Mike Huckabee to Take On Rush Limbaugh With New Radio Gig

[Pandora]

Mike Huckabee will launch a new radio program this week.

The squish alternative.

He hopes to take on conservative giant Rush Limbaugh.

The former governor will offer a kinder, gentler more apologetic voice to conservative talk.

The Politico reported:

    Rush Limbaugh, the longstanding undisputed king of conservative talk radio who’s been dogged by controversy recently, is about to face some more heat. Not from the left, but this time from the right.

    On Monday, former Arkansas governor and one-time Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee will launch a three-hour radio program on almost 200 stations across the country, going voice-to-voice with Limbaugh in the noon-to-3 p.m. time slot, Monday through Friday.

    Cumulus Media, which owns and operates the new program, is already pitching Huckabee to listeners and advertisers as the “safe alternative” to a man who has recently found himself under weeks of intense fire – not for the first time – and who some believe could be vulnerable to a challenge from someone offering a kinder, gentler conservative voice.

    “Our tagline is, ‘More conversation, less confrontation’,” Huckabee told POLITICO. “I’m going to treat every guest with respect and civility. Nobody is going to come on and get into a shouting match with me. That’s just not my style.”

    Making a direct comparison with Limbaugh, John Dickey, the co-COO of Cumulus Media, adds, “This is going to be safer from a commercial standpoint, and more respectful from a listener’s perspective. I think that environment has been sorely lacking in talk radio.”

    While representatives of “The Rush Limbaugh Show,” a Clear Channel property, and its syndicator, Premiere Networks, agree Huckabee will, in fact, offer a “safer” alternative, they strongly reject any suggestion that he poses a threat to Limbaugh’s audience and enormous influence. In their eyes, Huckabee is just the latest in a long line of would-be competitors who have never been able to measure up.

Safe?  Yeap; that's the ticket.

Huck, meet FAIL.  Again.

[Glock32]

LOL. Yeah, the "safe" person in this equation is Rush Limbaugh.

[trapeze]

I read about this earlier elsewhere.

Four years ago I referred to him as Huckaboob. This latest project does nothing to alter my opinion.

[Sectionhand]

Lots of luck , Huck ... you're going to need it ! 

[Libertas]

Can't wait to see Rush beat the ____ out of Huck!   

[AmericanPatriot]

The Huckster the alternative for those who have no b**ls.And I am not referring to women

[Predator Don]

I love how the media gets orgasmic when speaking about challenges to Rush or all the "controversy" trumped up by media elites.

So after years of propping up boring liberal talk radio as the answer to Rush......and failing......let's do the next best thing.....air a conservative and neuter him.....or did he neuter himself?? Or was there anything to neuter??

[CatholicCrusader]

Can't wait to see Rush beat the ____ out of Huck!   

Thats not nice. Huck is a good guy.
They are not enemies, just competitors.

[IronDioPriest]

Mike Huckabee's style is so unbelievably sickly-sweet - and I mean unbelievably in both the figurative colloquialism and literally; unbelievable.

His simpering, wheedling tone of speech is over the top. His genteel manner is over the top. His non-threatening "look-at-me-I'm-not-like-them" shtick is over the top. His "not-enemies-just-wrong" shtick is over the top, his perpetual assumption of the best Leftist intentions is over the top.

Everything about this guy screams fake-fake-fake. I wouldn't trust him to mow my lawn.

Now he wants to run up against Rush Limbaugh? News flash, Huck: Many men much better than you have tried and failed, or have succeeded only in creating a niche for themselves without harm to Rush. You'll either flop on your face, or you'll garner enough share of milquetoast anti-abortion liberals to stay afloat. But don't fantasize that you'll somehow provide an alternative to Rush, and that people will tune him out and tune you in. That would be utterly delusional.

[radioman]

Too bad he will be in the same time slot as Rush because that guarantees that I will never hear him.

[Libertas]

Can't wait to see Rush beat the ____ out of Huck!   

Thats not nice. Huck is a good guy.
They are not enemies, just competitors.

Picking on my tone?  Tsk! Tsk!

As to the Huckster being a "good" guy, that is perhaps more of a subjective viewpoint, I have no doubt he is a decent chap, but a "good" guy?  Politically speaking I never saw it.  He was not ashamed to court the eco-nazi's, buying into Cap & Trade!  Sorry, anybody who is truly conservative is NOT for Cap & Trade!

I'll take Rush over Huck nine ways to Sunday and then some!

[Predator Don]

Can't wait to see Rush beat the ____ out of Huck!   

Thats not nice. Huck is a good guy.
They are not enemies, just competitors.

