Carbonite CEO Admits That Dropping Rush Limbaugh Advertising Has Hurt His Company

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Written By:
Rob Port

Aug 6, 2012
1:46pm

At National Review Rich Lowry writes that the bullying of companies like Chick-fil-A who take public positions liberals disagree with, or who support conservative causes in general, is the “wave of the future.” He’s right, and we’ve seen a lot of examples whether it was the national protests against Target for supporting a conservative group in Minnesota or the attacks on Rush Limbaugh’s advertisers after he expressed some, admittedly, less-than-savory views about a supporter of the Obamacare contraception mandate. Even right here in North Dakota, where state Democrats and their media allies are attacking contributions from fossil fuel energy companies to Republican candidates, we’re seeing this trend.

The left is bent on driving private sector interests, businesses and the like, out of the political debate. Thankfully, at least in the case of some of Rush Limbaugh’s advertisers, caving to pressure from the left isn’t turning out to be that wise of a business move. William Jacobson notes that the decision to pull their advertising from Rush Limbaugh’s show hasn’t worked out all that great for internet backup company Carbonite:

On August 1 Carbonite released its 2d Quarter 2012 results, the first full quarter after dropping Limbaugh in March. The results shocked Wall Street, as Carbonite did not meet its growth targets, causing multiple analysts to drop the target price. The stock dropped 15% in a day. (h/t reader W)

Most important, in a conference call held on August 1, the CEO David Friend admitted that dropping Limbaugh damaged Carbonite’s growth, and is likely to do so for at least one or two more quarters.

Let’s hope that the Carbonite example gets a lot of attention, because the goal here is to absolutely silence those the left disagrees with. If you support a position the left doesn’t like, they’ll try to run you out of business.

I think we need to recognize that while we have a right to disagree with one another, it’s not a healthy sort of political debate to try and hurt those we disagree with.