News of the Unsurprising

Pareene:

Republican opinion outfit ConservativeHome polled 1,152 Republican activists (according to "YouGuv America") on their favorite conservative pundits. The results: mostly unsurprising. Rush Limbaugh is No. 1 and Glenn Beck is No. 2. Republican activists love being angry and scared, and getting lied to.

The only newspaper columnists Republican activists actually like are George Will, at No. 10, and human smarm machine Charles Krauthammer, all the way at No. 3, thanks in large part (I assume) to his frequent appearances on Fox and the fact that he has a professional wrestling stage name. (There is also Ann Coulter at No. 9, but she's more of a mascot than a columnist.)

The winners, in order:

Rush Limbaugh: 41 percent
Glenn Beck: 33 percent
Charles Krauthammer: 29 percent
Bill O'Reilly: 24 percent
Sean Hannity: 21 percent
Newt Gingrich: 16 percent
Michelle Malkin: 16 percent
Mike Huckabee: 13 percent
Ann Coulter: 13 percent
George Will: 13 percent

[...]

And what are the GOP's favorite pundits up to, lately? Rush is dialing up the racial rhetoric and attacking American Indians. Glenn Beck is still flagrantly ripping off his worshipful followers. Krauthammer would like us to act a bit more like the KGB and assassinate Julian Assange. Bill O'Reilly is attacking Andy Griffith. Ann Coulter just wrote an astoundingly homophobic column.

So, these are the people we're dealing with.

From the original source, more observations:

• The list reveals the massive gap between broadcast pundits and newspaper commentators.
• Limbaugh, for example, was named as a favorite by 41% of ConservativeHome's Republican Panel.
• Worryingly, columnists often regarded as among the most thoughtful conservatives did not fare well. David Brooks of the New York Times only mustered a mention from 1.3% of the panel (14 people). Ross Douthat, also at the NYT, won just four votes and Mike Gerson, Washington Post writer and former speechwriter to President Bush, gets just three mentions.
• Another former Bush speechwriter and Rush Limbaugh's leading critic, David Frum, only gets three mentions. Peggy Noonan, however, gets favorited 35 times.
• The ticket to high status is clearly Fox News. One of only two upmarket newspaper columnist to appear in the top ten being Charles Krauthammer, who combines his syndicated Washington Post column with his Fox punditry. He was named by 29% of grassroots Republicans. The other broadsheet columnist, at number ten, is George Will, syndicated Washington Post Op-Ed writer and ABC News veteran.

In other news, the forecast for today calls for periods of light, with increasing darkness expected in the evening.

(x-posted)