It's the Media, Stupid.
Jonathan E. Kaplan, The Hill: Stern’s vast audience includes 17 percent of likely voters, and they back Kerry 53 to 43 percent over Bush according to the poll. In so-called “battleground” states, Kerry beats Bush by 59 to 37 percent. The New Democrat Network (NDN), a centrist Democratic fundraising organization, commissioned Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, a Democratic firm, to conduct the poll.
On his website, Stern says that he is more influential than conservative radio hosts Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh because he claims his listeners are undecided voters and Hannity and Limbaugh’s listeners are Republicans.
Don Imus, a New York-based political talk show host, has said on his program that he also supports Kerry.
Nevertheless, the poll shows that voters whose main source of news is radio support Bush 52 to 46 percent, perhaps reflecting the dominance of conservative talk radio.
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http://www.thehill.com/news/061504/stern.aspx
Howard Stern says he can deliver swing votes to Kerry
New poll: Stern’s listeners favor Kerry over Bush by a 10-point margin
By Jonathan E. Kaplan
Radio shock jock Howard Stern is predicting that he will help deliver the heavily sought-after swing voters to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry this November.
On air yesterday, Stern told The Hill: “I’m both pro-Kerry and anti-Bush. More anti-Bush. I encourage people on the air and personally [to vote for him]. Here’s the deal, dude. It turns out the show has a lot of influence among swing voters, voters who are not Republican or Democrat, but intelligent enough to vote for the good candidate.”
Stern said he has never met Kerry but considers him a “good guy.”
Stern’s listeners support Kerry over President Bush by a 10-point margin, according to a poll released last week.
In recent months, Stern has repeatedly lambasted the Bush administration for its crackdown on “indecent material” and called on his listeners to vote the president out of office.
Stern himself is a swing voter. Besides a brief run for governor as a Libertarian, Stern used his position to back two Republican gubernatorial candidates in New York and New Jersey. Both George Pataki and Christie Todd Whitman beat Democratic incumbents. Whitman even promised to name a highway oasis after Stern, and put a plaque with his name in a bathroom along the New Jersey turnpike.
Stern’s vast audience includes 17 percent of likely voters, and they back Kerry 53 to 43 percent over Bush according to the poll. In so-called “battleground” states, Kerry beats Bush by 59 to 37 percent. The New Democrat Network (NDN), a centrist Democratic fundraising organization, commissioned Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, a Democratic firm, to conduct the poll.
On his website, Stern says that he is more influential than conservative radio hosts Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh because he claims his listeners are undecided voters and Hannity and Limbaugh’s listeners are Republicans.
Don Imus, a New York-based political talk show host, has said on his program that he also supports Kerry.
Nevertheless, the poll shows that voters whose main source of news is radio support Bush 52 to 46 percent, perhaps reflecting the dominance of conservative talk radio.
Scott Stanzel, a Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman, dismissed the poll’s results. “It’s a partisan Democratic poll from a partisan group that’s just one of the shadowy soft-money groups assisting the Kerry campaign,” he said.
Simon Rosenberg, the NDN’s executive director, responded, “Every poll they don’t like they trash.”
Allison Dobson, a Kerry spokeswoman, said: “I think the bottom line is that George Bush has disappointed a lot of people and his policies are taking the country in the wrong direction.”
The NDN poll also reports that Stern’s likely voters are overwhelmingly male and 40 percent are Democrats, 26 percent are Republicans and 34 percent are independents. His listeners are more liberal and younger than the average voter – 40 percent are under 35 years old. They are more diverse and more driven by economic issues than other voters as well.
Stern is best known for testing the limits of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) decency standards; strippers and dirty jokes are staples of his morning drive-time radio program.
When pop star Janet Jackson experienced a “wardrobe malfunction” in which she exposed her breast on national television during this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, lawmakers clamored to score political advantage by making indecency on television and radio an issue.
Executives from CBS and MTV’s parent company, Viacom, were hauled before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In March, Congress passed legislation that raised fines for indecency over the public airwaves, and Clear Channel Communications, which aired Stern’s show on six of its stations, banned the show in April. Last week, Clear Channel agreed to pay $1.7 million in fines to the FCC to settle charges of indecency.
Since then, Stern has been lampooning the FCC, the Bush administration and Clear Channel.
Stern continues to antagonize Clear Channel and the FCC. While on air yesterday, he promoted an anti-Bush book, “Banana Republicans,” and complained that it is commonplace for Republicans to use intimidation tactics against their opponents.
In 1996, Stern hosted a debate between ex-Rep. Richard Zimmer (R-N.J.) and Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.).