Lou Dobbs Photo: Getty Images
In retrospect, it’s so completely obvious that this would happen. The way he talks about the government’s “war on the middle class,” his appealing to the average Joe on immigration: Lou Dobbs was campaigning. Yesterday the Boston Phoenix speculated that when Lou Dobbs recently wrote that a mystery candidate might yet enter the presidential race, an “independent populist … who understands the genius of this country lies in the hearts and minds of its people and not in the prerogatives and power of its elites,” on his blog, he was talking about himself. Now the Wall Street Journal is saying that, “Friends of Mr. Dobbs say he is seriously contemplating a race for the first time.” Apparently, Lou got to thinking that at some point during this campaign, voters will get so fed up — with Rudi’s pandering, with Hillary’s flip-flopping, with this whole seemingly endless ordeal — that they’ll collapse, exhausted, straight into Lou Dobbs’s stubby and welcoming arms. Says the Journal:
They spin a scenario under which the acerbic commentator would parachute into the race if Michael Bloomberg, the New York billionaire and favorite of East Coast elites, enters the field as an independent. With Hillary Clinton continuing to score badly in polls in the categories of honesty and integrity, and with the public’s many doubts about Rudy Giuliani and other GOP contenders, Mr. Bloomberg may well see an opportunity to roil the political waters by entering the race late. If so, Mr. Dobbs then sees a niche for a “fourth-party” candidate who could paint the three other contenders as completely out of touch.
At the very least, the Journal points out, all this talk could surely boost his ratings.
Dobbs is Advertising For Himself [WSJ]
Man Of the People [Boston Phoenix]
