Political observes and media analysts have been in a stir lately about the supposed power of conservative talk radio and how the talkers might be influencing voters. Left-leaning congressmen and pundits wring their hands and talk of reviving the Fairness Doctrine to force balance onto the radio airwaves.

While talk-radio hosts certainly do attract large and loyal followings, the worry that the talkers have a huge or unfair influence on public policy is exaggerated. Further, the Fairness Doctrine would be an ineffective and perhaps unconstitutional remedy to limit the reach of such political-talk-show hosts as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

Much has been theorized about whether Rush Limbaugh’s encouragement led some of his listeners to vote for Hillary in Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio, helping her to victories in those states and keeping the Democratic nomination up for grabs.

Ingraham asserted last year that the failure of the immigration bill resulted from opposition prompted by conservative microphones. A number of senators agreed with that assessment and weren’t happy about it. Republican Sen. Trent Lott complained, “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.” The immigration bill, however, headed the news agenda of the print media, television news, blogs and everywhere else. The public outcry against the bill might well have been because it was perceived to be poor legislation, with or without the opinion of talk-show hosts.

The conservative talkers reach millions of people each week, but if Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity were so all-powerful, John McCain wouldn’t be on the verge of the GOP nomination and the Democrats wouldn’t have won control of Congress in 2006.

Research released this year by Benchmark Co. reported that 86 percent of talk-radio listeners say they are not influenced by radio hosts when deciding how to vote. It is possible, of course, that these listeners understate the influence of radio hosts, but talk-radio listeners are known to get political information from many sources and aren’t likely to be herded even by the most popular radio talker. As Benchmark chief executive Rob Balon said in a recently published interview, “Voting is a notoriously ego-involved process.” Thus, radio listeners’ votes are affected by many inputs, including family, friends, religion and other media.

Talk-radio listeners are quite active politically. A study by Talkers magazine reported that 73 percent of talk listeners voted in 2006, well above the national average. The study also indicated that 58 percent of talk listeners identified themselves as independents, with 23 percent calling themselves Republican and 14 percent Democrat.

Ultimately, talk-radio listeners will gravitate to the hosts they find to be most entertaining and talented. A talk-show host has to be entertaining to keep an audience interested for two or three hours at a time and to keep listeners coming back next time. Ideology is a factor in tuning the dial, but not the primary factor. If ideology were the only factor, Dick Cheney would take over for Laura Ingraham, and Harry Reid would topple liberal talker Ed Schultz. The continued slump of the liberal Air America is mostly due to style and an inability to connect to its target audience.

The Fairness Doctrine, if reinstated, would not effectively balance the airwaves as liberals would hope. The doctrine mandated that broadcasters provide balanced coverage of controversial issues. It was eliminated by the Federal Communications Commission in the 1980s because it was impossible to referee and discouraged broadcasters from engaging in sensible issue discussion in the first place.

Odds are that if a Democrat is in the White House with a Democratic Congress, a Fairness Doctrine bill will be signed into law in 2009. It would immediately be challenged in court by broadcasters and likely found unconstitutional. The 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision that supported the doctrine’s existence was based on the scarcity of broadcast outlets available to provide public discussion. That argument clearly is unsupportable today.

A report last year by the left-leaning Center for American Progress correctly pointed out that conservatives dominate talk radio by a nine-to-one margin. But the center did not call for a renewal of Fairness Doctrine enforcement. Instead, and more sensibly, the center called for more congressional review of broadcast-ownership rules, believing that less concentrated broadcast ownership would give liberal talkers a better shot at the audience. That might well be true. It would also help to develop more entertaining liberal talk hosts.