Talk of Qwest being an acquisition target was reheated this week thanks to a report by Wall Street analyst and self-proclaimed "turnaround specialist" George Putnam. Putnam thinks Qwest would be a tasty snack for AT&T, Verizon, or a foreign company eager to establish a "beachhead" for a broader assault on the U.S. telecom scene. In his latest turnaround newsletter, Putnam says Qwest's done a good job at reducing costs, while the analyst gets excited about, of all things, Qwest's dying landline customer base:The problem is that Qwest lacks a wireless division, and their relatively un-aggressive ADSL2+ "next-gen" deployment plans may not fend off DOCSIS 3.0 cable. But they have streamlined in an admitted effort to attract suitors, and Putnam isn't the first Wall Street stock jock to find Qwest's tight purse strings and thrifty ways sexy. Of course the credit crunch might have something to say about any more huge deals, and it's hard to think an AT&T or Verizon acquisition of Qwest would see regulatory approval under a Democratically-controlled FCC.