Of all the story lines running through this election season, the strangest has to be the conversion of Howard Stern.

I don’t own a radio and don’t understand the appeal of strippers and pornstars on the radio, but Stern is a giant in the ratings. Last I checked, his audience was in the area of 8 Million listeners.

Stern was mostly libertarian before the current FCC crackdown, but his fierce anti-Bush rhetoric now is striking.

The reason all of this is important can be found in looking at Stern’s audience. From my days in media, I know two things about this crowd: They are incredibly loyal to their hero (hence the ferocious bidding for ad time), and they are mostly white men. White men overwhelmingly vote Republican.

What happens after eight months of Bush-bashing? Will Stern’s audience take his advice and vote against Bush in November? With the country so closely divided, any portion of that 8 Million could be the deciding factor.