Dobbs recently left CNN, reportedly with an $8 million payoff, after Latino and immigrants’ advocates campaigned the network to oust him for vilifying Latino immigrants on his nightly news show. In announcing his departure, Dobbs promised to continue to “be a leader in [the] national conversation,” which he’s suggested could include a run for political office.

That may be why he told Maria Celeste on Telemundo that “I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together.”

The Los Angeles Times notes that the wealthy Texas-born host lives on a 300-acre farm in Northwest New Jersey, where he could launch a run for a Senate seat. Unless his sights are already on the presidency.

What reason is there to believe that Dobbs, a bottom-feeding broadcaster who struggled to draw 800,000 nightly viewers, has a ready pool of voters waiting for him? All I see is a 2006 Rasmussen Reports poll suggesting that a third-party candidate who talked about ending immigration, as Dobbs does, would score 30 percent of the vote. A Dobbs boomlet makes more sense that the truly foolish “Unity 08″ boomlet of 2007, when some retired campaign consultants suggested that some combination of independent-minded politicians should run for office, just because.

Last night, Dobbs told his audience that he would be leaving the network, saying that “some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role here at CNN and to engage in positive problem-solving, as well as to contribute positively to the great understanding of the issues of our day,” he said.

In fact, as the The New York Times and others reported last night, Dobbs had been told by CNN president Jonathan Klein to tone down his anti-immigration rhetoric and report a straightforward newscast. Although at first he agreed to go along, yesterday he announced that he’s no longer playing the game.

There’s been much speculation since Dobbs met with Fox News president Roger Ailes that Dobbs will join the Fox News Channel, but yesterday both Dobbs and Fox denied having any such arrangement.

Roberto Lovato, co-founder of Presente.org, an advocacy organization coordinating the BastaDobbs.com campaign, said he’s “thrilled that Dobbs no longer has this legitimate platform from which to incite fear and hate.”

Dobbs, however, is not likely to fade from the media spotlight anytime soon. As he put it yesterday, he feels he has an important role to play. Citing health care, jobs, immigration, climate change and the ongoing wars as the major issues of the day, he said:

“Unfortunately, these issues are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than rigorous empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion. I will be working diligently to change that as best I can. And as for the important work of restoring inspiration to our great free society and our market economy, I will strive as well to be a leader in that national conversation.”

“Basta Dobbs” [translation: "Enough Dobbs"] is sending around this video about CNN anchor Lou Dobbs and his connection to anti-Latino hate crime. Dobbs, of course, has long been a target of criticism from Latino organizations and those who monitor hate groups, because for years he’s obsessively focused on the subject of illegal immigrants in the United States, and regularly refers to “criminal illegal aliens” as the source of many of the country’s worst problems, from rape and murder to failing schools and communicable diseases.

The effort to oust Dobbs from CNN is heating up now because the network has decided, in an effort to cater to the growing Latino population in the United States, to run a new two-part special program called “Latino in America”. Yet “Latino in America,” which premieres tonight and tomorrow, curiously neglects to mention that Dobbs spreads “fear and hatred in our communities,” as Basta Dobbs puts it on the group’s Website.

BastaDobbs.com is organized by Presente.org — a coalition of about 40 Latino organizations in 25 cities across the United States.

Update: Asked for CNN’s response to the “Drop Dobbs” and “Basta Dobbs” campaigns, a CNN spokesperson (who asked not to be named) said “we do not have a comment.”  She also would not discuss whether the network is considering canceling or not renewing Dobbs’s contract. “We do not discuss contract negotiations with anyone,” she said.

According to the poll, 59 percent of people questioned opposed sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan with 39 percent in favor. Of the 59 percent opposed, 28 percent want Washington to withdraw all U.S troops, 21 percent are calling for a partial American pullout, and 8 percent say the number of troops should remain the same.

I don’t know what follows from a sentiment that Afghanistan is another Vietnam. Vietnam is a bit of a Rorschach test. But it’s obviously a bad thing. Although Matthew Yglesias points out that Vietnam ultimately didn’t turn out so bad in the long run!

Too bad CNN just rejected the ad.

The immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice last week harshly criticized CNN for not mentioning that Dobbs is “one of the biggest menaces facing Latinos in America” because of his relentless focus on illegal immigration, largely from Latin America, as the source of many of America’s ills.

In response, it created this TV ad, with Media Matters, under the headline “CNN: Drop the Hate, Drop Dobbs,” that ends with a plea to viewers to sign the “Drop Dobbs” petition that’s been circulating online and on Twitter and Facebook.

Yesterday, the groups submitted the ad to CNN, asking the network to run it during the “Latinos in America” shows.

Not surprisingly, CNN today rejected the ad. The groups still hope to run the ad during the “Latinos” show on another network, if it can find a willing host.

Today, Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice, a nonprofit group that advocates comprehensive immigration reform, issued a long statement in response to CNN, calling Lou Dobbs “one of the biggest menaces facing Latinos in America” due to his frequent immigrant-bashing and blaming just about every problem in the U.S. today on illegal immigrants.

America’s Voice, along with Media Matters and others, has called on CNN to drop Dobbs from its news lineup. Sharry today asked whether CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, who will host the new show, was ordered not to mention Dobbs and his controversial role.

“Truth is, when it comes to Latinos in America, Lou Dobbs is the elephant in the room,” says Sharry. “If the ‘Latino in America’ series is to be considered credible, doesn’t the series have to deal with that fact? Moreover, isn’t it time for the serious journalists at CNN to stand up for the network’s brand and their own reputations? Isn’t it time for journalists to stand up to executives who sully the reputation of this once-great news network every time they put Lou Dobbs on the air?”

“Well, there’s still time,” he says. “But is there hope? We’ll see when the series begins to air on October 22.”

But this morning I heard Barbara Starr on CNN saying that Gen. McChrystal’s resource request was a “single option document” giving the president “no wiggle room.” Is that right?

Air Force Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, McChrystal’s spokesman in Kabul, wouldn’t get into the substance of the request itself. But he did say that Starr’s report was wide of the mark. Sholtis:

As [Pentagon spokesman] Geoff Morrell indicated this week, it is an analytic document that lays out levels of risk associated with force structure and makes recommendations.  Since it is based on an assessment that is still being reviewed by the administration, to suggest that it provides “no wiggle room” is both to misunderstand where we’re at in the process and to mischaracterize what General McChrystal feels is his proper relationship to national decision-making.  As he told the New York Times, he welcomes alternative proposals for how to stabilize Afghanistan.  ”This is the right kind of process, and the way I see duty. I have been given the opportunity to provide my inputs to the decision. Then it is my duty to execute that decision.”

What accounts for the recent drop?

“Most of the recent erosion in support has come from within the GOP,” said Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director. “Unlike Democrats and independents, Republicans still favor the war, but their support has slipped eight points in just two weeks.”

That support is still at 62 percent from Republicans, as opposed to only 23 percent of Democrats and 39 percent of independents, so I think the partisan dynamic mentioned in my piece today still holds.

*Full disclosure: The Seminal is hosted by the mighty Firedoglake blog empire, which also hosts my personal blog.