Conservative leaders, and the bloggers who love them (or not)

October 8, 2007

Right Wing News, a fairly prominent conservative blog, conducted an interesting poll of its brethren, asking other right-of-center bloggers to pick their favorite people on the right, and their least favorite people on the right. The voting process was pretty wide open — participants could pick anybody (there were no names to choose from). I’m not quite sure what to make of the results, but I thought they were interesting enough to mention.

First up, the bloggers’ least favorite conservatives. (via Ron Chusid)

1. Ron Paul (unranked last year)
2. Pat Buchanan (tied for 1st last year)
3. John McCain (tied for 1st last year)
4. Michael Savage (tied for 3rd last year)
4. Larry Craig (unranked last year)
6. Pat Robertson (tied for 3rd last year)
6. Arlen Specter (5th last year)
8. Ann Coulter (6th last year)
8. James Dobson (15th last year)
8. Chuck Hagel (9th last year)
8. Andrew Sullivan (11th last year)

Other notables from this year’s list include Rudy Giuliani in 12th place, Mitt Romney and George W. Bush tied for 14th, and Bill O’Reilly coming in at number 17.

I’m a little surprised at Paul’s unpopularity; I was pleased to see both Robertson and Dobson make the list (conservative bloggers routinely have little use for the religious right), and I suppose Larry Craig’s appearance was inevitable.

As for the favorite conservatives among bloggers on the right:

1. Rush Limbaugh (9th last year)
2. Ann Coulter (17th last year)
2. Michelle Malkin (sixth last year)
4. Mark Steyn (tied for fourth last year)
5. Newt Gingrich (11th last year)
6. Thomas Sowell (tied for second last year)
6. Fred Thompson (unranked last year)
8. George W. Bush (tied for fourth last year)
9. Rudy Giuliani (2nd last year)
10. Dick Cheney (10th last year)
10. Laura Ingraham (21st last year)
10. Victor Davis Hanson (14th last year)

Other notables include Glenn Beck and Antonin Scalia tied in 16th place, and Hugh Hewitt, Charles Krauthammer, and Condoleezza Rice tied at number 21.

Make of this what you will.

I’ll print a hardcopy and make toliet paper.

  • Apparently, we need a reprise of an old joke:

    So what’s the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?

    …..

    One’s a flaming Nazi gasbag, and the other is merely a dirigible.

  • So these people make up the rightwing intelligencia? I’d think my conservative kin would do much better than to stick with such intellectually bankrupt individuals. What has any of these popular or unpopular rightwing personalities done for our nation lately beside stir up undemocratic sentiment among the more ignorant among us? -Kevo

  • Ohhhh…all those names in one place….reaching for the Pepto (everybody sing along…”nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea”).

  • Haha–I almost feel sorry for them, if they’re left to sift through such losers to find anyone worthy of holding up as an icon. Limbaugh? Coulter? Malkin? That crew has less intellectual heft than an average episode of Sesame Street.

  • Not a rational person on the list. Can we just accept that 30% of the population are insane and there’s nothing we can do about it except remind them they are only 30% or less that are mentally deprived of conscience or humanity and just keep a watchful eye on them. When people like Coulter, Malkin, Limbaugh, Ingraham, and Cheney lead the list of favorite conservatives then it is a very sick group voting.

  • “That crew has less intellectual heft than an average episode of Sesame Street.”

    Heck, Elmo has more intellectual heft than all those noise makers put together.

    Right Wing Radio – a poorly orchestrated circus with too many clowns.

  • How is it that Ann Coulter is both tied for 8th least favorite, and is second most favorite?

    I mean, I realize that right-wing bloggers often contradict themselves, often within the same post, but doesn’t that raise a question about how results were tabulated?

  • …I suppose Larry Craig’s appearance was inevitable.

    He just stopped by the list to use the bathroom.

  • Cracks me up that there’s a third-rate tv guy (Glenn Beck) and a Supreme tied on ANY list… what does that say for the caliber of the Supremes… and I’m not talking about Diana, Mary, Flo, and Cindy!

  • As if there was any way for the right wing blogosphere to become any less respectable as a group, they give us this. I’m all for net neutrality, but this shows that there are already two internets: the real world and then these guys.

  • Racerx is right. They protest way too much about Ron Paul.

    What I find interesting is that the three most disliked (Paul, Buchanan, and McCain often have been very critical of the Republican party line. Although McCain has been toeing the line much more closely of late.

    Fascinating.

  • Make of this what I will eh? I make of this proof that these people I have long thought of as mush-brained morons are in fact mush-brained morons who prove the disaster of home schooling.

  • I think many of the Right wing pundits/commentators are scared to death of Ron Paul. Though I don’t agree with many of his policies, I do respect him. That’s more than I can say for any other Republican in the limelight these days.

  • Wow, Rush and Ann…what a couple! Just goes to show the conservatives aren’t dealing with a full deck!

  • What I find interesting is that the three most disliked (Paul, Buchanan, and McCain often have been very critical of the Republican party line.

    The list can be broken up as:

    Conservatives critical of the Bush-way-of-doing-things: Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, John McCain (emeritus from 2000, but the base have LOOOOONG memories), Arlen Specter, Chuck Hagel, Andrew Sullivan

    Conservatives critical of all of the current Republican front-running candidates: James Dobson

    Conservatives who embarrass those in the movement who still have the capacity for shame: Michael Savage, Larry Craig, Ann Coulter

    I’m not sure why Pat Robertson is so high up on the list. Possibly they find him embarrassing. Has he joined in Dobson’s “take our ball and go home” crusade against the GOP candidates and I missed it? I figured Robertson was very much a “toe the line” Bush-supporting Republican, so I’m not sure why they’d be down on him so much (other than that he’s a loser – he lost a bid at the Presidency – and the right-wing clown car HATES losers almost as much as they hate “libruls” or “Yuropeans”).

  • “How is it that Ann Coulter is both tied for 8th least favorite, and is second most favorite?”

    Biggerbox: I wondered the same thing for a second then realized that people were asked to pick both their most and least favorite — i.e., not jus their favorite. So I guess the number of people who included here on their most favorites list was only a tad smaller then the number of people who picked for a least favorite.

  • Interesting that Rush went from 9th to number one and what has he done for anyone lately. I’d go so far as to guess that apparent rise is almost completely attributable to circle-the-wagons hysteria and that if you had taken this poll a month ago or a month from now he would not have placed nearly as highly.

    I’d also bet that Bill O’Reilley is going to be annoyed that he didn’t make the favorites list. He may not say anything about it but that guys got an ego almost as big as his mouth. If you can stand to watch him, watch for sidewise slaps at right wing bloggers and/or stepped up bad-mouthing of bloggers in general in the next week or so.

  • Hmm, notice that the people who most closely follow Edmund Burke’s precepts are on the least favorite list. And the “dirigibles” (I liked that joke) who wouldn’t know Edmund Burke if they tripped over his grave are on the favorite list.

    Just goes to prove my favorite motto “All of Life is physics and marketing”

  • Enlighten me, please.

    Why does anyone even care about these “lists”? The only folks who write in on this blog are the choir. Why waste time on this garbage?

    The question is; what is it in the voters that makes them admire/detest the likes of these “celebrities”? The listees are indecent mongrels and the less time spent upon them the better. But what about the folks who adore/hate the listees? Because they are people they might change their ideas, but what will it take to get them to understand how worthless the cause of the listees is?

    On to bigger and better things, such as how to get any 2008 candidates to renounce war, to put people ahead of property and to support the original intent of the Revolution.

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