Where"s Jimmy Hoffa? Everywhere And Nowhere

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Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa (left) is pictured in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Aug. 21, 1969.

AP

Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa (left) is pictured in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Aug. 21, 1969.

AP

If it’s him, it’s going to be a letdown.

For the better part of 40 years, the disappearance of former Teamsters President James Hoffa has been a source of fascination on par with Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and the aliens in Roswell, N.M.

If the FBI finds and identifies his body, as agents are currently trying to do just outside Detroit, it will end the mystery and ruin the suspense, says Bob Thompson, a pop culture professor at Syracuse University.

“If it turns out it is Jimmy Hoffa, the story loses all its punch,” Thompson says. “Closure is the death knell to these kinds of things.”

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Law enforcement officials search an area in Oakland Township, Mich., on Tuesday for the remains of Teamsters union President Jimmy Hoffa who was last seen at a Detroit-area restaurant in 1975.

Carlos Osorio/AP

Law enforcement officials search an area in Oakland Township, Mich., on Tuesday for the remains of Teamsters union President Jimmy Hoffa who was last seen at a Detroit-area restaurant in 1975.

Carlos Osorio/AP

Hoffa disappeared in 1975. In terms of becoming a figure of popular interest, his timing was impeccable — it was not long after the first two Godfather films had been released, bringing mob culture to the forefront of broad American consciousness.

The presumption from the start was that Hoffa had been killed by mobsters who wanted to keep him from regaining control of the union, so he became the real-life embodiment of interest in the mafia and the whole metaphor of “sleeping with the fishes.”

The notion that Hoffa’s body might turn up just about anywhere — there have been numerous false leads along the way — became an enduring part of American folklore. The belief that he may have been buried in the end zone at Giants Stadium, which gained currency in the late 1980s, provided fodder for countless cartoons and wisecracks.

Saturday Night Live even speculated that Hoffa was inside R2-D2 in the 1977 film Star Wars.

By that time, Hoffa’s disappearance had been enshrined as part of the culture. The 1970s and 1980s were a time when compelling stories were routinely turned into movies and TV miniseries. Hoffa kept recurring as a juicy part for years.

Sylvester Stallone played a character based on him in F.I.S.T. in 1978. Five years later, Robert Blake played him in Blood Feud, which depicted Hoffa’s conflicts with Robert F. Kennedy, who had hounded him as a Senate staffer.

He was played by none other than Jack Nicholson in 1992′s eponymous Hoffa, and as late as 2003 provided a plotline in Bruce Almighty.

All this helped Hoffa sink in deep as fodder for comedians, who used his name as a punchline when talking about anything that had disappeared or seemed impossible to find.

There’s always a fascination with missing persons stories, says Thompson, the Syracuse professor. Everyone knows we all must die, but people who go missing entirely tap into primal fears.

That’s why some figures, from 1930s aviatrix Amelia Earhart to the three women found living in a house in Cleveland last month, remain so intriguing years after they first went missing.

If Jimmy Hoffa were somehow still alive, he would be 100 years old.

“Hoffa is really still in the Hall of Fame of compelling mysteries,” Thompson says.

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Where"s Jimmy Hoffa? Everywhere And Nowhere

Where"s the immigration air war?

Spending on immigration ads has only recently passed the $ 5 million mark. | AP Photo

With all the 1-percenter support for immigration reform, proponents of a comprehensive overhaul should be able to run enough pro-reform TV ads to block out broadcast prime time — if not the sun itself — from coast to coast.

So far, they haven’t.

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Up to this point, the national air war over immigration — perhaps the highest-stakes legislative debate of President Barack Obama’s second term — has really yet to leave the runway. Groups on both sides of the issue have invested real resources in television ads, but it only amounts to the faintest echo of the 2012 election’s paid-media cacophony.

According to figures compiled by two different media-tracking sources, the total spending on immigration ads by significant political groups has only recently crossed the $ 5 million mark, including broadcast and cable television, and radio spending.

(PHOTOS: Pols react to immigration deal)

That’s no small figure in absolute terms. But when you think about the financial resources of reform supporters – including much of the business and tech communities, big labor, the Chamber of Commerce, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, News Corp mogul Rupert Murdoch and more – it’s remarkably modest.

As a point of contrast: another tracking source said the debate over guns has cost over $ 3 million just in the state of New Hampshire, where Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns and the Gabrielle Giffords-backed Americans for Responsible Solutions have clashed on air with the conservative American Action Fund.

There’s no single explanation for the modest price tag for immigration: many donors are skeptical that Washington can accomplish anything of significance, or that outside-group activity can make the difference with a terminally dysfunctional Congress. Even some heavily funded groups — including many labor unions — think grass-roots pressure can be more effective than ads. And activists on both sides say the sensitivity of the issue means it’s smarter for pro-reform groups to deliver their message to targeted, persuadable constituencies with methods other than the costly and undiscriminating medium of broadcast television.

(CARTOONS: Matt Wuerker on immigration)

There is also the issue of timing; immigration reform has had relatively clear sledding in the Senate. Yet while supporters of immigration reform say they’re confident things are on the right track there, they’re also hoping for heavier-duty backup as the debate moves toward the House.

“As you look over the horizon to the coming House debate, I think it’s obvious we’ll need more support from stakeholders,” said Dan Conston, communications director for the American Action Network, one of the largest pro-reform spenders. “If proponents really want immigration reform to go from an idea to a law, now is the time to become stakeholders because much more will be needed.”

(Also on POLITICO: First immigration votes stalled)

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, a vocal backer of immigration reform, said more ad spending to support reformers could only help “show House Republicans that if somebody takes a cheap shot on this, there are resources” on their side. He emphasized that such spending wasn’t “absolutely necessary” at this point.

“The people you’re communicating with in the pews, in the business community have shifted, and polls show Republicans are willing to have a path toward legal status,” said the upbeat Norquist. “All of the guys who collect resources and help challengers and the Republican Party — guys like us, [the] Faith and Freedom [Coalition] — they’re all pro-immigrant.”

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Where"s the immigration air war?