Poll: 11% of GOPers say Limbaugh is party leader

Only 11 percent of Republicans said they view Rush Limbaugh as the leader of their party in a new Rasmussen Reports poll.

I am not entirely sure how this fits into the Democrats attack Rush strategy (Rushapalooza?). One one hand, it suggests Democrats are wasting their time since Republicans aren’t looking to Limbaugh. The poll also found that 76 percent of conservatives don’t view Limbaugh as a Republican leader.

On the other hand, I find that the methodology of the poll questionable. Rasmussen said it is asking respondents to respond to different lawmaker statements about Limbaugh. In this poll, it asked if respondents agree with Americans United for Change president Brad Woodhouse’s statement that “Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party. He says jump, and they say how high.” Nearly three in ten of the survey’s 1,000 respondents agreed with that statement while nearly six and ten disagreed. I am not entirely sure what empirical evidence that sort of question produces.

And yes, I am familiar with the questions raised about Rasmussen in the liberal blogosphere. I’ll reserve any judgment on that, but I did find it odd that the 11 percent statistic, which was the headline of their release, wasn’t released in their toplines.

jeremy.jacobs@digital-stage.thehill.com