Hey, That’s My Name

I’m a HUGE Rachel Maddow fan. I’ve mentioned her several times on this blog because, frankly, while I follow a crazy number of news feeds, watch a little cable news and even have a friend working for a political campaign, I actually get most of my news from The Rachel Maddow Show on Air America Radio. I’ve been listening to various shows and formats she’s gone through the liberal radio network for the past four years. She is wonderful at mining the news for interesting, quirky and relevent stories and on weeks when one of us (meaning myself or Rachel) goes on vacation, I feel less clued into what’s going on in the world.

Rachel has been working her way up the TV food chain for some time now, guesting on various shows on CNN and MSNBC, but even before the New York Times saw fit to profile Maddow, it was clear that important people at MSNBC had taken a shine to her (not least of which was their star, Keith Olbermann). Rachel was a constant guest during MSNBC’s primary coverage, she became a regular guest on all of the primetime evening shows, she became the de facto guest host for Olbermann’s show Countdown and David Gregory’s Race to the White House and a few months ago, Air America began simulcasting Race during the first hour of Rachel’s show – which meant that she was a constant member of Gregory’s panel.

Today on Daily Kos and on his show, Keith Olbermann broke the news that, at long last, MSNBC will be gifting Rachel Maddow with her own cable news show. She will be filling the 8PM CST slot that follows Countdown with Keith Olbermann, taking the place of Dan Abram show The Verdict. In their dialogue on Countdown, Olbermann and Maddow hinted that the shows may bleed into each other, perhaps with the two (who are clearly friendly) bantering about the news of the day. At the current time, Maddow’s show does not have a name or a format. They’ll need to fix that quick, as she’s scheduled to premiere on September 9, after the party conventions wrap up.

It’s also worth noting that Rachel will continue to host her radio show on Air America. She’s long reassured her listening audience that she would intend to stay on the air if she got her own TV show, saying that if Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly can do it, so can she. She’ll just do it better.

Congratulations, Rachel. Cable news just got a lot more informed.

Home Run for Rachel Maddow – Daily Kos

Okay, well maybe not first, but I was listening to her on Air America long before she started popping up all over cable news. It makes me happy that my favorite source of news and commentary on the radio seems to be totally chummy with my favorite source of news and commentary on, as she puts it, “the TV machine.” (That would be Mr. Keith Olbermann, if you hadn’t picked up on that yet.)

Well, Rachel filled in for Keith last minute on Friday, guest-hosting Countdown for the second time. Keith reported last night, listing Maddow in his “Best Persons” segment that Rachel had the highest rated news show that night. Daily Kos is reporting that Maddow pulled in 100,000 more viewers in the much coveted 25-54 demographic than Countdown’s key competitor: The O’Reilly Factor.

Way to go, Rachel! Here’s hoping MSNBC comes to their senses and starts letting you bring some of that TRMS flair to your own TV show. (I personally thought they should’ve let you fill Tucker’s void rather than David Gregory, and now that Air America is simulcasting Gregory’s show, I feel even stronger about it.)

Campaign Music with Rachel Maddow

I was hoping that Rachel would post this so that I could share it, because I find sooooo much of this hilarious. The Hillary songs and “It’s Raining McCain” just completely kill me.

Thanks, Rachel! You’re awesome and I love your show to pieces. You were awesome on Olbermann last Friday!