Mahaffey owns a string of radio stations in several states. One of his stations in Rolla, Missouri,  ran a talk show for three years hosted by David Steelman, who was Sen. John McCain’s state campaign chair. Three weeks before Missouri’s 2000 presidential primary, this Bush Pioneer pulled the plug on Steelman’s show and another one hosted by local Democratic activist Bob Jones. It was the stuff of great talk radio. “This was meant to squelch discussion because the man who owns the transmitter is for George W. Bush,” Steelman said. “We were muzzled because we offended a big-time Bush backer,” Jones declared. One of Mahaffey’s attorneys said that management based the decision on a concern that the local hosts’ “discussion on national politics may not be as objective or live up to their journalistic responsibility for objectivity.” Apparently, conservative political talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Oliver North do meet Mahaffey’s standards of objectivity: their shows kept running in Rolla. Mahaffey is a pal of Sen. Chris Bond, who chairs Bush’s Missouri campaign. Mahaffey and fellow Missouri Pioneers Sam Fox, Adele Hall and Stephen Brauer made a pilgrimage to Austin back in March ’99 to meet with Bush.