She always had a liberal, but her show was mostly shock-jock-lite comedy. Mike Malloy was also at a station down there in the late 80s/early 90s doing topical talk, IIRC.
She has a lot of mileage on her in radio terms, and a whole bunch of people she worked with in Florida, or knew, or were rivals with, are now dead and gone -- people like Jack Cole and Neil Rogers. She's always been polarizing to the extent that her voice drives some people up the wall.
Most radio deals have a standard non-compete clause along with a time-out-before-resuming-broadcasting clause - 6 months to a year is typical. It wouldn't surprise me if she ends up back in South Florida; OTOH, she may decide she's had it. Radio is a tough gig.
Righty talk follows a template that was crafted back in the 80s by guys like Morton Downey, Jr. and perfected by Rush Limbaugh. It also plays to a willing audience of salesmen and small business tradesman types who love to hate the government and blame liberals for all of their ills.
Lefty talk has never had such a straightforward template, and Air America never quite found its footing. Ed Schultz' show was originally designed to be a syndicated stable mate to Limbaugh, with the idea being that people would stay tuned in to argue with him after Rush was done. Like Stephanie Miller -- he was never technically part of Air America, but was carried on many of its stations. Franken had no broadcast skills whatsoever, which is why Katherine Lanpher was brought in -- to make sure he'd stop for promotional breaks, etc. . Al is a gifted writer, a terrific Senator, and a funny stand-up; however, once Lanpher left, his radio show became dreadful. Rhodes and Stephanie Miller (in the markets that carried her -- not all did) used humor to deliver their message, and were the most successful in radio terms -- IMO. Schultz was solidly professional, if not spectacular. Maddow, I thought, was none-to-exciting on radio, but absolutely came to live on television. Malloy was wonky (still is), as was Thom Hartman. Garafolo and Chuck D. were interesting but uneven. So you had this network that couldn't really coalesce around a style or a format. It was comedy one minute, and political wonks the next.
Randi didn't do herself any favors with her comments about Gerry Ferraro, no matter what degree of truth there was in them.
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