Monthly Archives: March 2012

Ross Douthat thinks it's over, too. He also believes (and says it better than I did) that barring some unforeseen scandal, Mitt Romney has the nomination sewn up and the press is making it seem tenuous because the press likes the horse race.

Here are 10 Reasons Obama Will Be Re-Elected. And here from the same website are 10 Reasons Obama Will Not Be Re-Elected. Take your pick.

I keep getting e-mails asking me if I still think Romney's going to be the Republican nominee. Some seem to feel it's becoming evident he's not and I don't know where they're getting that unless it's that some news outlets are straining to keep the "contest" exciting. For the recent Super Tuesday, you can find a lot of reports that say Romney had a terrible night and you can find others that look at the same numbers and say he's coming ever close to locking it up.

Nate Silver, who's been calling this stuff with a fair degree of omniscience, breaks down polls and says that Santorum can't get to the magic number of delegates and Romney can. But I think you can just look at the guys and see something of that. I suspect a lot of voters just don't view Santorum or Gingrich as presidential material. They may like a lot of what those men are saying but they wish there was another option saying it. You kind of have to look at the person talking the talk and also see someone who looks like they belong in the Oval Office and, more importantly, can win it.

My guess, and this is just a guess, is that Romney either gets enough delegates to win or he gets so close that party elders persuade the others to forfeit, lest a deadlocked convention result in a G.O.P.-wounding convention. Romney does some kind of outreach to those he's defeated, vowing to work on Newt's peachy Moon Colony idea and some equally-practical notion of Santorum's. Someone hugs Ron Paul. Romney picks a veep who's basically Sarah Palin politically but without her shortcomings as a campaigner. And then suddenly, every prominent Republican, including those who called him an Obama clone and flip-flopper, decides Mitt is the perfect candidate and they never thought otherwise.

We can all make up other scenarios that might be more interesting to watch…and a deadlock would give us the first time in about thirty years that the TV coverage of a convention was anything more than an infomerical and therefore worth watching. But though I think I'd rather see Santorum be the nominee (more likely to lose, more likely to prove to the G.O.P. that they need to move back towards moderates), I still think it's Mitt.

The Hungry Tiger was a chain of seafood restaurants around Southern California.  At one point, there were forty-one of them, including one in Westwood Village, another one on Sepulveda near LAX, and yet another on La Brea just South of Hollywood Boulevard.  Those were the ones I went to, and I'm not sure why because I never particularly liked the food at them and insofar as I could tell, neither did anyone else.  The secret of their success seemed to be location, location, location.  They were the only "nice" places to take a date or client in certain areas.  For instance, if you picked up someone at the airport and drove south, the Hungry Tiger on Sepulveda was the first "decent" place to dine you encountered.  They got a lot of post-funeral traffic from the nearby Hillside Memorial Park, too.

The chain was started in 1962 by, the story goes, a group of former Flying Tigers' combat pilots.  Some of the first outlets resembled hangars more than restaurants and all were decorated with photos of old planes and aviators.  I'm not sure many patrons understood the connection.

In the early eighties, business fell off substantially, apparently due to an influx of strong competitors into the marketplace.  The Hungry Tiger chain needed to remodel and upgrade but lacked the funds to do this so in 1985, a new management team was brought in, some of the less profitable outlets were closed and a general relaunch was attempted.  It failed to turn around public abandonment of the eateries so in the years following, most of them closed and a few went independent.  There are still Hungry Tiger restaurants around but not as part of a large chain.

The last time I was in one, it was the one in Westwood.  This would have been around 1980.  My date and I were going to a play at the Westwood Playhouse and with parking being as difficult and expensive as it was up there, it seemed logical to dine at the Hungry Tiger that was in the same block as the theater.  We could park once for both, get validated at the restaurant and…well, you get the idea.

