market except by finding the 90-pound weaklings among local stations and strong-arming them -- with the gift of a few bronze coins, I assume -- into giving up their airways.

The last time they did one of these mind melds, it was with a station so puny that many of us in the metropolitan area can't even get it, and in the morning there was no reason to try, since they seem to have been unable (or uninclined?) to shove the station's old programming off the air, leaving us stuck with right-wing scumbucket Armstrong "Army" Williams. Yes, in the country's No. 1 media market, morning drive time on the progressive radio network was held down by a wingnut sleazebag who got caught taking money from the Bush regime to flog its wackadoodle No Child Left Behind racket in his newspaper columns.

Up till then, however, the morning drive had been the glory of AAR -- although it was probably no thanks to the succession of boneheads who ran the network. After they somehow allowed the creation of the gloriously irreverent, high-voltage Morning Sedition, a show that started building a fanatically loyal fan base, instead of nurturing and promoting the shit out of it as the potential franchise-builder it was, they sabotaged and finally pulled the plug on it. And even then, probably again by sheer dumb luck, they turned a couple of those hours to a host who had been exiled to the 5am time slot, where to her credit she had continued toiling, developing her on-air format and skills for the time when she would get a real chance.

You may have heard of her. Her name was Rachel Maddow. It was totally different from Morning Sedition, a smart and outrageous progressive comedy show, with genuinely talented comedy writers and performers, including a fellow named Kent Jones who landed a spot on Rachel's show. Rachel's morning show did an amazing job of informing and entertaining and, as I've said here before, providing a barely awake progressive with the basic briefing he/she needed to face the world on near-even terms, or at least get through the day.

Rachel deserved her promotion to the evening slot, but that didn't do me any good. It was a morning radio show I needed. (In fact, I wasn't able to listen to Rachel in the evening.) Even before that switch took place, we in New York lost her -- and Air America mornings -- to the station shuffle. I was barely able to get the new station, but after a week or two of Army Williams (see? I really tried to give the show a chance!), I fled in horror. Since then I think I've made one attempt to tune the new frequency in. As I recall, it failed.

I won't bore you with the litany of media alternatives I've tried to plug into this hole in my mornings. For a while USA's JAG reruns worked,but then we got back to the point where I'd come in.

Without a lot of enthusiasm I sort of settled in with NPR's Morning Edition. It's not a terrible show, and occasionally there's some really alert reporting or commentary. But so much of it is well-meant time-filling -- the sort of tedious, mealy-mouthed stuff you're always afraid of being choked with on NPR.

But now, at least in theory, we have a public radio alternative in The Takeaway, with personable hosts John Hockenberry and Adaora Udoji. For a while I was setting my alarm for 6 or 6:30, and I got to hear a little of the show, and it wasn't bad. But then I pushed the alarm back to 7, when WNYC-FM switches to, yes, Morning Edition! No more Takeaway for me, unless I'm up before 7 and ambitious enough to turn the radio on manually.

I just checked the scheduling online, to make sure I wasn't making it up. Sure enough, I'm not crazy. This is the way the show is really scheduled:

New York
New York, NY 820 AM WNYC-AM 8 a.m.–10 a.m. Mon–Fri
New York, NY 93.9 FM WNYC-FM 6 a.m.–7 a.m. Mon–Fri

Do you notice anything odd about here?

Let's look at it another way. Wouldn't it be fair to say that many if not most people have to be at work at 9am? And that all of those people consequently spend some if not all of the preceding hour traveling to work? (Actually, since my company moved all the way downtown in Manhattan, it now takes me about an hour and a quarter, maybe an hour and a half. But who's counting?) So for those of us who fall into this demographic, what would you say would be the most crucial hour of the morning schedule?

(a) 6am - 7am
(b) 7am - 8am
(c) 8am - 9am

Am I crazy, or is the answer not (b)? And if you look again at that schedule for The Takeaway in New York, when between 6am and 10am is the show not on the air? It's like it was carefully planned. Has WNYC been hiring some of the AAR program scheduling talent?

I'LL BET YOU THOUGHT I FORGOT ABOUT
THE CHANNUKAH PART -- WELL, HA!

As it happens, this morning I did flip the radio on early, and they were doing a sort of Channukah show. John and Adaora's guest, I figured out gradually, was New York Times food writer Melissa Clark, and she had a take on the holiday I've never heard, or at least never heard put quite this way.

