Managed by Minnesota’s Ed Morrissey and blogger AllahPundit, Hot Air was among the top 25 most influential blogs in the Internet last year, according to Mediaite, which broke the story. And according to an open thread posted by Morrissey, that’s unlikely to change: “Hot Air’s current mission and direction will not change… [B]oth [AllahPundit] and I will continue being part of Hot Air for the foreseeable future.” (I emailed Morrissey for comment, but his Hot Air post states he won’t officially make a statement until tomorrow.)

Salem — a “leading U.S. radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher targeting audiences interested in Christian and family-themed content and conservative values” — runs some 95 radio stations, nationwide, including Twin Cities stations The Patriot, business station KYCR-AM 1570 and Christian station KKMS-AM 980.

More than anything, this reeks of impotence, operating almost as a concession that the right’s argument on the merits that the left is evolving towards socialism isn’t working to shift public opinion. So now they’re going to up the ante by trying the hard sell: Just repeat “socialism” as much as possible to try to drive it into people’s skulls, never minding the fact that that term’s already lost some of its taboo and might well lose more as it goes further mainstream. Or at least, I hope that’s the GOP strategy here. The alternative, that they’re simply sticking their fingers in their ears and repeating “socialist” over and over out of spite like a five-year-old, is too depressing to contemplate. What’s next, a formal resolution declaring french fries “freedom fries” in the Republican Party henceforth and forevermore?

Olbermann’s point is similar: he gives a hearty “WTF?” to the RNC’s strategy, noting that, according to recent Pew polls, the party’s tactic hasn’t succeeded in tarring Barack Obama with the term “Socialist.” Fewer than 3 percent of those polled used the term to describe the president. Further, a recent Rasmussen survey found that barely half of Americans — 53 percent — prefer capitalism over socialism.

He quips: perhaps the likes of John Boehner, Michele Bachmann and Dick Cheney are actually “Democratic agents… moles, turncoats, political traitors” intent upon ruining the GOP’s reputation for decades to come.

Closer to home, MinnPost’s David Brauer tweets, “That oughta convince the independents, GOP. Keep talking among yourselves…”