The GOP and its supreme leader

Here's a nice catch by the excellent Max Blumenthal, writing at The Daily Beast:

Republicans who have turned to Rush Limbaugh to lead the fight against President Obama may have backed the wrong horse. According to one recent poll, Limbaugh turns out to be one of the most unpopular political figures in the country.

An October 24, 2008, poll conducted by the Democratic research firm Greenberg-Quinlan-Rosner has Rush Limbaugh enjoying a public approval rating of just 21 percent among likely voters, while 58 percent have "cold" feelings towards the right-wing radio talk show host. Limbaugh was the least popular of the all the political figures the firm polled. He polls seven points lower than Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright and eight points below former Weather Underground domestic terrorist William Ayers.

You can follow the link to a .pdf of the poll results, from last October, in Max's post. Basically, the pollsters asked whether respondents had "cold" or "warm" feelings toward an array of political and media personalities. Results are broken down for Republicans and all respondents. The results in question are on page 16.

Wright's "cold" rating among all respondents was 51%, and Ayers' was 50%. Limbaugh's was 58%. It should be noted that Wright and Ayers had virtually no warm support, while Rushbo's warm rating among all respondents was 21%.

Of course these numbers can be partly explained by the fact that Limbaugh is far better known than the other two and thus provokes more passionate responses from more people. Even so, the question of how wise it is for the GOP to follow Limbaugh's lead is a separate one, and these numbers suggest it's a pretty lousy idea. So yes, GOP -- keep taking Rush's advice.