This is not meant as an attack on him: I understand he is an entertainer. Nonetheless, his programs are as uninformed and unenlightening as "The Majority Report", which in turn usually just makes me feel sorry for Janeanne Garofolo, an entertainer whom I otherwise enjoy.

There are so MANY potential programmers for AA; why we are compelled to listen to mediocre entertainers doing schtick is beyond me. I don't believe for one moment that the audience is that fleeting or lowbrow.

This is not to say that AA may not have approached  better leftist radio professionals -- I do not follow AA's inner workings. I speak only as a former radio producer myself and a current radio consumer.

Springer's program clearly needs a better research staff and some interesting guests if it is ever to rise above the merely banal. And no -- it bears no resemblance to the circus of his TV show. But it doesn't hold a candle to the work of [to choose a broad range of style/politics] Bill Moyers, Phil Donahue, Jim Hightower, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, Molly Ivins, Dennis Bernstein, Maria Gilardin or any of many others I'm sure you all could name.

We need more information and less giggle. Less Franken vs his Limbaugh buddy, less Janeanne vs her father, and lots more Laura Flanders and Mike Malloy telling us "how much he hates these people!" , less oy-oy-oy and more Steve Earle. Why not re-run "Democracy Now" & "Your Call" in the late night hours instead of sub-licensing that time to dreadful 12-step programming?

My .02 - YMM, of course, V -- and I will miss Rachel, Liz & Chuck D a LOT.

They [as do I] see the party as just barely this side of the Republicans in far too many key areas, and equally in the thrall of its large [and largely conservative] corporate contributors. Witness the recent embarrassment on the Bankruptcy bill. We should be enraged by the self-serving actvions of Biden and the rest.

Despite his huge personal magnetism, Clinton took the party far too much to the center and started the triangulation that has produced candidates as lifeless and uninspiring as Kerry.

I don't want to hear someone who is "in sync with the ears of the nation" -- we have far too mnuch of that blanderized content already. NPR & PRI provide buckets of it daily. We should be fighting  the fire of the right with our own, not with infotainment.

Why not Tavis Smiley? Why not Michael Eric Dyson or Cornel West? Instead of more MOR centrism. We need voices that challenge the 'dominant paradigm' -- which is why I favor the Malloys & the Flanders over the entertainers like Springer, Franken & Garofolo.

In my opinion, Springer is dead wrong for Air America and an indication of a clear shift in direction to the center -- the last place we should be moving.

As always, YMMV.

I think people are deluding themselves if they think Jerry Springer can attract the support of the majority of the voters in Ohio or anywhere else. He's got the dough to pay for some consultants, but it will take a lot more than that to overcome the image produced by his TV show. It doesn't take a genius to come up with some pretty devestating TV commercials to run against him.

I think most folks here would be laughing hysterically if he was trying to run as a Republican, and while party loyalty is sometimes a virtue, it shouldn't blind us to reality. A landslide loss is likely for Springer if he's the Democratic nominee for Ohio Governor. I only hope he doesn't take too many good people down with him.