Rush Limbaugh

In Sacramento, for the first time in his career, Limbaugh was given free reign to be himself. It was during this time that he developed his boisterous on-air personality and humor. He benefitted from having followed Downey, who was known to berate callers, something that Limbaugh vowed to avoid. "I want controversy because of the issues, not because of rudeness or abruptness with a caller," he said to The Sacramento Bee at the time.

Limbaugh coined the term "Gorbasm" to mock adoring media coverage of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and rankled women's groups with such statements as"The feminist movement was created to allow ugly women access to the mainstream of society." Before long, he was able to boost the ratings in his time slot and triple the ad rates the station was able to charge. He became a local celebrity, and people began to stop him at the grocery store to ask his views on issues.

Eventually, Limbaugh caught the ear of Edward McLaughlin, a former president of ABC Radio Networks, who had started his own syndication company. After protracted negotiations, Limbaugh struck a deal that brought him to New York City's WABC, where he launched a nationally-syndicated show on Aug. 1, 1988. The show was a tremendous hit, growing from 56 stations when it started, to more than ten times that by 1993.Limbaugh, who just a decade earlier was earning an $18,000 salary for his dead-end job with the Royals, pulled in $1.7 million in 1991.

Part of the radio host's shtick involved Limbaugh boasting about how he had "talent on loan from God" and was performing "with half his brain tied behind his back." He described his show as "excellence in broadcasting," providing the inspiration for his E.I.B. Network, the public description of his syndication empire. In 1990, a female caller, used the word "ditto" to second praise of Limbaugh expressed by a previous caller, and soon Limbaugh's followers became known as "dittoheads."

As his fame and wealth grew, Limbaugh also had some setbacks in his personal life. In 1990, he was divorced from his second wife,and his father died.

America Held Hostage

"My purpose is not to make more conservatives or register more Republicans, or to get invited to the White House for a state dinner, or any of those things," Limbaugh told Vanity Fair in 1992. "I simply want to be the best radio guy there is."

Whether or not he viewed himself as a radio personality first, Limbaugh's large national platform led to growing political influence. Limbaugh was reaching an audience of millions of conservatives who felt their views were not being represented on network and cable news as well as in mainstream newspapers (which Limbaugh refers to as the "drive-by media.") Political talk radio, as it is known today, did not exist before Limbaugh, and some have gone as far as to say he saved the AM dial.During the early part of the decade, Limbaugh released two best-selling books, The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and See, I Told You So (1993).

In June 1992, President George H.W. Bush invited him to be an overnight guest at the White House, and the president appeared on Limbaugh's show a month before that year's election as part of an effort to shore up his support among the conservative base,which had grown disenchanted with the first Bush over his decision to break his 1988 campaign pledge and sign a tax increase in 1990.

The day after Bill Clinton won the 1992 election, Limbaugh said, "This show becomes the focus now of the loyal, honest and good-intentioned, well-intentioned opposition to the monolithic power which will descend upon Washington, D.C." At the start of Clinton's presidency, Limbaugh opened each show declaring, "America Held Hostage," and announced the days until the end of Clinton's term. Every day, he picked apart Clinton's agenda, commented on the wave of scandals that ensued, and mocked Clinton, often by impersonating the president's voice.

Limbaugh's influence would reach a crescendo during the 1994-midterm elections, during which he heavily promoted soon-to-be House Speaker Newt Gingrich's (R-Ga.) "Contract With America." His ability to bypass the traditional media and reach the conservative base was credited with helping boost Republican turnout. After the GOP retook control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, the party made Limbaugh an honorary member of its freshman congressional class.

Following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, President Clinton blasted "promoters of paranoia and purveyors of hate and divisiveness" on the public airwaves. While the White House denied it at the time, Limbaugh seized on the comments as an attack on conservative talk radio in general, and him specifically."Let me tell you who my audience is," Limbaugh said on a half-hour late night television show he had at the time. "My audience is the rescue teams trying to save lives in Oklahoma. My audience are the law enforcement officials who are trying to bring to justice these lunatics who blew up the building. My audience is made up of the people who've lost loved ones, who've had members of their families wounded and injured. The people who make up my audience are mainstream Americans who are as repulsed by this as you or anyone else is."

