What will happen when Rush Limbaugh dies?

Rush Limbaugh went to the hospital yesterday with chest pains. One cannot help wonder what will happen when Rush dies. All of us, including Rush, know it’s going to happen one day. He might live for another year, or five, ten, twenty, or heaven help the Daily Kos–thirty. Or he might die tomorrow. But it will happen, one way or another, for there can be no doubt but what Rush has, at least once in his life, eaten carrots.

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.