Wow.
As we often say here: you just can’t make it up.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took his first phone call
of his new talk radio call-in show yesterday. From “Mike in San
Francisco.” Remember: the show is being positioned by the Cumulus
Media Network as the conservative show with “more conversation,
less confrontation.” Or, as it is certainly being pushed in the
anti-Rush Limbaugh media, the show for moderate Republicans that
will Take Rush Out. RINO Radio, as we noted here last week.
But there seemed to be something slightly out of whack.
That something?
The very first phone call, arriving some fifty minutes into the
show. To anyone with an ear for talk radio it had a startling
quality.
Why?
No one seemed to remember to give the call-in number to the
audience until the very last few seconds of those first fifty
minutes. But yet… presto!… within seconds, Mike Huckabee did in
fact have a caller on the line! Without ever questioning how that
caller could have gotten on that line in less time than it takes
Obama to blame Bush for anything!
The caller…”Mike from San Francisco”… was in fact not just your
average Mike.
Huckabee began this way:
“Alright, we’re going to go to the phone lines and we’ve got a
call from Mike in San Francisco. Welcome to the Mike Huckabee Show,
Mike.”
What did “Mike” have on his mind? He started this way:
“Well Governor, let me start by saying it’s great to have a
different opinion and a different person on the radio and I’m very,
very happy that you’re doing this radio show. One of the reasons
why I want to listen to your program every day is because you ran
for office and you’ve been a politician, you have a different
perspective I think.”
Catch that? “Mike from San Francisco” begins by saying in
supposedly unprompted fashion that (bold emphasis mine) “… it’s
great to have a different opinion and a different person on
the radio…”
Different opinion? Different person? Different from whom? Why,
Rush Limbaugh, of course.
Interesting.
In fact, “Mike from San Francisco” turned out after some digging
to be one Mike McVay, the senior vice president of programming for…
wait for it… the Cumulus Media Network. None of which was
acknowledged on the air by either “Mike from San Francisco” or,
more to the point, Mike Huckabee.
After receiving several tips on this I contacted Mr. McVay
himself, asking the following:
Hi Mike….
This is Jeff Lord from The American Spectator.
I have been told that in the debut of Governor Huckabee’s show
today the first caller was “Mike from San Francisco.” The caller
thanked Huckabee for his new format etc.
I have information that you were that caller…and failed to
identify yourself to the audience as a Cumulus executive, nor did
Governor Huckabee identify you.
In other words, Mike, you were a “plant”….not a real caller
who really wanted to call in and talk to Governor Huckabee.
A few questions for my column tomorrow:
1. Was this in fact you as I have been told? My source has made
a 100% positive ID.
2. If so, why did you not openly identify yourself as a Cumulus
executive who has a stake in the success of the Huckabee show?
3. I will be listening to the show tonight, but have already
learned the fact that the call-in phone number wasn’t given out
until seconds before the call-in. Question: isn’t it disingenuous
to think that the listeners would believe that this was a real
call?
4. Did Governor Huckabee know this was you — and was he a
participant in this?
5. Whose idea was this to have you call in? Yours? The
Governor’s? Someone else from Cumulus? John or Lou Dickey?
6. Governor Huckabee has a good reputation for honesty. Doesn’t
this kind of thing put both the Governor’s reputation and
consequently the new show’s reputation at risk?
7. I understand the odds Cumulus is facing in launching this
show, the involvement of investor cash and all the rest. Even so,
was this a really good idea to do this? Will there be more calls of
this nature from Cumulus executives disguised as regular folks
interested in the Huckabee show — when in fact they decidedly are
something else?
Mike, I’m sure these are not comfortable questions, and I
understand the pressure involved in going up against Rush Limbaugh.
But under the circumstances, our conservative readers at The
American Spectator and surely the larger Internet reading audience
will want to know your side of the story.
Thanks. My deadline is 10 pm tonight… Monday… April 9th.
Jeff Lord
The American Spectator
Mr. McVay did not reply.
So we re-directed our request, same letter, to Mr. McVay’s —
and Governor Huckabee’s — bosses. That would be brothers Lew and
John Dickey, the executives who run Cumulus Media.
I said:
Hi Lew and John….
This is Jeff Lord with The American Spectator.
I’m about to listen to a tape-delayed broadcast of the Huckabee
Show. I have learned that the first question on the show I will
hear, identified as “Mike from San Francisco,” is in fact a Cumulus
executive named Mike McVay. Meaning, this questioner was in fact a
plant… and never identified on-air as such… a pre-planned question
from a Cumulus executive. I have contacted Mr. McVay to confirm
this and so far he has not answered.
My column on this will be published tomorrow, and at this late
stage, having not heard from Mr. McVay I feel in fairness I should
send my e-mail on to both of you.
I have pasted the e-mail below.
Any light you can shed on this would be appreciated.
Thanks for your time, e-mail pasted below.