After running through the historical event being celebrated, the miracle by which the insignificant amount of oil remaining in the Temple, needed to light the Eternal Light, lasted eight days, Melissa explained that that's why we fry stuff at Channukah, like potato latkes (and she provided two crucial latke-making tips: grate the potatoes coarse, not fine, and above all be sure to squeeze the moisture out of the grated potatoes before making your pancake mixture and frying), and that in fact frying anything counts as Channukah celebration, as long as there's lots of oil and grease.

That's why they do doughnuts for Channukah in Israel, Melissa explained. (Jelly or jam doughnuts, apparently. Not my favorites, but okay.) And why in Italy they fry chicken, and in Morocco something else. Anyway, you get the idea. For these eight days, frying stuff is practically a religious obligation.

This isn't the sort of thing you would want to carry through 365 days a year. But for eight days, knowing that you can fry any damned thing you can think of and get into appropriate oil and you're commemorating a religious observance, well, isn't this the sort of thing that gets people involved with organized religion in the first place?

Melissa had some other decidedly unfamiliar takes on Channukah celebration. Like she had apparently brought in "golden gelt cookies" she'd baked (not fried, eh?), for presumptive use in that fast-paced, high-stakes dreidel play common during Channukah. Normally we would use those golden-foil-wrapped chocolate coins, the way it says in the Bible. But Melissa explained that she's always looking for alternatives to the old chocolate coins, and the way she kept talking about those golden cookies of hers, the more I thought it would be churlish not to at least try them.

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Our Air America Contest Is Over-- And The Winner Is...

Our week long Air America contest ended this morning at 5:59am, PT. Between last Monday morning and now, 312 people took the opportunity to vote-- by adding one cent to their donations-- for one or more of our Blue America candidates. Every single candidate-- please look at the list-- got at least a few votes. The best measure of the success is that we took in $12,348 (and some cents). The average donation was $39.58, but most of the donations were for $1.01. And 10 donations for $1.01 meant 10 votes (+, of course $10.10), whereas a donation of $500.01 only counted for 1 vote.

By late Sunday night I could see it was a neck and neck race between Debbie Cook (CA), Howard Shanker (AZ) Dennis Shulman (NJ) and Leslie Byrne (VA). The other candidates with large numbers of votes were Jon Powers (NY), Jim Himes (CT), Ed Fallon (IA), Eric Massa (NY), and Judy Feder (VA). Leslie's consolation prize is that her supporters donated almost $2,000 which we are praying will help her fend off a massive influx of corporate special interest cash from Gerry Connolly, the Joe Lieberman/Zell Miller Democrat who is running against her a week from tomorrow in the Virginia primary.

By just a few votes, our top vote-getter was Dennis Shulman, a blind rabbi from northern New Jersey. If he's new to you, please go back to out November 3 live blog session with him at FDL. Dennis wound up picking up over $1,000 from our donors this week. Tomorrow he faces a primary opponent who is campaigning against his support for the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. Once that's over with he'll be facing the last really radical right extremist incumbent in the Northeast, GOP fringe nut, Scott Garrett. Yesterday the biggest paper in Dennis' district, the Bergen Record endorsed him.

Shulman's moderate positions and measured tone are appropriate to the diverse district and, should he win Tuesday's primary, will make for an interesting contrast with Garrett (who has no primary opposition) in the fall. "Problem-solving has been my life, not ideology," Shulman told The Record's editorial board.

Shulman supports expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program for low- and moderate-income families, which has met stiff opposition in Washington. On immigration, he favors border security measures short of a fence, as well as a pathway to citizenship for the millions already here illegally. We agree on both counts.

We also appreciated Shulman's emphasis on ethics. If elected, he said he would not accept contributions from industries regulated by his House committees. He also identified a worthwhile policy priority: improving care for disabled veterans.

Like Howard Shanker, Debbie Cook, Leslie Byrne, Jon Powers, Eric Massa and Judy Feder, Dennis' campaign was able to successfully mobilize its e-mail list to go over the the Blue America page and donate with pennies attached. They never let up and they mentioned the contest in several communications and it paid off. Dennis has also been endorsed by Wes Clark, New Jersey congressmen Frank Pallone and Steve Rothman, and scores of local leaders. It's with great pleasure that we'll be sending him the check we get from Air America this week. I want to thank all 312 generous donors who took part in this contest. Your efforts will go to help bring BETTER Democrats to Congress.

