Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, pondering a future in politics, is trying to wipe away his image as an enemy of Latino immigrants by positioning himself as a champion of that fast-growing ethnic bloc.
Mr. Dobbs, who left the network last week, has said in recent days that he is considering a third-party run for a New Jersey Senate seat in 2012, or possibly for president. Polls show voters unhappy with both parties, and strategists believe Mr. Dobbs could tap populist anger over economy issues just as Ross Perot did in the 1990s.
First, though, Mr. Dobbs is working to repair what a spokesman conceded is a glaring flaw: His reputation for antipathy toward Latino immigrants. In a little-noticed interview Friday, Mr. Dobbs told Spanish-language network Telemundo he now supports a plan to legalize millions of undocumented workers, a stance he long lambasted as an unfair “amnesty.”
“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 said in a live interview with Telemundo’s Maria Celeste. “I hope that will begin with Maria and me and Telemundo and other media organizations and others in this national debate that we should turn into a solution rather than a continuing debate and factional contest.”
Mr. Dobbs twice mentioned a possible legalization plan for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., saying at one point that “we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions.”
Mr. Dobbs couldn’t be reached Tuesday. Spokesman Bob Dilenschneider said Mr. Dobbs draws a distinction between illegal immigrants who have committed crimes since arriving in the U.S. and those who are “living upright, positive and constructive lives” who should be “integrated” into society. He said Mr. Dobbs recognizes the political importance of Latinos and is “smoothing the water and clearing the air.”
After a career as a broadcaster and Internet entrepreneur, Mr. Dobbs turned himself into a populist firebrand, campaigning against labor outsourcing, free trade and immigration.
Mr. Dobbs left CNN saying he wanted to become an advocate. Immigration advocates, including Ms. Celeste, had long called for his ouster; critics in particular cite a 2007 report on his show that cited erroneous data suggesting illegal immigrants were tied to a spike in leprosy cases in the U.S. Mr. Dobbs told Ms. Celeste the report was a mistake, and blamed a reporter ad-libbing on the air.
Frank Sharry, who heads America’s Voice, a group that advocates for legalizing undocumented immigrants, said Mr. Dobbs’s conversion isn’t credible, given his history of opposing efforts to liberalize immigration policies.
Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, which seeks strict border enforcement and opposes legalization, said he admired Mr. Dobbs and will “watch him for several months before drawing a conclusion.”
Political strategists, however, aren’t dismissing the potential power of a Dobbs run. Ed Rollins, a Republican consultant who advised Mr. Perot, said Mr. Dobbs has two big factors in his favor: name recognition and a turbulent economic time that can help a populist, third-party figure.
During his Telemundo appearance, Mr. Dobbs was both defensive and conciliatory as Ms. Celeste ticked off what she said were the Latino community’s grievances about Mr. Dobbs. “Many Hispanics consider you to be the No. 1 enemy of Latinos,” she told him. “Do you think that the community is somehow misjudging you?”
“Oh, not somehow. Definitively, absolutely,” Mr. Dobbs responded. “By the way, I don’t believe for a moment that the Latino, Hispanic community in the United States believes that of me at all. It has been the efforts of the far left to characterize me in their propaganda as such.”
Mr. Dobbs’s relationship with Latinos will be crucial if he chooses to run against Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), the Senate’s lone Hispanic. In response to the possibility, Menendez spokesman Afshin Mohamadi said: “I’m sure that he 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.”
