The current debate over re-imposing the Fairness Doctrine is really about just one thing: conservative domination of talk radio.

Liberals like Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have despaired of winning in the radio marketplace, so they want to regulate their way to victory.

But Durbin hasn’t really addressed the question of why Rush Limbaugh rules the talk radio airwaves.

More specifically: Why has there never been a liberal Rush?

God knows they’ve tried. Just ask Al Franken, Mario Cuomo, Jim Hightower and the other would-be Rushes.
There are a lot of theories to explain why they haven’t succeeded.

Some say conservative ideas are simply superior, so more people listen.

Others explain that the liberal audience has more listening choices — NPR, urban radio — so they never rallied ’round a liberal Rush.

And now, the Center for American Progress — the liberal think tank run by former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta — has come up with a new explanation: corporate ownership.

Big companies like Clear Channel and Salem Broadcasting, the Center says, own too many stations, on which they broadcast conservative talk programming.

If station ownership were more diverse, the theory goes, there would be more liberals on the air. So the Center wants the government to force Clear Channel and others to downsize themselves to give liberal talkers a chance.

But there is another, simpler, explanation of why there is no liberal Rush. And that is that the real Rush is simply better than all his would-be replacements on the left.

I interviewed Limbaugh recently for an article in National Review.

We talked about the Fairness Doctrine, and what life in radio was like when it was still in force, before it was repealed by the Reagan-administration Federal Communications Commission in 1987.

Limbaugh was in radio for more than a decade before that time, and he told stories of being ordered by station management not to discuss controversial topics on the air.

That was pretty much standard procedure at the time, since any discussion of politics could result in a listener demanding the right to go on the air to present a different viewpoint.

So Limbaugh, and thousands of other broadcasters, generally stayed away from politics.  

“The real practical effect of the Fairness Doctrine was to shut down all controversial programming, because management would not deal with complaints,” Limbaugh told me.

“So when you did listen to talk shows on the radio, they were dull and boring and horrible.”

Of course, Limbaugh did occasionally run afoul of the Doctrine, and found himself forced to share the air with community
leaders who objected to something he had said.  

“The problem with that is that radio is a business,” he explained. “You bring in people who are not broadcast professionals and give them unchallenged time. You try to make it as stimulating as possible, but …” Well, it wasn’t very stimulating.

You could almost hear Limbaugh’s teeth grinding as he discussed the prospect of putting on a program that was “dull and boring and horrible.”

He won’t do it. And that is why Rush is Rush. He is deeply, deeply offended by the prospect of boring his listeners.
And he has honed the rather remarkable talent of keeping those listeners interested for three hours a day, five days a week — all by himself.

The bottom line is that Limbaugh knows radio, and what works on radio, better than anyone else in the world.
That’s why he wins.