Amid speculation that Lou Dobbs is considering a career in elected politics, the former CNN anchor is working to improve his image with the Latino community. Dobbs has recently indicated that he may be interested in pursuing a challenge to Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in 2012, or possibly even running for president as a third-party candidate.
A spokesperson conceded that one of the greater challenges for Dobbs is to address and dispel his reputation of antipathy against Latinos in general. Referring to the Latino community in an interview with Telemundo’s Maria Celeste on November 20th, Dobbs said, “whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together”. He also explained that he supports a path for legalization for illegal immigrants currently in the United States, a policy that he had previously characterized as unfair “amnesty”. When Ms. Celeste suggested that many Latinos consider him to be their “number 1 enemy”, Dobbs claimed that this perception was inaccurate and had been popularized by the “far left” in their propaganda efforts.
Some immigration reform advocates are suspicious of Dobbs’ new attitude toward the immigrant Latino community, including Frank Sharry of America’s Voice, who said that Mr. Dobbs’ conversion was not credible given his history of opposing efforts to liberalize immigration policy. As to possibly challenging Bob Menendez for his senate seat in 2012, a spokesman at the Senator’s office said that Menendez would “relish eventually having an opponent from so far out of the mainstream who has never delivered a thing to the hard-working people of New Jersey”.
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