This got me thinking about Rush’s succession plan. Who takes over for Rush when he dies, and how will the transition occur? What will happen to those invaluable three hours of radio air-time, coveted by every other conservative radio talk show host out there? Could it be that Rush has anointed a successor? When Rush assumes room temperature will Hannity be #1 and Beck #2, or will Rush’s will reveal that Beck is to be given his time slot, catapulting Beck to #1 status overnight and rendering his tagline “The number three most listened to talk show in America” obsolete?

Of course I don’t know, but I suspect Rush has no plan, per se. He doesn’t need one, and it doesn’t fit what he preaches. Succession plans are for controlled organizations, but conservative talk radio, despite the claims of the left, is not controlled by the GOP, oil companies, or Wall Street. It is an ad hoc assemblage of those voted by listeners (by their choice of who to listen to) to be the most qualified for the job. Who will take over for Rush when Rush leaves this world behind? It will be whoever can make the most money in his place, and it is only fitting that it should be so. It will be the free market system that Rush has championed that will decide, in its own sort of orderly way, who will succeed him. There will be no committee to decide, nor a king, dictator, czar, or director. There will only be the votes of Rush’s listeners, and the dollars they spend on the products he endorses and promotes. Rush doesn’t have to worry about the matter in the least. He doesn’t have to choose someone, and then worry about having chosen the wrong person, and realize on his deathbed that he needs to rewrite his will to choose someone else. He can die in peace, knowing that he has created an industry, and that Hannity, Beck, a relative unknown, or perhaps someone who has not even begun his career yet, will take over for him, and whoever it is, it will be the right choice, the perfect choice, and I suspect it will be Rush’s choice as well.

As for those who will trumpet the end of conservative talk radio with Rush’s death, I think they’ll be in for a bit of a shock in the years that follow.

The Rush-Hannity-Beck listeners were primarily already conservatives before they started listening. The effectiveness of Rush-Hannity-Beck is to mobilize and motivate conservatives, the effectiveness of Ramsey-Laura is to create conservatives where they didn’t exist before, and that’s what we really need if we’re going to create the type of society our founders envisioned.

But why bother with these cycles? Why not get things safely on conservative ground so that we don’t have to go through these boom/bust cycles? The real problem is that the conservatism that gets people like Ronald Reagan elected or the Congress of 1994 is reactive as opposed to being rational, intelligent, and purposeful. Reagan wasn’t elected because he was a conservative, he was elected because he wasn’t Carter, just as Obama was elected because he convinced people he wasn’t Bush (so far he’s turned out to be quite a bit like Bush, only a bigger spender). The kind of conservatism that got Reagan and the Republicans of 1994 elected wasn’t real conservatism, it was merely a change from the status quo. In order to prevent the cycle from continuing there must be more people who become what I call “on-purpose” conservatives. That is, they are conservatives on-purpose, identify themselves as conservative, and actively work towards conservative objectives.

And this leads to the next step in defining this problem of the conservative movement–evangelism. Not to be confused with any sort of religious fervor, evangelism is “spreading the word”. In other words, education. Conservative principles appeal to people because they make sense, just as liberal principles appeal to people because they seem nice. But whereas many liberal ideals must merely be heard to sound good, conservative ideals must be understood, and I’m afraid too many of our conservative voices are preaching to the choir without much thought for those who don’t buy it. What conservatism needs is an outreach movement.

Tea parties are great for rallying the troops, but how many minds were changes as a result of them? When I post links to articles that show the success of conservative ideas vs. the failure of liberal ideas, I rarely get comments from people who disagree with me. If only those who already agree with me are reading the articles, what good is that? Conservatives can educated themselves all they want about the founding fathers, the Constitution, etc., but if conservatives never break past 40% of the population, what good is it all? In order to break the cycle, on-purpose conservatives need to make up a firm majority. That way, in those moments when the winds change and it’s tempting to say “All is well” and relax a little, there will be enough people who are wary of the dangers and who will keep an eye on things to make sure we’re progressing in the direction of freedom and individual responsibility.

Thus conservatives need to focus on creating new conservatives. Here are some tips:

1. Get educated. Read. Listen. Think.

2. Start with your kids, then your family, then friends, then associates, then strangers.

3. Don’t get emotional. We’re out to convince people, not win arguments. Arguments can be won by talking over the other guy and talking the loudest, but this usually just entrenches those we disagree with and can ruin good relationships. Conservatism should be spread through reason, logic, and education.

4. If you’re a “convert” to conservatism, remember how you used to think. What worked on you and how can you create the same circumstances for others?

5. Open your mouth. Get started talking to people, sharing conservative books with them, challenge them to listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck for a week (I like Sean Hannity as a person but I would never recommend a liberal listen to him because I don’t think he’s as good at changing minds as Rush and Beck).

6. Don’t just band together with like-minded people, associate with those who disagree with you and start a dialogue. Again, what’s the good of joining a book club where everyone is already a conservative and after you read a few conservative books you’re all more conservative than you were when you started? Ok, there is some good there, but it won’t change who’s getting elected to office. Invite a bunch of liberals to start a book club with you and then tell them that if they’ll read Glenn Beck’s Common Sense, or Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, that you’ll read Al Gore’s book or something.

The great thing about conservatism is that it makes sense on an intellectual level and it works, because it’s the truth. But if we only spread that truth amongst ourselves the cycle of boom and bust will continue, and the bust cycles might get pretty bad.