by Shane Goldmacher • March 14, 2015
Hugh Hewitt, in short, is having a moment. He is not the most-heard talk-radio host, not by a long shot, with an audience one-tenth the size of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, according to Talkers, an industry trade magazine. Yet, as the 2016 cycle gets underway, he appears to be emerging as the preferred pundit of the Republican establishment—a sort of bridge between the conservative grassroots and elite Beltway politics. After my appearance on his show, Hewitt agreed to talk to me about his perch—and, as luck would have it, he was coming to Washington that very weekend: He'd just been booked for Meet the Press.
IF REPUBLICAN pundits fall on a scale from the bombastic right-winger Rush Limbaugh on one end to the civilized centrist David Brooks on the other, then Hewitt is Limbaugh-like in his ideology but Brooks-like in his presentation. In other words, he's an intellectual's ideologue. "He sees himself as a responsible alternative to so much of what's out there," Gearan says. When I tell Hewitt that one Republican I spoke with called him a "gentleman's conservative," he smiles: "Oh, I like that."
Hewitt is popular enough with the base to have hosted a nationally syndicated show for 15 years—and safe enough for the establishment to thrust him into the debate spotlight this fall. In fact, it's hard to find a Hewitt hater anywhere within the GOP. "Hugh's hitting a peak," says David Webb, a tea-party leader and now host of The David Webb Show on SiriusXM. "He's frankly gained the credibility. It's about doing what you do well, gaining the credibility, and people come to you and say you have a voice and you have an audience."
Excerpted from a long-read story in
National Journal. Full story:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/hugh-hewitt-show-republican-pundit-20150313
