http://www.qando.net/ - Romney, Bain and Clear Channel

Speaking at a news conference in Oklahoma, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee floated the idea that the reason the vast majority of America's conservative talk radio hosts aren't endorsing him or John McCain is because Mitt Romney's investment firm owns a significant share of Clear Channel Communications, the nation's largest radio syndication company.

"Some suggest that the fact that Bain Capital owns a major stake in Clear Channel is on Sean's network, maybe there's a correlation. I don't know."

Matt Sheffield and Allahpundit point out some of the obvious flaws with this argument - e.g., Hannity works for ABC, not Clear Channel, and Bain bought Clear Channel way back in 2006.

There are more reasons to point and laugh, though.

This Bain/Clear Channel conspiracy theory was floated last year by FireDogLake, Lew Rockwell, Rochester Turning, and MyDD, where Chris Bowers professed to "fear for American Democracy". Huckabee now joins that illustrious group, despite the fact that Romney left Bain Capital many years ago.

What's more, the Clear Channel stations who run these syndicated shows have very little power over the hosts of those shows. Hannity, et al, can always run their show on another station in that market, but a talk radio station cannot easily replace a popular talk show. There's just very little market leverage for Clear Channel to accomplish that kind of thing.

So, to recap: a company that Romney is no longer associated with is alleged to be trying to control the opinions of talk show hosts on networks that his former company does not own with stations over which the talk show hosts have the upper hand.

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Which is testimony to the intelligence of Huckabee’s backers.

Written By: Grimshaw
URL: http://

Umm, shouldn’t the Huckster know that Clear Channel is still publicly held? Shouldn’t he also know that Bain is attempting to buy CCU but hasn’t yet succeeded?

Written By: A fine scotch
URL: http://

If that’s an "illustrious group", I’ll pass. Not that Huckabee’s admission does anything to degrade the quality there.

Written By: RDub
URL: http://

Where does Rove fit into all this? You can’t have a conspiracy theory without Rove! (And the Jooos also)

Written By: shark
URL: http://

"Some suggest... I don’t know."

Classic.
Some would say this shows that this Arkansas Goober is nothing more than a sleazy, self righteous small-time political hack who will use his credibility as a ’man of God’ to smear his opponents. Me, I am still undecided about that. That is just what some others might say.

Written By: timactual
URL: http://

This is the kind of paranoid conspiracy typically coming from the nutroots. What’s next, is Huck going to be posting at DailyKlods?

Written By: the wolf
URL: http://

So Huck has another conspiracy theory going?
(Yawn)

Written By: Bithead
URL: http://bitsblog.florack.us

If Rove ever converted, the BDS crowd would have their heads explode...

Written By: Scott Jacobs
URL: http://

"a fine scotch" is right. Bain capital has not yet bought clear channel, but they have been very close to doing a deal. It will be interesting to see - now that Romney is not running whether that deal will go through.

TC

Written By: tc
URL: http://

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