Last Day To Vote In Our Air America Contest

The country can't afford 4 more years of this

Today is the last day of our contest with Air America. We've raised approximately $10,000 $11,000 since it started on Monday, spread out over all of our candidates. When I looked it over-- I'll do the thorough count tomorrow morning-- I noticed that some of the candidates had raked in some big bucks, particularly Dennis Shulman (NJ), Debbie Cook (CA), Leslie Byrne (VA), Howard Shanker (AZ), and Judy Feder (VA). Eric Massa (NY), Ed Fallon (IA), Jim Himes (CT), Vic Wulsin (OH), Jon Powers (NY), and Regina Thomas (GA) also wound up with some padded warchests. And then one of them will wind up with the Air America check Monday. It isn't too late to vote, something you do by going to the Blue America page and tacking on one penny to your donation to the candidate (or candidates) you want to vote for.

I have a wonderful congresswoman representing my district, Diane Watson, and she never gets any serious challenge. The PVI here is D+36. I know there are plenty of DWT readers in similar situations. So it's nice that we can make a difference in districts where it is a bit closer. And 5 of our candidates in the running-- Ed Fallon, Leslie Byrne, Howard Shanker, Jon Powers and Regina Thomas-- are progressives battling it out in primaries against reactionary Democratic insiders who are eager to or will continue (in the case of Iowa's Leonard Boswell and Georgia's John Barrow) to represent the special interests who donate to their campaigns. Ed, Leslie, Howard, Jon and Regina are running against Democrats but Democrats who act like Republicans and share Republican values rather than Democratic values.

Anyway, ActBlue will be shut down for maintenance from 10am 'til 2pm so either vote (with your penny) before then or later in the day. The last vote I'll count will be at 5:59am, PT on Monday morning.

Air America Contest Update-- Did You Vote Yet?

6 Blue America candidates that the DCCC is supporting too

Every other e-mail I'm getting is from someone wondering how the DownWithTyranny/Air America contest is going. I can't believe all the contributions of $1.01. They add up though. The biggest donation since we started on Monday morning was for Regina Thomas for over $600. The average contribution is for around $20. So far the candidates with the most donations are Debbie Cook (CA), Dennis Shulman (NJ), Leslie Byrne (VA), Howard Shanker (AZ), Eric Massa (NY) and Ed Fallon (IA). We just added Virginia progressive Democrat Judy Feder to our list of endorsed candidates-- since she'll be our guest at Firedoglake on Saturday-- so you can vote for her as well if you'd like.

Overnight enough votes came in for Leslie Byrne to put her slightly ahead. We've been presenting Leslie as an example of "Better" in the popular aphorism "More and Better Democrats." This morning Matt Stoller at Open Left and Lowell at RaisingKaine both focus on some of the shady activities surrounding Jerry Connolly, the Joe Lieberman/Zell Miller type Democrat who is running against Leslie-- and running hard; the race is neck and neck and it will come down to a GOTV effort next Tuesday.

PICK YOUR FAVORITE BLUE AMERICA CANDIDATE

Starting today, DownWithTyranny will be the special Guest Blogger for Air America for a week. Please, let's try to keep talk of last cigarettes and blindfolds for constitutional officers to a bare minimum in the comments section this week. Other than that, everything will be the same. Oh, except one other thing. Air America has very generously offered to pay us for being their guest blogger. Personally, I don't believe in profiting from trying to save the Constitution so I decided to make a little contest out of their check. I'm happy to donate it to any one of the Blue America candidates. And I'll count on you to pick the candidate.

Here's how you vote. Go to the Blue America page and make a donation-- even one dollar is fine-- and then add one penny. The penny is your vote. This is one man, one vote, so it doesn't matter if you donate $100.01 or $5.01; either counts for one vote. Feel free to vote for as many candidates as you like but your name only counts one time for any candidate you vote for. A week from today we'll announce which candidate gets the DownWithTyranny Air America check.

