Riding Lou Dobbs’ coattails
January 20, 2008 at 12:04pm
by Gary Jacobson

Lou Dobbs, the tough-talking anchor for CNN, is expert at riding popular opinion. Last week, a group called Americans for Legal Immigration attached itself firmly to Dobbs’ popularity as it launched an effort to draft him for president.

If nothing else, it was a good public relations move by ALIPAC, headed by William Gheen. The group shares Dobbs’ fervor against illegal immigration.

Kevin Horrigan reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that in the first 24 hours Gheen’s group received campaign pledges, should Dobbs choose to run, totaling $160,000.

Compare that to ALIPAC’s own fund raising. According to the most recent Federal Election Commission reports, through June of last year, the group raised $72,418 for the 2007-08 election cycle. It raised $47,433 in the 2005-06 cycle.

In his column headlined “Loupublicans and Dobbsocrats,” Horrigan wrote that when he first saw the email announcing the draft Dobbs effort, he thought it was a joke. He probably wasn’t alone.

TOPICS: Illegal Immigration, Illegal immigrants, Illegal Aliens, Lou Dobbs, William Gheen, William Gheen ALIPAC, for Legal Immigration, election, president

But it would be a mistake to discount the appeal of the Harvard-educated broadcaster who has transformed himself into a raving populist. Dobbs says free trade costs American jobs. He regularly bashes big business, big government and the established political parties. CNN calls Dobbs the “leading media advocate” for America’s working men and women.

“The truth is not ‘fair and balanced,’ Dobbs told the New Yorker in 2006.

The Dobbs-for-president buzz is not new. It received a jumpstart in early January when the The Wall Street Journal ran a story about Dobbs gaining attention as a possible independent candidate.

The story quoted Gheen and Dobbs, who said he wasn’t a candidate but he had not ruled out the possibility.

Later that day, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed Dobbs about the Journal’s story. Dobbs said he was flattered by the interest and repeated that he wasn’t a candidate but could never say never.

“I’m an advocacy journalist and I’m having a great, great time right now,” Dobbs told Blitzer.

Whether he runs or not, Dobbs will have an impact on the election because of the audience he appeals to. Writing in The Politico last October, Christopher Gacek said that Dobbs “may be the most important person in the 2008 presidential election aside from the candidates themselves.”

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