[media-credit name=’BEN CLASSON/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]

Recently ranked No. 32 in Bernard Goldberg’s book “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America,” Jerry Springer commented, “I should have been in the top 10.”

Jerry Springer spoke in a personal interview with The Badger Herald last night before his talk at the Orpheum Theatre, where the Jewish Cultural Collective brought him as part of his “Jerry Springer Goes Back to School” college campus tour and All-Campus Party 2008.

Walking into Springer’s dressing room at the Orpheum, the remarkably personable man quickly jumped up to greet the newcomers (he had been laying on an antique couch), even setting up chairs for the interviewers. Any preconceived notions of the 64-year-old talk show host as a crass ploy of the entertainment industry were quickly proved false.

Springer was eager to comment on the presidential race during the interview, candidly expressing concern over the manner in which elections are conducted.

“We choose a president as if we’re voting on American Idol,” Springer said, also pointing out that historically, the “coolest” candidate invariably wins.

When asked who he sees as the most competent candidate rather than the coolest, Springer said, “On sheer competence I’d have to say Hillary, but she’s not the coolest, and therefore … Barack will probably get that nomination.”

Springer, who went to law school at Northwestern University and served as mayor of Cincinnati from 1977-78, displayed incredible comprehensive knowledge of American political history. He said that his best job was being mayor, where he “was really doing something substantive and affecting people’s lives in serious ways.”

He opened his talk with what he said were the “three key issues that have to be addressed to save America,” which he outlined as education, jobs and health care, especially stressing the last issue.

There was also a remarkably personal aspect of his talk. Springer told of how he came to America as a 5-year-old on the Queen Mary in 1949, after most of his German-Jewish family was sent to concentration camps in World War II.

Springer said that this experience was the basis for his most fundamental belief: All things are possible.

“I went from the Holocaust to a ridiculously privileged life in one generation because of my silly show,” he said.

Springer displayed surprisingly self-reflexive humor about “The Jerry Springer Show,” which is now in its 17th year.

“The show is put on purely for entertainment,” Springer said onstage. “It has no social value.”

Quickly thereafter, however, he defended the show as being hypocritically criticized for bringing up socially relevant topics by people who don’t like to see perspectives other than those portrayed by regular media spokespersons, people who he denounced as being carefully selected to politically correctly represent a local racial mix and speak in a perfect, Midwestern American accent, regardless of their race.

About his show, he commented, “The show is 95 percent real,” adding that he doesn’t know the guests or their stories before recording. He said there is no need for scripting because the producers get thousands of calls from people who want to be on the show.

“You’re not allowed to be on the show if you’re not crazy,” he added. “If their message is warm and uplifting, we have to send them to another show.”

But talk about his own success was relatively limited. He even said, “There’s nothing good about being famous. You get a good seat at a restaurant but that’s about it. You lose your privacy, and you become the subject of jokes and conversations.”

Politics were clearly, if not a bit surprisingly, Springer’s strongest passion.

“I spend most of my time doing politics,” he said. “My show is only two days a week.”

But despite his political crusading, his show remains, somewhat unfairly, his namesake. This was evident by the crowd’s shouts of, “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” as he came onstage, and Springer’s stories during the interview of men chanting his name while he was using public restrooms at various sporting events.