Lou Dobbs for president
On dec. 3 the New York Daily News reported that anti-immigration group ALIPAC (Americans for Immigration Reform) had taken its support away from former CNN-anchor Lou Dobbs. The bottom line is that the people at ALIPAC could not stand what Dobbs said to Maria Celeste, a Hispanic journalist from Telemundo, during a recent interview.
“We need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants,” Dobbs said, in a conciliatory tone–a seachange from his previous stance.
He was politically punished almost immediately The same Daily News article said that in 2008 ALIPAC had raised $660,000 in pledges in order to convince Dobbs to run for president.
That is a thing of the past: ALIPAC has disowned its rhetorical leader.
In fact, during a radio interview, ALIPAC president, William Green, told Dobbs that people were upset because they had never heard Dobbs talking about legalizing undocumented immigrant in the past (namely, during his CNN show). Dobbs, argued that he has always advocated some type of mass legalization if some conditions are met–tighter border security, fingerprinting, etc.
My opinion: Dobbs is trying to have his cake and eat it too. The problem for him is that his base can see right through him. He is trying to seem more moderate now that he has political ambitions. There are rumors that Dobbs will try to run against the only Hispanic in the US senate: Democrat Robert Menendez.
The problem being that Menendez represents New Jersey, a state with more than 15% Hispanic population. It is clear that Dobbs has upset part of his following. Though it’s unclear if he will be able to gain much Hispanic support.
“I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together,” Dobbs told Maria Cesleste and US Hispanics through Telemundo.
Everything is possible; in politics people tend to have very short term memories. I doubt, however, that his base will forgive Dobbs for abandoning the combative anti-immigrant ways that drew them to him in the first place or that Hispanics will begin to see a friend in a man who not long ago was one of their greatest political enemies.
Politicians will say anything to be elected. Then once they get in, they’ll push whatever agenda they really want. But their past speeches can be held against them and will do a lot to destroy their chance of winning.
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Politicians run for offices; we elect them. It is up to us to evaluate them. Lou Dobbs ,when he was on TV , had one hard-line position. Now that he is running for office, he is allowed to adopt a more nuanced position. I’d like to see him run for the senate first and then see how he votes once he is there. We need more free thinkers who aren’t captivated by President Obama’s speeches and who can communicate more effectively with the people. Even with the slight backtracking on immigration, he would still get my vote.
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