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The New York Observer had an interesting story tonight on an oft overlooked part of the overall decline of CNN in prime time — Lou Dobbs.  Similar to others on CNN, Dobbs’ ratings rose during the campaign, but have subsequently fallen back to earth.

What makes Dobbs’ fall most interesting, at least to me, is that his show is the one on CNN that is closest to the programs on Fox and MSNBC that CNN (Jon Fine, Howard Kurtz, etc.) so likes to criticize.  In fact, Dobbs has long been doing some things — a penchant for only interviewing guests who agree with him, self-important commentaries, stacked polls — that later became (in)famous with critics who don’t like the more partisan tone on the network’s competitors.

Can Dobbs recover?  Perhaps.  Remember, this is the second version of Dobbs we’ve seen on CNN — this one very different that the one that hosted “Moneyline” before leaving the network to try his hand in the Internet age with Space.com.  When he came back to CNN, he was more opinionated and with a harder, populist edge that attracted both the left and the right of the political spectrum.  Dobbs adopted both immigration and globalization as his bogeymen and rode both issues to ratings success last fall. He even started a nationally syndicated radio talk show that airs daily before his CNN show.

But, as the article points out, immigration is no longer as much an issue as it was a year or more ago, in part because illegal immigration has declined with the economic recession.  Therefore, Dobbs’ efforts to keep it front of mind have not been successful.  I even agree with his critics that he has sometimes crossed the line with his opinions on the evils of illegal immigration and the Bush and now Obama administrations’ response to it.

The big question, I guess, is will Dobbs have an Act III?  CNN’s public relations department had a big hand in branding him as “Mr. Independent” and stoking rumors that Dobbs might run for president.  Therefore, creating a “new Lou” is possible.  That said, only time will tell…