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E-mail and other tech talk may be the third, fourth or nth wave of the future, but old-fashioned radio is true hyperdemocracy. Very hyper. Like the backyard savants, barroom agitators and soapbox spellbinders of an earlier era, Limbaugh & Co. bring intimacy and urgency to an impersonal age. "If we still gathered at town meetings, if our churches were still community centers," says Marvin Kalb, former CBS reporter who is teaching at George Washington University, "we wouldn't need talk radio. People feel increasingly disconnected, and talk radio gives them a sense of connection."
What's new is that today the radio rightists are wired into the political process. In 1994 the scream rose to the top. These fervent spiels, in which we heard America slinging, stinging, cajoling, annoying, persuading, finally transformed the social dialogue. In a 1993 poll by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press, 44% of Americans named talk radio as their chief source of political information. Listeners tend to be white, male and hep to conservative ideas -- just the audience the Republicans wanted to mobilize.
They knew how to do it too. Last September, when Gingrich announced the Contract with America, the Republican National Committee had lined up 300 talk-radio interviews for its signatories. Coordinating the blitz was Virginia's Contract Information Center, which has 500 radio talk shows on its superefficient fax network. CIC sent pro-Contract clips and talking points to the shows; many hosts read the material verbatim on the air. The scheme worked handsomely; the Rush Republicans went to the polls. Limbaugh's clout is immense; former Congressman Vin Weber says Rush is as responsible as anyone else for the G.O.P. victory, and last week the Democrats of Texas paid him the compliment of a "Crush Rush with the Truth" campaign to fight his views by heckling stations and pressuring advertisers. Limbaugh, of course, loves the attention.
So, now that they've won -- elections, ratings, the grudging acknowledgment of traditional journalists -- what do they do for an encore?
Some seem almost hoping for the winners to fail. "If they don't perform, we're likely to put the heat on them," says David Gold of KLIF in Dallas-Fort Worth. "There'll be a lot of angry folks out there, and the talk-show hosts will be leading the charge." They already helped reverse Gingrich's decision , on his $4.5 million book deal. Other hosts are spoiling for a fight. Says Norman Resnick of KHNC in Johnstown, Colorado: "Gingrich is no better than George Bush" -- the sort of apostasy of which only true believers are capable.
In this church, there are many cardinals. At one edge is San Francisco's J. Paul Emerson, a mammoth fist-pounder who doesn't mind saying he hates "the Japs." Toward the middle is syndicated host Michael Reagan, son of the former President; he and Limbaugh are the only persons made honorary members of the 104th Congress. Perhaps Reagan's most rebellious moment was when, he says, "I took on Nancy," by opposing his stepmother and supporting Oliver North for a Senate seat.