Surely you don't believe that the persona that Springer displays in his ridiculous TV show is his real personality? The man is an actor. That's his job.

[.....] I don't think Jesse Ventura body-slammed anybody in the Minnesota governor's office...

This is a good counter-argument to my instinctive, horrified reaction. OTOH, right or wrong, I really feel ill when I see all of the "My daughter seduced my husband's grandfather!!" Ricki/Sally/Jerry TV. Maybe I should lighten up --people are gonna watch they are gonna watch -- but I don't get the same nauseous feeling when i channel surf across WWF (um I guess it's WW-something now) as I do when I surf across the jerrys of the world.

Springer is bright, articulate, and obviously driven to succeed. These are not bad qualities in a politician.

Jerry was mayor of Cleveland, was he not? And I have seen him mount a pretty good defense of his recent talk-show self. I'd say it is pretty much impossible to be a successful politician without a pretty huge self-promotion instinct....

Frankly, I would vote for just about anybody who could demonstrate that his every action was not dictated solely by his perception of that action's effect on his being re-elected.

Agreed. I do wonder about Jerry in this respect, but I'll try to keep the Jesse Ventura analogy in mind, chill out, and watch what goes down. It's not like he'll be running anywhere where my vote can doom his campaign!