Opinion: Fewer Republicans today find Rush Limbaugh unfavorable than in 2003, says Gallup

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Two weeks after Rush Limbaugh repeatedly proclaimed that he wanted President Barack Obama to fail, a poll has revealed that Republicans still support the controversial talk show host.

Gallup Thursday reported that 60% of Republicans nationally have a ‘favorable’ opinion of the 58-year old conservative talk radio host who said that unless Obama, in the midst of the recession, maintained Bush’s tax cuts and acted more like Ronald Reagan, he hoped that Obama would be unsuccessful.

The data was collected from Jan. 30 through Feb. 1, just weeks after Limbaugh declared in his radio show that he didn’t need 400 words (as was the request from an American press outlet in regards to Limbaugh’s ‘hope for the Obama presidency’) to describe his feelings, he only needed four: ‘I hope he fails.’

Apparently, Limbaugh’s comments had little to no effect on the American public. A similar poll in November 2003 found almost identical results. Back then 60% of those polled who consider themselves Republicans also found Rush favorable.

But what’s more interesting is that in 2003 there was a greater disparity among conservatives who found the veteran talker unfavorable. That year, 29% of Republicans gave him the thumbs-down, whereas today only 23% judged him unfavorably. Who knew rooting against America would find favor in the hearts of the Right?

After the jump, Limbaugh’s interview with Sean Hannity last month in which he went into detail as to why he wants Obama to be unsuccessful.

-- Tony Pierce

Speaking of listeners, how about readers? Register here for Twitter alerts on each new Ticket item. RSS feeds are available over here. And we’re now on Kindle as well.