Hartmann is ranked the 9th most important radio show host in the nation. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Thom Hartmann: View from the left

Thom Hartmann may be the most popular progressive you’ve never heard of.

His nationally syndicated radio show draws 2.75 million listeners a week, he’s a New York Times bestselling author and he hosts a nightly television show.


Talkers magazine ranks him as the ninth most important radio show host in the nation, having fought his way onto a list dominated by conservatives.

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Yet, even in the political world, Hartmann is hardly a household name.

He — and his politics — are unconventional, to say the least. Hartmann labels himself a Democratic socialist and once had a show on Air America, but he gets invited to the Conservative Political Action Conference every year and has won the respect of some on the right.

The 62-year-old vegetarian who lives on a boat has a modest ’60s-era goal: nothing short of creating “a better world” by getting his listeners more engaged in the political process. “Tag, you’re it!” is the catchphrase he uses to end each show — a sign-off, he says, that aims to “encourage civic engagement.”

It should be no surprise, then, that Hartmann describes himself and his wife, Louise, who serves as his executive producer, as “old leftover hippie activists.”

“I’ve lived in Europe. I think that the countries that call themselves democratic socialist — Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland — have the most functional political and economic system,” he told POLITICO in a recent interview. “So, somebody says, what’s your political philosophy? I’d say Democratic socialism.”

“But boy, the crap you take when you say socialist,” he added. “Because people don’t understand it. They think I’m talking about Soviet-style socialism, which I’m not.”

Hartmann’s biggest political concern today is “the corrupting influence of Big Money on politics.”

“People don’t get involved, then the predators take over,” Hartmann said. “The only thing that is preventing the sociopaths, the predators, from consuming our government, is the civic engagement of the people, supporting politicians who are willing to push back against them.”

The “most voracious of the predators,” according to Hartmann, are “in business. They’re pouring millions and in some cases billions of dollars into the political arena and they end up owning politicians. … It’s not that money is the root of all evil, it’s that the love of money is the root of all evil, it’s the demonstration of that.”

Hartmann also said he “could give a list of my, gee, I wish [President Barack] Obama had done more, but I don’t think that he’s the problem.” What has stopped the president from accomplishing more, he says, is the “implacable Republican machine.”

There is one politician in Washington whose beliefs line up squarely with Hartmann’s — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

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And every Friday, the two team up for an hour of Hartmann’s show that they’ve dubbed “Brunch With Bernie.” Listeners from around the country call in to speak one on one with the independent senator, something Sanders said he has enjoyed doing since they started the feature several years ago.

“I’m a big fan of Thom’s,” Sanders told POLITICO. “I think there are many parts of the United States where progressive points of view are virtually not heard at all. It’s all Rush Limbaugh or Rush Limbaugh wannabes. So the fact that we have gotten into many outlets all over the country, I enjoy that very much.”

Hartmann is clearly influential among those on the left, a market that’s underserved by talk radio, said Paul Levinson, a professor of media and communications studies at Fordham University.

“He discusses issues with historic detail and clear logic, and gives progressives voice to what they already feel in their hearts,” Levinson said. “Hartmann also amply shows that talk radio is not the exclusive domain of conservatives, even though they get most of the attention.”

Conservative radio host Rusty Humphries, who has known Hartmann for several years, since the two did a mission trip to Africa together, recently sat down with Hartmann to simulcast their shows.

“He’s a very nice, sweet guy, very smart. He’s wrong on all the issues, but he’s very smart,” Humphries, who is nationally syndicated and based in Phoenix, Ariz., told POLITICO. “The thing I like about him is that he and I can disagree about just about anything, but do it in a respectful way, like ‘You’re full of it,’ ‘you’re full of it, too,’ and have a good time with it.”

Humphries added, “A lot of times, it seems, that when I talk with people on the left, they immediately have a judgment of who I am and what I believe. And because of that, they start off with kind of an attitude, whether it’s a superior attitude in their mind or an ‘I want to fight and show the talk show host I can beat him in a gunfight debate,’ and that’s not fun for me. With Thom, it’s not a fight, and I like that.”