And for Air America readers who haven't been over at DownWithTyranny before, let me tell you something about Blue America. It's a PAC and ActBlue fundraising page that has helped distribute nearly one million dollars to progressive candidates since it was founded by Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars, Digby's Hullabaloo, and DWT. To qualify for a Blue America endorsement, a candidate must be genuinely willing to work towards a speedy end to the occupation of Iraq, must support equality for all Americans regardless of race, gender, country of origin, sexual orientation, etc, must be 100% pro-choice, must be in favor of the kind of campaign finance reform that will put an end to corporate special interests dictating government policy, and... well, aside from that we're always looking for proud progressives and populists and liberals willing to stand up and fight-- and lead. We are happy to support candidates who want to fix pot holes in their districts-- in fact if office holders don't do that, they lose elections-- but that isn't the criteria we use to endorse candidates. Nor is the idea that we just need more Democrats. This year, in fact, our biggest victory was helping to defeat a reactionary and corrupt Democratic insider, Al Wynn (D-MD)-- who was defended by powerful interests and by Rahm Emanuel, Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi-- and replacing him with a true progressive leader and reformer, Donna Edwards.

So... look forward to hearing about these kinds of candidates all week, and help us pick one for the Air America check.

AIR AMERICA INVITES REPUBLICANS TO DEBATE ON THEIR NETWORK-- WITH NO COMMERCIAL INTERRUPTIONS

I only met Mark Green a few times-- his wife Deni is a friend of mine-- but I've read 2 of his books, Losing Our Democracy: How Bush, the Far Right and Big Business Are Betraying Americans For Power and Profit and The Book on Bush: How George W (Mis)leads America. He impressed me-- when I met him and when I read him-- as a smart, articulate guy who understands the threat our country faces from Republican Party rule. Recently Green became the CEO of Air America Radio. The station seems a lot better already.

Today Green sent letters to Ray Hoffmann, Paul Willis, Katon Dawson and Fergus Cullen, respectively the Republican Party chairs of Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina and New Hampshire. Aside from being surprised that Cullen still isn't in prison, I was really happy-- as I'm sure all Americans will be, especially the wingnuts and hypocrites on the right who screamed like stuck pigs when the Democrats decided not to debate on GOP propaganda outlet, Fox-- to know that Air America is offering to host Republican debates on their airwaves.

As the new president of Air America, I'd like to offer to host or co-host one of your upcoming presidential debates.

Why us? First, this would allow your debate to reach many voters. Combining our 2 million radio audience, along with our satellite, internet and web audiences, means that some 2.5 million Americans would hear or read about the debate..

Second, it would allow Republicans to differentiate themselves from Democrats – embracing a debate hosted by a progressive media outlet after Nevada Democrats canceled a debate scheduled to be hosted by the conservative Fox Cable News Channel. The MoveOn organization spurred 265,000 people to complain about the original plan, calling Fox a "mouthpiece for the Republican Party." In reply, Fox's Mort Kondracke called the Nevada Democratic Party's rejection of Fox a "Stalinist" violation of "free speech and free debate." So should you accept Air America's offer, Republicans would both embrace free debate and stick it to Stalin at the same time.

Third, our offer permits you to include any other national media company as a co-host -- like Fox. For example, a panel with Fox representing the conservative viewpoint and Air America the progressive viewpoint would make for a very "fair and balanced" debate -- not to mention that Fox's viewers per evening are coincidentally comparable to our 2.5 million listeners, meaning that several million unique people would hear your debate (assuming next to no overlap between our two disparate audiences).

We would be honored not only to co-host such an event; but also to broadcast it live without commercial interruption on the day that you choose.

I look forward to your response and to working with you on this important event.

I'll let you know if I hear about Mark getting a response.


RIGHT WING PROPAGANDA FOR DUMMIES

Today Matt Stoller laid out all the reasoning behind progressives' revulsion at the prospect of Fox-TV sponsoring a Democratic debate. The article (at the link above) is well worth reading if you don't understand why it was important to derail the deal between Democratic Insiders and an integral part of the Republican Party's propaganda department. Several clueless Democrats, seeking for one reason or another to curry favor with Fox-- publicity in Dennis Kucinich's case, dirty lucre in the case of Liebermanite Bob Beckel-- have been on TV ranting and raving and confusing the issue. As usual, you can count on Stoller to get it right-- and shove it up their asses.

First, we argued that Fox News is not a news channel, but a propaganda outlet that regularly distorts, spins, and falsifies information. Second, Fox News is heavily influenced or even controlled by the Republican Party itself. As such, we believe that Fox News on the whole functions as a surrogate operation for the GOP. Treating Fox as a legitimate news channel extends the Republican Party’s ability to swift-boat and discredit our candidates. In other words, Fox News is a direct pipeline of misinformation from the GOP leadership into the traditional press.