2004
- July 6: John Kerry names John Edwards as his running mate. Lou Dobbs approves of the move.
- July 13: After a 10 state barnstorming tour, someone leaks information that Edwards possibly has had an affair and now has a lovechild. The enquirer and other less than reputable news outlets go wild.
- July 20: Kerry's poll ratings now show him about 11 points behind---a ten point drop since the scandal broke.
- August 1: In the midst of a brutal Washington summer, the lovechild story is the story that will not go away...when it is announced on Fox News that Edwards even visited his mistress while his wife was in the hospital receiving treatments for cancer, John Edwards finally decides to do the right thing and step down as John Kerry's running mate.
- August 10: Much to Lou Dobb's chagrin (he has only been a casual observer at this point), Ann Coulter goes on Rush Limbaugh's program and proceeds to call John Edwards every name in the book, from a child molester to a pervert to even a tax evader (?).
- August 12:
9:00 P.M.
Lou Dobbs, in a bold and risky move, decides on the spot to scrap the plans for his show that night. He proceeds to give a stunning rebuke of both parties, and the producers of the show are shocked and upset at first. "What in the h*** is that psycho son of a b***h doing up there!" exclaims Ted Turner, who is watching it from one of his Montana ranches.
9:12 P.M.
Mr. Turner gets on the phone with one of his executives at CNN and begins making plans to quietly replace Lou Dobbs and put him on "vacation" or something of that nature.
9:20 P.M.
The phone line operators at CNN are beginning to notice something very unusual: the phone calls and emails to CNN are beginning to trickle in faster and faster.
9:45 P.M. The phone calls about Lou Dobbs' show are now almost at triple capacity. There are so many emails coming in that it crashes the CNN server for the remainder of the show. Ted Turner is notified of this, and changes his mind about firing Lou Dobbs.
August 14:
Oprah is quoted as saying the following on her show to loud cheers: "We have John Kerry on the Democrat side and the Incumbent George W. Bush on the Republican side...well, how about neither! How about Lou Dobbs!"
August 19:
Lou Dobbs is quoted as saying on his show that the only way he will run for President is if he receives interest from his viewers. He says that he wants "ten million unique letters written to me...if I receive 9 million, 999 thousand, 999 I will not run for U.S. President as an independent." Although Mr. Dobbs has always been interested in the possibility of running for President, he thinks that will be the end of it.
August 26:
By now, more than two million individual letters have poured in and Lou Dobbs is astonished. He is beginning to think there might be something to this.
September 2:
At the end of Lou Dobb's show that evening he notices that he has received well over six million letters.
September 9:
With yet more letters coming in, Lou Dobbs stops the official tally at 10 million, 287 thousand, 1 hundred and 14 unique letters to him urging him to run for President as an independent. He can deny it no longer.
September 11:
Lou Dobbs announces via a live press conference that he will be entering the race as an independent.
September 15:
The first polls come out with Dobbs in the race. Bush: 40% Kerry 38% with Dobbs polling at a strong 12%