Attention: Lou Dobbs will now speak Spanish!

Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

Here’s the difference between hosting a talk show on cable and running for elected office: to have a chance at succeeding with the latter endeavor, you need Hispanic votes. Hispanics are, after all, the fastest growing segment of the population, including the voting-age part. Soon, they will make up one third of the U.S. population.

Lou Dobbs, who has long dreamed aloud of kicking out as many illegal Hispanic aliens from the country as possible, suddenly seems to realize that he may actually need the sympathies of the people who support what Dobbs terms “amnesty” for Hispanics. So, he’s decided, like Newt Gingrich before him, that he’d better cozy up to the group who view him as no better than a border guard with an itchy trigger finger.

So great is Dobbs’ desire to become one of the club of “elected officials” that he has, for so long, derided on his program, that Dobbs is now willing to flip-flop on his signature outrage issues. Via The Wall Street Journal:

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.”

I’m guessing this isn’t going to go over so well with the people who actually watched his television program. Good luck with that, Mr. Dobbs.