The chances that Rush Limbaugh will be fired for disparaging women whose insurance covers their contraceptives as “sluts” last week have always fallen safely within the range of slim to none. Limbaugh is, hands down, his employer’s biggest revenue producer, and even if he were caught with the proverbial live boy or dead girl, his bosses at Clear Channel Communications, a multi billion-dollar right-wing radio network based in Texas, would be hard-pressed to send him packing.
But as the controversy over his lies and smears has played out, a key factor related to the politics behind the scandal has generally been overlooked. Clear Channel is a subsidiary of Bain Capital, the firm founded by GOP presidential frontrunner, Mitt Romney in 1984. And although Romney officially resigned from Bain in 1999,he left the company with a deal in place that continues to add millions in income to Romney’s fortune every year. (These millions in revenue were the subject of a campaign controversy earlier this year when Romney was forced to admit he only pays around 15 percent in taxes on his income from Bain.)
In 2008, Bain bought Clear Channel, whose on-air roster includes such heavyweights in right-wing broadcasting as Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and, the heaviest weight of them all, Rush Limbaugh.
Earlier this year, allegations surfaced on the far right that Clear Channel’s influential on-air personalities, including Limbaugh, were in the bag for Romney and so were marginalizing fringe candidates like Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul:
Former Politico.com reporter Ben Smith, now the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, called out Rush Limbaugh on Thursday for defending Romney and Bain Capital without disclosing that his employer is owned by the candidate’s firm. “Talk radio king Rush Limbaugh has emerged as a key defender of Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, where — his Republican and Democratic critics charge — layoffs at companies Bain owned should be blamed on Romney,” noted Smith. “But Limbaugh hasn’t mentioned his own tie to the venture capital firm: Bain owns Clear Channel Communications, whose subsidiary inked a $400 million, eight-year syndication deal with Limbaugh in 2008.”
It turns out the talk-radio titan had actually revealed the connection later on in the show, and Smith updated his article to include that fact when he was made aware of it by readers. But the explosive story attracted more media interest in the subject nonetheless.
Bain Capital joined with private-equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners to buy Clear Channel in 2008, with the announcement made shortly before Romney’s 2008 run for the GOP nomination. The $25-billion deal included around 1,000 AM and FM stations, as well as dozens of televisions stations that were later sold off.
Clear Channel subsidiary Premiere Radio Networks — the largest radio syndication service in America with talk-show hosts including Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity — was also part of the package. According to the company’s website, its radio programs reach nearly two-thirds of the American people each week through some 5,000 radio affiliations.
“Think about that the next time you’re flipping channels on the radio and realize that Rush Limbaugh calls the candidates ‘Romney,’ ‘Non-Romney,’ and ‘Loony,’” noted Delaware elections examiner Angel Clark in a piece detailing the connections. “Why do these other candidates get called ‘Non-Romney’?”
Today, of course, Romney no longer leads the firm he co-founded, though Bain Capital and Bain & Co. are shoveling gargantuan sums of money into his campaign. But Romney still owns a huge stake in the company and profits handsomely from it, according to his financial disclosure report. And analysts say he undoubtedly still wields at least some degree of influence.
According to Wikipedia, so take it for what it is worth, Bain also owns AMC Entertainment, Aspen Education Group, Brookstone, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Domino’s Pizza, DoubleClick, Dunkin’ Donuts, D&M Holdings, Guitar Center, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Sealy, The Sports Authority, Staples, Toys “R” Us, Warner Music Group and The Weather Channel.
