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Yeah, but can Stern really make a difference in November?

As noted previously today, Tampa is getting Howard Stern, which could be a big deal come November. Hillsborough County is in play, as they say, and Howard could help tip the balance.

T hough much has been made of the recent debut of Al Franken as a liberal talk-radio host, the most important political voice on talk radio this year may turn out to be not Franken but the usually apolitical "shock jock" Howard Stern.

Recent months have not been kind to Stern, who found himself a target of the backlash against indecency that followed the baring of Janet Jackson's nipple during the Super Bowl halftime show. In February the radio behemoth Clear Channel Communications dropped him from six of its affiliates for being "vulgar, offensive and insulting." The following month the FCC slapped him with a $27,500 fine for his on-air discussions of sexual techniques such as the "nasty Sanchez" and the "blumpkin" (don't ask). As Congress considers raising obscenity fines as high as $500,000, Stern is contemplating a move to satellite radio, where the FCC couldn't touch him.

The proudly boorish host has cast himself as the target of a Republican vendetta—sparked by his criticism of President Bush and spearheaded by Clear Channel (whose CEO is a Bush family friend). So Stern is fighting back, proclaiming "radio jihad" on Bush's re-election campaign and partly remaking his show—well known for its adolescent obsession with fart jokes, lesbians, and strippers—into a platform for anti-Republican invective. "Remember me in November when you're in the voting booth," Stern tells listeners. "I'm asking you to do me one favor. Vote against Bush. That's it."
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Stern could sway many undecided voters, according to Michael Harrison, of Talkers magazine, a nonpartisan periodical that surveys radio listener demographics.

Harrison says that Stern has "a gigantic audience of thirty- to fortysomethings, people who have grown up with him, people who are teachers, accountants, lawyers." Several million of them "would say they lean conservative ... but are on the fence" in this race. And the host has tremendous credibility with his listeners. "He may be raunchy, edgy, dirty," Harrison says, "but he's compulsively honest, and his main target is hypocrisy." Also, it's not hard to imagine that Stern's relentless screeds against the President would compel some of the previously nonvoting members of his audience—people whom political campaigns usually ignore—to turn out for John Kerry.
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In Florida, the fiercest battleground in 2000, the Clear Channel purge cost Stern audiences in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando—which is fodder for Bush-Clear Channel conspiracy theorists. But even now Stern's show reaches 38,000 people a week in Fort Myers—seventy times Bush's Florida margin in 2000. In short, it's not inconceivable that Stern could swing a state or two into Kerry's column.

(Did I mention that Howard’s coming to Tampa?)

And just who are these fiercely loyal Stern listeners?

Enter Howard Stern, notorious shock jock. As the New York Daily News reports today (and Knight Ridder reported yesterday), a recent survey by the New Democrat Network reveals the King of All Media's potential influence on the presidential race.

"[Stern] is listened to by 17 percent of likely voters," the survey finds. And "one-quarter of all likely voting Stern listeners are swing voters." One-quarter of 17 percent is 4.25 percent of all voters - more than enough to swing a close contest.

Further, as the News reports, "Stern launched a 'jihad' to defeat Bush after the FCC began assessing massive fines against stations that carry the jock." Perhaps relatedly, the New Democrat Network's survey shows that nationally Howard Stern listeners "would support Kerry over Bush by a margin of 53 to 43 percent." In battleground states, Kerry's support is even stronger, 59 percent to Bush's 37 percent.