Redstate
Rush Limbaugh and the Need for Spine
By Erick Erickson
May 2nd, 2013 

The Politico is reporting (read: let’s wait for a second source to confirm it) that the RNC, well, “[t]he Republican National Committee has chosen a Karl Rove-linked voter data project called Liberty Works to help it compete with Democrats in the digital arena. Liberty Works will team up with Data Trust, whose chairman of the board is former RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski confirmed to Politico.” 

This is deeply troubling, if accurate, because I maintain the GOP must distance itself from the Bush administration players to start being successful again. Further, for all of Karl Rove’s fine attributes, he is also largely a direct mail guy who learned at the foot of Lee Atwater and never really learned anything after Atwater passed. I’m just not sure, after the 2012 race, that this is a wise investment. Direct mail guys believe the data is the value and what Team Obama discovered is that the tools to analyze the data are the value. 

This concerns me. As a friend said on twitter yesterday, the GOP motto for fixing itself seems to be “incest is best.” 

And this whole thing, excepting the incest crack, gets me to Rush Limbaugh. 

I keep hearing people say Rush Limbaugh is a detriment to the Republican Party, holding it back, and if we cannot move beyond him we will never win again. Frank Luntz and S. E. Cupp both have taken after Limbaugh lately and they are not alone. 

The way I see it, Rush Limbaugh is a fighter. The guys who have taken to actually fighting on values like Rush does, i.e. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul have been putting all the points on the board. They’re keeping the fight against Obamacare alive just as the GOP is trying to cave and public animosity for the law grows… 

Read the rest of the article at Redstate