Air America in Bush Country - UPDATE

Air America in Bush Country is by no means a movement (yet), but it is moving.

Earlier, I commented on the successful effort by six women to convince Clear Channel to put Air America on the air in Baton Rouge. They noticed that one of the company's AM stations in Louisiana's capitol city was a perennial ratings loser. They approached Clear Channel's regional manager with some of Air America's numbers from other markets. He told them that if they could get 1,000 potential listeners' names on a petition, then he would replace the programming on 1380 AM, WYNK with Air America. It worked, and 1380 AM is now "Progressive Talk for Baton Rouge."

This simple formula, appealing to the profit-motive of a for-profit corporation, has not escaped the notice of liberals in other communities who want Air America on their airwaves.

Francisco Melli-Huber, a member of Democracy for America guest-posted a message on DFA's Blog for America and announced his intention to start a DFA chapter at his university dedicated to applying the Baton Rouge model for bringing Air America to his community.

This is how it will happen. The Baton Rouge women really just didn't know enough to be intimidated by the prospect of asking Clear Channel to put Air America on in one of the reddest towns in Red America. They succeeded. Now, Francisco sees their success and can't think of a reason that it can't work where he lives.

The one-note nature of talk radio in this country is about to change. The expansion of Air America into Bush Country will happen at the grass roots, the REAL grass roots, as enterprising individuals decide that it can work and then set about making it happen.

Watch this space for updates on their progress.