Some rather broad assertions to be making from a relatively insignificant result in a saturated marketplace. The megastations (i.e., WOAI with 50,000 watts) are owned by meganetworks (i.e., Clear Channel Communications) which own the prime broadcasting frequencies available. They didn't start that way, but they've had a substantial head start in the propagation of political talk radio. To say that the demise of Air America is somehow a failure of the Left's ideology as a whole seems overly simplistic (though oversimplification rarely stops the Right in much these days) in light of the real market forces at play in this situation. It's a bit like saying that an independent newspaper's failure to unseat the New York Times is a victory for the Times. It's more like a representation of the fact that it's somewhat difficult for an underfunded enterprise to make inroads against large, established corporations in a limited marketplace.