According to this year’s Talkers ranking of the top talk radio hosts, Hartmann comes in at No. 9, a few spots behind fellow progressive Ed Schultz at No. 6. On the Talkers list — the magazine’s subjective, annual ranking that takes into account ratings, recognition and impact, among other factors — Hartmann places ahead of big-name hosts such as Laura Ingraham, Mike Gallagher and Michael Smerconish. Hartmann, meanwhile, touts himself on his website and in ads as having the “No. 1 progressive radio show.” Purely based on audience size, Hartmann tied in June with Alan Colmes, Dennis Miller, Stephanie Miller and Ed Schultz in eighth at about 2.75 million per week, according to Talkers’ June numbers, ranking below hosts from the right.

A major fan of Hartmann’s is Leonardo DiCaprio, who used Hartmann’s environmental activism book “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight” as inspiration for his film “The 11th Hour.” The actor is also set to produce and star in a movie based on Hartmann’s nonfiction book with Lamar Waldron, “Legacy of Secrecy,” which hypothesizes that the mob was behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

And with his media programs — his afternoon radio show, “The Thom Hartmann Program,” is on WPWC-AM (1480) and WZHF-AM (1390) in the Washington area, while his TV show, “The Big Picture,” airs live at 7.m. EST on RT and Free Speech TV — Hartmann’s looking to give his progressive audience ammunition “to win the water-cooler wars.”

“Everybody’s got somebody who works in the next cubicle that has different political opinions or the crazy brother-in-law who shows up at Thanksgiving dinner, and they want to be able to debate them — but in a way that doesn’t leave blood on the floor when they’re done,” Hartmann said. “So I model that. I get people on with whom I strongly disagree, and I just have it out.”

Hartmann, the author or co-author of more than two dozen books, started out in radio as a disc jockey and program director in Lansing, Mich., in the late 1960s, and then launched a successful business career. He founded an herbal products company, a travel business and an ad agency, as well as The New England Salem Children’s Village, a nonprofit corporation to provide a home for abused children. In 1997, after Hartmann sold his interest in the ad agency, he and his wife moved to Vermont and “basically retired.”

But then, in 2002, Hartmann wrote an article, “Talking Back to Talk Radio,” which became part of the original business plan for the now-defunct progressive talk radio network Air America. In the piece, Hartmann said talk radio had become dominated by right-wing hosts — but that meant there was an opportunity for progressive talk success if stations saw there was a “new, unserved and profitable niche” by airing only left-wing talkers without any conservative programming.

After writing that op-ed, Hartmann got back on the air himself.

“He’s entertaining, he’s informative, he’s an original thinker, he’s an author, he’s an original source. In other words, he’s not a B-level talking points host that so many on both the left and the right are,” said Michael Harrison, publisher of the trade industry Talkers magazine. “He’s the kind of a host that other people can get their talking points from.”

Hartmann’s nationally syndicated show was eventually picked up by Air America — he took over Al Franken’s time slot — although he left six months before the progressive network went down. His audience, however, kept growing and three years ago he and his wife packed up and moved to D.C.

In Washington, Hartmann has earned praise from across the aisle for his approach. His wife Louise said Hartmann is the only liberal talker who goes to CPAC’s radio row: “They literally call him every year and say, ‘Of course you’re coming to CPAC.’ They love Thom there, because he lets people have their say, even if he’s going to debate them.”

Hartmann credited learning how to debate from his father, a conservative Republican.

“From the late ’60s until my dad died in 2006, we constantly argued politics. That’s what we did when we got together, we had daylong political debates,” Hartmann said. “And what I got out of it was that at the end of every debate, he was still my dad and I still loved him. And I learned how to disrespect somebody’s opinion while I respect the person, or disagree with somebody’s opinion while I love the person.”