Is Lou Dobbs running after all?

Though he explicitly denied that he would run for president in 2008, former Seattle KING-TV newsman and current mad-as-hell CNN personality Lou Dobbs may be looking for the right opportunity to jump into the race, not as a third-party candidate but as a fourth-party populist. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal says friends of Dobbs say he is seriously considering a run. Fund says his scenario might play out this way: Friends of Mr. Dobbs say he is seriously contemplating a race for the first time, although it's still unlikely. They spin a scenario under which the acerbic commentator would parachute into the race if Michael Bloomberg, the New York billionaire and favorite of East Coast elites, enters the field as an independent. With Hillary Clinton continuing to score badly in polls in the categories of honesty and integrity, and with the public's many doubts about Rudy Giuliani and other GOP contenders, Mr. Bloomberg may well see an opportunity to roil the political waters by entering the race late. If so, Mr. Dobbs then sees a niche for a "fourth-party" candidate who could paint the three other contenders as completely out of touch. At Dobb's Seattle Town Hall appearance earlier this week, the white-collar populist explicitly denied plans to run saying his wife wouldn't allow it (it's a democracy at home, he says, but she has all the votes). Nevertheless, it's conceivable "her" mind could change if the dynamics of the race do.