We both ordered the broiled shrimp and when it came, it turned out to be the kind served in the shell…not my favorite way of having shrimp.  When they serve it that way, you always seem to spend forever digging the meat out and there isn't very much of it.  These had almost none.  My lady friend and I were amazed at how little edible shrimp flesh you got in a serving of Hungry Tiger broiled shrimp.  It was barely one mouthful.  We mentioned this to our server who called over a manager who basically told us, "That's our broiled shrimp.  If you didn't get enough to eat, order something else and pay for an additional entree, heh heh." Those weren't the precise words he used but they were close.  There was definitely no concern that we weren't happy with our meals.  We would have done what he suggested if there had been time before the play, except that (of course) we would have done it at another restaurant.

After the play, we decided to go somewhere and actually eat, rationalizing that at least the hefty tab I'd played at the Hungry Tiger had gotten us our parking at a discount.  It turned out that despite the posted signs, the lot no longer honored Hungry Tiger validations and I had to pay full price to get out.  The next day, I wasted about an hour calling the restaurant and the corporate offices of Hungry Tiger to complain.  The attitude I encountered was along the lines of "If you don't like it, eat somewhere else."  Thereafter, I did…and wasn't surprised that so many other people did, as well.  Beware any business that names itself after a voracious predator.

I keep reading articles and blog posts about whether the current controversy will "destroy Rush Limbaugh." In terms of knocking him off the air, never. His show simply makes too much money and the folks who make it with him (syndicators, local stations, etc.) will continue to profit. Even if at some point he hit an unprofitable period — which he won't — he could knock down his salary a few million a year and the others who've made so much off him could and would bide their time and wait to see if his audience returns. As yet, there's no evidence it's going away at all.

There is also, by the way, no evidence that it's ever been as large as he and his syndicators assert. One of these days, there's going to be a big, loud exposé on how Rush has never had the 10-20 million listeners he claims; how his audience has always been more in the 3-5 million range, if that large. He and his supporters will never admit that, of course. They'll just brand it a Liberal Lie (you know, like insisting Hillary didn't kill Vince Foster) and move on.

It is a bit of a fib to say that 40+ of his advertisers have deserted him. If you look at the list, what you see is that a lot of companies that buy ad packages on stations that carry Rush have asked that their commercials not be placed in or around his show, at least until the current flap blows over. Most of those firms did not make a deliberate attempt in the first place to "sponsor Rush Limbaugh." Some profess not to have even known their spots were airing during his program in some markets and that's not at all impossible.

Limbaugh has done damage of some indeterminate amount to his political movement in that he's furthered the notion that Republicans and Conservatives are hostile to women — especially women who dare to be unmarried, outspoken and/or sexually-active. If this keeps up, one of these days some prominent Republican candidate is going to have to pull a "Sister Souljah" maneuver and deliver some kind of smackdown that says, in effect, Rush ain't running this party and he ain't setting the agenda and he ain't always helping us by alienating swing voters we think we can reach. But I don't see that happening soon.

What does seem likely now is that a lot of advertisers will opt to avoid controversial shows. There will always be someone who wants to buy ad time on Rush's broadcasts. It may not be AOL or other mainstream companies. It may more likely be more companies that want to sell you overpriced gold or equipment to enable you to survive the inevitable nuclear holocaust next month…the kind Glenn Beck was reduced to in his waning days on Fox. But there'll be someone.

Still, think about it: You have a product. If you advertise in a show where the host is likely to piss people off, what's the "up" side for you? Yeah, that host may have a big audience you want to reach but there are other effective places you can spend your ad dollars and never find yourself having to take sides in a controversy. When the host says something that gets folks mad, you do have to take sides. Rush supporters are mad at sponsors who've yanked their patronage just as Rush critics would be mad at them if they didn't. For the sponsor, it's a potential lose-lose situation. Some group is going to stop spending their dollars with you and inundate you with demands and protests. Why put yourself in that position? If I were out flogging services or merchandise on TV or radio right now, I'd avoid all those guys — Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz just as much as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.

This is not a matter of Free Speech. The Bill of Rights doesn't guarantee anyone a sponsor. It isn't even a matter of courage; more like deciding not to put your butt on the line for someone else's occasional irresponsibility. I'm usually willing to put my money where my mouth is. I don't particularly want to put my money where somebody else's mouth is…and I'm thinking a lot of companies must be thinking that way.