Jeff Lord
The American Spectator
Last night, John Dickey replied, confirming the story. This is
what he said:
Jeff:
Thanks for listening to the show. To your question a colleague
in the companywas excited about the new show and arranged to call
in with the first questionwithout Governor Huckabee’s knowledge.
When I learned of this I began theprocess of reminding my
colleagues in the company that we should reserveair-time for our
listeners and refrain from calling in to our own shows.
John
Mr. Dickey was brief and to the point, and I certainly thank him
for responding and being open about what had happened.
But note what was not answered? These questions:
4. Did Governor Huckabee know this was you — and was he a
participant in this?
5. Whose idea was this to have you call in? Yours? The
Governor’s? Someone else from Cumulus? John or Lou Dickey?
6. Governor Huckabee has a good reputation for honesty. Doesn’t
this kind of thing put both the Governor’s reputation and
consequently the new show’s reputation at risk?
In other words, the obvious.
Mr. Dickey says Mike Huckabee did not know the call was incoming
from McVay. But this leaves unanswered what seems to be obvious.
Once McVay was on the phone, it seems extremely unlikely Mike
Huckabee didn’t recognize Mike McVay’s voice.
The thought is now out there that Mike Huckabee himself knew
exactly who was on the other end of his phone line — a Cumulus
programming executive with whom, presumably, he had spent a small
eternity in the weeks leading up to the show’s launch — and quite
deliberately played possum. Going along with a game to fool his
listeners into thinking he was getting a real call when in fact he
was not.
Was Mike Huckabee a participant in this charade?
Whose idea was it if not Mike Huckabee’s?
None of this would be good for any new radio host. But Mike
Huckabee isn’t just any new radio host in a new but average radio
venture.
As was
observed in my column last week, John and Lew Dickey may well
have considerable business chops. But the conservative talk radio
business that was essentially invented by Rush Limbaugh has for
reasons familiar to conservatives across the land become very much
a cherished conservative medium.
After decades of being shut out by a liberal mainstream media,
conservatives finally had a way to break the stranglehold of that
mainstream media. As the years have gone by, with Rush always at
the top of the pyramid, other stars have blossomed. From Sean
Hannity to Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage,
and local hosts everywhere, these people have become, Rush Limbaugh
first and foremost, not just a voice on the radio but the very
embodiment of conservatism itself.
And there has been no shortage of liberals trying to unhorse
Rush, from Air America’s Al Franken to ex-New York Governor Mario
Cuomo, Texas populist Jim Hightower and more. All have failed
miserably.
Why?
Challenging Rush is seen by many conservatives as an attack on
conservatism itself.
This is a real problem for the Dickeys and Huckabee. And this
botched business with a phony questioner could instantly cause a
very predictable problem.
Mike Huckabee, again as noted last week, is one of the nicest
people on the planet today. But in their heydays so were the late
Gerald R. Ford and then President George H.W. Bush. Both took the
kind of “kinder, gentler” conservative politics (to use a phrase of
Bush’s) as their signature — and both wound up losing the White
House. With conservatives across the country simply dropping both
Ford and Bush — and “RINO” Republicans altogether.
Why? Because all were seen as trying to game conservatives. Case
in point again, President Bush 41. A genuine war hero, a good man…
the story of his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge is infamous in
conservative circles still even though it happened way back in
1990. Bush came to embody the idea that “RINO’s” were simply
untrustworthy when it came to dealing with conservatives.
For better or worse, the bet by the Dickeys is that Mike
Huckabee, accused in 2007 by the conservative now-Pennsylvania U.S.
Senator Pat Toomey of wanting to steer the GOP leftward, can unseat
Rush. And by implication, replace, as it were, Reagan Radio with
Ford or Bush Radio.
All of which means in turn: the messenger has to have more
credibility than might otherwise be the case.
And right off the bat, Governor Huckabee’s credibility as a
conservative radio host has been jeopardized with a planted
question from a Cumulus executive. A question that deliberately
took a shot at Rush and the conservative movement… and by all
appearances was pre-arranged.
There is doubtless a ways to go here in all this.
But the entire venture has taken onto itself the image that it
is about far more than just a talk radio show.
It is about replacing Reagan conservatism — represented here by
Rush Limbaugh — with RINO Radio.
Did Mike Huckabee know he was getting a planted question — and
deliberately refuse to tell his audience? Mr. Dickey says no.
Did he really not recognize the voice on the other end of the
phone? Remembering that the voice in question belonged to Mr.
McVay, whose title for Cumulus is “senior vice president for
programming” — which is to say the man with whom Huckabee had
personally working with for weeks before this launch.
I don’t know the answer to this last question. But I must say it
simply doesn’t seem possible that this particular Cumulus
executive — the programming Mr. McVay — would have been anything
other than one of the most familiar voices in Mike Huckabee’s
current life.
But I do know for a fact that a staged, planted phone call was
used to launch the Huckabee bid to topple Rush.
Read my lips: RINO Radio has a problem.
On day one.
