Michael Smerconish | HOW RUSH BECAME THE KING OF TALK

October 18, 2007

THE MAESTRO onstage at the Academy of Music one week ago wielded a microphone instead of a baton. And while the Philadelphia Orchestra was nowhere in sight, you could say the evening's selection was a version of "Fanfare for the Common Man."

The conductor? Rush Limbaugh. He was in town at the behest of the station that airs his program locally (and mine), the Big Talker 1210/AM. This was Rush unplugged, working without commercials, and letting it rip for 90 minutes in front of a sold-out crowd of "dittoheads."

The packed house was a fraction of the millions he reaches every week via 600-plus stations as America's most-listened-to radio personality.

Of course, Rush brought with him a lesson plan from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, but after watching his tutorial on Broad Street, it became apparent the strength of his appeal lies in more than his message.

Rush Limbaugh is radio's Riccardo Muti. He is an entertainer par excellence, and it is his gift of communication that sets him apart. The message, his politics, is his encore.

To be sure, Limbaugh is an unapologetic conservative. He has single-handedly made that ideology fashionable in a medium where it previously had no home. His worst critic would have to concede that his legacy is one of having reshaped the media landscape, starting with talk radio.

I recognize that by now Limbaugh antagonists have either relegated this Daily News to the birdcage or thinking of it.

I get it. You like him or you don't in the same way you condone or condemn the senior U.S. senator from New York. But give the big man his just due.

Two decades ago, "the media" consisted of the big three networks and CNN, conventional radio and traditional print. There was no Fox News and Al Gore had yet to invent the Internet. Conservative media voices were the odd few. And there certainly was no dominant voice on the right. Rush Limbaugh filled that void when he was syndicated in 1988.

He'd been honing his craft since 1967, when he began as a high school student with the moniker of Rusty Sharpe on KGMO in his hometown of Cape Girardeau, Mo. After college, he worked his first radio gig in McKeesport, Pa., as a Top 40 DJ at WIXZ. By 1972 (as Jeff Christie), he was on Pittsburgh's KQV. After a stint with the Kansas City Royals, he returned to radio at KFBK in Sacramento - and changed the broadcast business.

Philadelphia was the last major market to welcome Limbaugh. He came aboard WWDB-FM on Sept. 21, 1992. Eight years later, he moved to WPHT.

"Finally, finally Philadelphians are about to hear the radio talk show that the rest of America has been talking about for several years," the Inquirer's Joe Logan wrote. "For the uninitiated, Limbaugh is 320 pounds of conservative bombast. He attacks liberals, feminists, environmentalists, animal-rights types, just about anybody who doesn't worship Ronald Reagan."

Those words are typical of how Limbaugh has been typecast and misunderstood by those who don't get (or are frustrated by) his appeal. Detractors assume he draws strength from positions that divide, when in fact the Rush Limbaugh onstage at the Academy of Music accentuates all that unites Americans:

"Look at the greatness. Look at the inventions. Look at what happened to the world in the 20th century, because most of it happened in this country," he said last week. "A level of achievement - human achievement - that advanced lifestyles, extended life spans . . . unknown in the hundreds of years prior."

With decidedly pro-American pitches like what he offered in Philadelphia - with some fun at Hillary's expense sprinkled in for good measure - Rush showed how he created a clubhouse for a significant segment of society that believed their views were unwanted and unrepresented in the media. That demand didn't start with Rush, but no one before him was able to meet it.

Before Limbaugh, no one was able to harness the widespread discontent with the mainstream media. He did it by having a message. But, equally important, Rush became a phenomenon based on the strength of his personality, and a jovial one at that. He's a man who likes to laugh and who knows how to deliver a punchline. He's also a master of self-deprecation. (And a ladies' man. Limbaugh didn't leave the Academy stage without completing a "ring check" of a shapely blonde who'd been particularly appreciative of his speech from her perch in the front row.)

Rush onstage is more ringleader than Republican; more entertainer than conservative. Unassailable is his status as a headliner. You don't attract 15 million-plus listeners a week - or 2,000 for a night on Broad Street - by being anything less. *

Listen to Michael Smerconish weekdays 5:30-9 a.m. on the Big Talker, 1210/AM. Read him Sundays in the Inquirer. Contact him via the Web at www.mastalk.com.