When asked about Jerry Springer’s intentions to run for Senate in Ohio’s 2004 election, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle stated, “[He] wouldn’t be my first choice for Senate. I understand he was a mayor at one point, but I think we can do a lot better than that, and I’m sure Ohio will.”
Perhaps the National Democratic Party should be a little more concerned. Springer has vast name recognition, the money to bankroll a huge campaign and a political know-how that has saved him from political nihilism before.
Springer set up an official campaign committee Friday, though he has yet to decide if he will run or not.
The son of Holocaust survivors, Springer was elected to the Cincinnati City Council in 1971 when he was only 27, but resigned from the office in the 1974 because of his involvement in a prostitution scandal. In 1977, when everyone thought Springer was a dead duck in the water, he was elected mayor with most votes in the city’s history at the age of 33, the youngest in the city’s history.
In a poll done by Cincinnati’s Institute for Policy Research last month, Springer has a 71 percent unfavorable rating among registered Ohio voters.
But the election is a year away and Springer is driving hard to get people to vote for him who previously have not voted. Republicans outnumber Democrats in Ohio, so Springer needs these votes if he is to have any chance at winning.
Appearing on CNN’s Late Edition in January, National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg warned, “If Jerry Springer shows up, he’ll bring all these new people to the polls. They will be slacked-jawed yokels, hicks, weirdos, pervs and whatnot.”
Midgets and transvestites shouldn’t have the right to vote? Where is Goldberg’s sense of democracy?
In a later column, Goldberg declares “‘The Jerry Springer Show’… a freak show which, in caricature, illustrates one of the fundamental problems with American culture today. It celebrates the deviant and denigrates the normal.”
Yet Goldberg refuses to criticize his mother, Lucianne Goldberg, the woman who told Linda Tripp to break Maryland law and record the Monica Lewinsky conversations. Lucianne is also the author of a wonderful novel titled “Madame Cleo’s Girls.”
Perhaps Goldberg and his mother can appear in a Springer episode titled “My Mother’s a Conniving, Evil woman, and I’m in Denial!”
As the Times-Picayune columnist James Gill calls out, “pundits say that Springer is too sleazy for Capitol Hill because his fame rests on a show that features a sad procession of brawling, sex-mad sociopaths with tattoos. They have a point. You very seldom see a tattoo during a debate in the U.S. Senate.”
Springer is making some good points. His populist platform calls for reforms in healthcare and education. Springer also wants to give lower- and middle-income workers tax breaks in payroll taxes rather than income taxes, an idea sure to be popular in Ohio’s suffering “Rust Belt.”
Initially, I thought a Springer bid for Senate was laughable at best. After listening to some of Springer’s campaign rhetoric however, I saw a transition from controversial talk show host to seasoned politician with a well developed platform, rendering Springer, in my mind, a viable candidate for senator.
Yes, he may be unconventional, but his policies are reminiscent of the old school Democrats that may come into favor if public support of the Bush administration falls out.
Springer is airing a 30-minute infomercial hawking t-shirts, bumper stickers, and other campaign paraphernalia to raise money for his campaign (eerily similar to David Duke’s fundraising techniques) and to create national awareness of his Senate bid. The infomercials are airing in six markets, including New Orleans, for about the next two weeks.
Springer says he will announce his decision to run at the end of this month.
Sadly, Springer plans to take a hiatus from his show if he wins the election. Now where will we watch lesbian love triangles, oversized prostitutes, daughter pimps, and modern-day Humbert Humberts when we need to feel better about ourselves? Certainly not Oprah.