60 seconds of platitudes don't erase an hour of abuse

In the end, Jerry Springer's television show was a metaphor for his short-lived campaign for the U.S. Senate from Ohio.
Every day, on hundreds of stations throughout the United States and in a number of foreign countries, Springer broadcasts 58 or 59 minutes of trash designed to appeal to the basest instincts of the viewers. He then delivers a homily of a minute or two that is apparently supposed to give everything that went before some legitimacy. It's never enough.
And so it was with Springer's flirtation with running for the Senate. After spending about a decade as the king of trash TV, Springer came back to Ohio and spent a couple of months making serious political appearances and serious political speeches. The hope wasn't so much that this would give his television career legitimacy -- nothing was about to do that -- but that it would provide enough distance between Springer's shows and Springer's politics. It was not enough.
Not enough distance
And so, Springer ended his run for the Senate last week before it ever really began. At the close, he said what he had suspected from the beginning: that he couldn't run far enough or fast enough away from his television show to make a serious run for the Senate in 2004.
He said it with characteristic good humor, telling a press conference in Columbus that a Senate race should be about the issues, & quot;not a race about the three transvestites and a midget on yesterday's show -- which, by the way, was a great show. & quot;
Indeed, some of Springer's shows may have been great. But far too many of them exploited a man who found out on camera that his wife was cheating with his best friend, her best friend or their best friends, his brother, his sister, her brother, her sister or any combination of same. If a show wasn't about a man with a cheating wife, it was likely about a woman with a cheating husband, or a guy who found out that his girlfriend was really his boyfriend.
Keeping options open
While Springer is saying that he definitely won't be seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Republican George V. Voinovich, he's not ruling out an eventual return to politics (he had been a Cincinnati councilman and mayor before becoming a television icon).
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Springer wouldn't rule out a run against Sen. Mike DeWine in 2006, developing a liberal talk radio show to rival Rush Limbaugh or a return to Cincinnati politics.
But for now, Springer, 59, is committed to at least another year of sleazy TV, and the longer he plays to an audience that chants "Jerry, Jerry," every time things get out of hand on stage, the less likely it is that we'll be seeing "Jerry" on any campaign buttons.