Rush Limbaugh wants the world to move on after his ugly tirade against Gerogetown University Law Center student Sandra Fluke. But the outraged listeners who heard him calla her a slut and a prostitute aren't going to let America forget.
This week a hard hitting new radio campaign against him took to the air on Thursday, aimed at weakening his influence through his business interests. Media Matters for America, a nationally known progressive group, is spending at least $100,000 for two advertisements that will run in eight cities.
Limbaugh's will hear himself condemned through his own words, rallying against Sandra Fluke, who appeared before a Congressional committee to argue that contraception should be paid for in health plans.
Limbaugh claimed that this meant Fluke wanted to be paid to have sex, which in his mind made her a 'slut' and a 'prostitute.' To qualify for contraception Fluke should be required to post videos of herself having sex, he added.
Limbaugh's comments united both liberals and conservatives in a chorus of condemnation and eventually, in a rare move for the talk radio titan, he later apologized.
The new attack ads urge listeners to call their local station if it carries Limbaugh's show to say 'we don't talk to women like that' in our city.
In response Limbaugh told his listeners on Wednesday he was being targeted a long-planned attack, failing to add it was his words that ignited the firestorm in the first place.
'They're not even really offended by what happened. This is just an opportunity to execute a plan they've had in their drawer since 2009,' he claimed.
To date radio stations in Hawaii and Massachusetts have dropped his show, 58 companies have specifically asked that their ads be excluded and a further 98 advertisers now want to avoid his and all politically controversial talk shows.
Meanwhile another group with several stations that air Limbaugh published a new list of 31 advertisers who don't want to be on Limbaugh's show. Companies woo do not to want to advertise during Limbaugh's program include JC Penney, NAPA Auto Parts, Chapstick, Gold Bond, Green Mountain Coffee.
Valerie Geller, a radio consultant who worked at Limbaugh's WABC flagship in New York, told true Huffington Post that advertising money coming into Limbaugh's show is slowing down. 'I think it's a very big wakeup call,' she said.
Media Matters is banking that that station managers, market by market, may conclude that Limbaugh's relentlessly partisan positioning is just not worth the trouble.
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