I don't have anything against him.....But Hucks own words infer he doesn't agree with Rush, so he chooses the exact same time slot....as an alternative?  This doesn't strengthen conservatism, it waters it down. Cumulus found a tool to accomplish the cause and I don't think Huck is smart enough to understand he was played.....or I believe he was played.

What better way to weaken conservatives than to pit them against each other. Ever since he got the gig on Fox, I believe his ambitions have created a blind spot.

[IronDioPriest]

Huckabee is a pro-life liberal, period. He was one as a tax-n-spend governor, and he is now as a E-GOP pundit.

People who call themselves conservatives and then act like conservatism is something that needs to be apologized for and as a source of embarrassment are not conservatives.

[LadyVirginia]

Now he wants to run up against Rush Limbaugh? News flash, Huck: Many men much better than you have tried and failed, or have succeeded only in creating a niche for themselves without harm to Rush. You'll either flop on your face, or you'll garner enough share of milquetoast anti-abortion liberals to stay afloat. But don't fantasize that you'll somehow provide an alternative to Rush, and that people will tune him out and tune you in. That would be utterly delusional.

Does he really think people are listening to Rush because there's no alternative?

Huck might get some of those people who think conservative talk radio is, you know, too confrontational...but those people never listen to talk radio anyway.  (I'm thinking of a family member who said she didn't listen to Rush because he yells at people.)

[Charles Oakwood]

When he was running for president Rush called him the "Huckster".
He is a pro-life, pro-military, Democrat; that's what he is.
He is a Democrat selling himself as a Republican, the Huckster.

[Libertas]

When he was running for president Rush called him the "Huckster".
He is a pro-life, pro-military, Democrat; that's what he is.
He is a Democrat selling himself as a Republican, the Huckster.

Sure is a lot of that going around, it's contagious like a virus and nothing allows it to replicate faster that being in the fevered swamp of DC!

I've been asking for that swamp to be thoroughly drained for decades...still waiting...

 

[Pandora]

Now he wants to run up against Rush Limbaugh? News flash, Huck: Many men much better than you have tried and failed, or have succeeded only in creating a niche for themselves without harm to Rush. You'll either flop on your face, or you'll garner enough share of milquetoast anti-abortion liberals to stay afloat. But don't fantasize that you'll somehow provide an alternative to Rush, and that people will tune him out and tune you in. That would be utterly delusional.

Does he really think people are listening to Rush because there's no alternative?

Huck might get some of those people who think conservative talk radio is, you know, too confrontational...but those people never listen to talk radio anyway.  (I'm thinking of a family member who said she didn't listen to Rush because he yells at people.)

She's obviously never listened.  Of them all, Rush is LEAST likely to yell at anyone.

[Sally Brown]

Mike Huckabee's style is so unbelievably sickly-sweet - and I mean unbelievably in both the figurative colloquialism and literally; unbelievable.

His simpering, wheedling tone of speech is over the top. His genteel manner is over the top. His non-threatening "look-at-me-I'm-not-like-them" shtick is over the top. His "not-enemies-just-wrong" shtick is over the top, his perpetual assumption of the best Leftist intentions is over the top.

Everything about this guy screams fake-fake-fake. I wouldn't trust him to mow my lawn.

Now he wants to run up against Rush Limbaugh? News flash, Huck: Many men much better than you have tried and failed, or have succeeded only in creating a niche for themselves without harm to Rush. You'll either flop on your face, or you'll garner enough share of milquetoast anti-abortion liberals to stay afloat. But don't fantasize that you'll somehow provide an alternative to Rush, and that people will tune him out and tune you in. That would be utterly delusional.

Huckabee is, in my opinion, Eddie Haskell on steroids.  Utterly smarmy and, as you said, sickly sweet but he is in reality,  again my opinion, a snake.


Look what happened during the primary last election.  He made sure that McCain was the candidate by turning over his votes to his campaign when it was obvious he wasn't going anywhere.  Thus making sure that Fred Thompson or any other actual Conservative didn't have a chance.

Bad man.

[Charles Oakwood]

On the money Sally Brown.   

As to him being a failure: the other night O'Really said that his radio show was profitable
and the stations that carried him didn't want him to quit.  The Huckster could make a
living being aired on second or third tier venues.   How many folks receive Fred Thompson
or Monica Crowley?  That's where the Huckster will be.

[Alphabet Soup]

Playin devil's advocate here (why not? I'm a few steps closer than any of y'all)...

Isn't the presumptive pubbie candidate mittens? Isn't he a moderate Republican? Doesn't he appeal to the same exact notions (I can't say that any are developed enough to be principles) as huck? Wouldn't logic therefore dictate that this sizable built-in audience would be more inclined towards a "kinder, gentler" approach to the incendiary Rush?

OK, now that that's outta the way...Good luck Huck - you're gonna need it!