Hearing Loss and Drug Addiction

In 2001, as President George W. Bush reclaimed the White House for Republicans, Limbaugh was facing the first of several personal travails that he would encounter during the decade. That year, he began to lose his hearing, and eventually his condition deteriorated to the point where hearing aids no longer helped and he had to conduct his show for two months without being able to hear anything. After receiving a cochlear implant, he improved dramatically, although his hearing did not return entirely.

In 2003, Limbaugh's name first surfaced in news reports of an investigation involving black-market sales of prescription painkillers. In 2006 in Florida, Limbaugh was charged with "doctor shopping" for painkillers, and made a deal that enabled the charges to be dropped after 18 months if he underwent rehabilitation for his addiction. He checked into the Meadows clinic in Wickensburg, Ariz., and returned to his radio show after a six-week absence.

"I thank God for my addiction," he said after treatment. "It made me understand my shortcomings."

In 2004, Limbaugh's third marriage, to Marta Fitzgerald, ended in divorce.

"Barack the Magic Negro"

Throughout his career, Limbaugh has made controversial statements that have been branded as insensitive and racist by critics, but fiercely defended by his fans. One recent example came in March 2007, when he aired a parody song titled, "Barack the Magic Negro," which was set to the tune of "Puff the Magic Dragon" and featured a singing Al Sharpton impersonator. Limbaugh came under a firestorm of criticism, but the host explained that he was merely mocking an op-ed that appeared in The Los Angeles Times. The column described then-candidate Obama as a folk figure known as "The Magic Negro" who had emerged to "assuage white 'guilt'" over slavery and segregation.

Operation Chaos

By February 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had all but sewn up the Republican presidential nomination, and Limbaugh decided to wreak havoc in the Democratic primaries. He unveiled "Operation Chaos," which was aimed at convincing his listeners in the remaining primary states to register as Democrats and vote for then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), thus extending the primary season and weakening the eventual Democratic nominee, then assumed to be Obama. While it's impossible to know, some analysts insisted that Limbaugh swung the hotly-contested March 2008 Texas primary into Clinton's column. And 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) later accused Limbaugh of "tampering" with the Democratic primaries.

The $400 Million Man

In July 2008, Limbaugh signed an eight-year contract extension with Clear Channel Communications subsidiary Premier Radio Networks that was valued at $400 million, according to news reports. The deal lasts through 2016, which ensures him a perch for the remainder of the Obama administration, even if the president serves two terms.

A 2008 New York Times profile written just before Limbaugh signed the lucrative deal described Limbaugh's 24,000 square-foot beachfront mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., which is his main residence. These days, Limbaugh mostly broadcasts his show in a nearby studio now rather than from New York. He also has a taste for expensive cars and owns a Gulfstream G550 airplane that he said cost him $54 million. Limbaugh said that one of the saddest aspects of his life is that his father, an aviator, was not alive when he acquired the plane.

"First and foremost I'm a businessman," Limbaugh told the New York Times. "My first goal is to attract the largest possible audience so I can charge confiscatory ad rates. I happen to have great entertainment skills, but that enables me to sell airtime."

The Future of the GOP

The recent debate over Limbaugh's influence, at its core, is a debate over the path the Republican Party should take in the wake of two successive election defeats in 2006 and 2008. Some argue that demographic patterns and changing attitudes among younger Americans mean that the so-called Reagan Coalition of limited government advocates, national security conservatives, and values voters, is no longer viable.

But Limbaugh intends to use his powerful microphone to make the case that Republicans lost elections by abandoning small government principles and nominating McCain in 2008, who Limbaugh does not view as a true conservative.

"How do you get rid of Reagan from conservatism?" Limbaugh asked rhetorically during his February 2009 CPAC speech. "The blueprint -- the blueprint for landslide conservative victory is right there. Why in the hell do the smartest people in our room want to chuck it?"

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