This may be the case. Few people save perhaps drunken frat boys and die hard ditto-heads take pleasure when someone casts aspersions on a person crippled by a dreaded ailment. Michael J. Fox afflicted with Parkinson disease was ridiculed by Limbaugh for "acting" and being off his medications on purpose so he might cast a more sympathetic figure to the voters of Missouri as they decide between a pro-stem cell research democratic hopeful and an incumbent republican senator who opposes such research. Fox, like the majority of Americans, expresses hope that through stem cell science, cures for disorders like Parkinson's and diabetes might be found.
Limbaugh, a mouthpiece for family and traditional values, who in hypocritical support of the family is a serial polygamist and boasts the traditional American virtue of addiction to Oxycotin while espousing that other druggies be sent up the river, may well have put the final nail in Missouri Senator Jim Talent's political coffin. This also might be the case in the tight race in Virginia when Fox campaigns there next week. The widespread publicity of Limbaugh's despicable bullying could well move from a regional arena to closing the book on republican candidates nationwide. Instead of Fox's ad being viewed by a limited audience it has now been broadcast for free from coast to coast.
Not one commentator or politician I have heard is pleased with Limbaugh's vicious attack on Fox. Not even the luffa king Bill O'Riley. Many have pointed out that Fox in his crusade for open science is not overtly partisan and has worked to elect republicans who are not under the thumb of religious extremists and have displayed the character and courage to support stem cell research.
The disastrous control of the country by the rightwing is in jeopardy and this is evidenced by the mean spirited and desperate remarks by poormouths such as Limbaugh and the racially charged ad in Tennessee meant to smear Democratic senatorial candidate Harold Ford. (This ad apparently is a bastard child. No one claims to be its parent- all the republicans from the state to the national level say they are appalled but they add, with a wink, there is nothing they can do about it.)
But it is not wise to rule the republicans out. They have yet an ace in the hole: outright fraud. And unless the progressive, liberal and honest conservative turnout is so great as to not leave a question as to who has won, the corrupt people who now head the republican party will steal the election. History is on their side, they have done it before and got away with it.