The Legacy Of Chris Dodd

[babylonsister]

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=01&year=2010&base_name=on_chris_dodd

On Chris Dodd.



If I were a more autocratic boss, Tim Fernholz would be having a very bad day for his rather sanguine reaction to the news that Sen. Chris Dodd is retiring. Yes, Tim, it is a bad, and sad thing -- unless one's only interest is in "freeing up resources for other races" at the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.

I have one indelible memory of Dodd: In the hours before the giant welfare reform bill passed in 1996, I found Dodd huddled in a corner off the Senate floor cajoling Orrin Hatch (successfully) to agree to more funding for child care. And I remember thinking that while the rest of us liberal staffers were preparing our 24 bosses to wax eloquently about how tragic the bill would be for poor families, and vote an emphatic No, here was someone who was going to do all that, and yet was also determined to find a way to make it less bad, to squeeze some benefit out of it. In those moments, he was very much in the Ted Kennedy mold. At some moments, he was even more effective than Kennedy just because he was less of a symbolic, divisive, Olympian figure. Even in some of the ugliest moments in American politics, he seemed to take a joy in the work, in finding those moments when some good could be achieved.

And, yes, it's true: Sen. Dodd raised money from AIG employees in his state. But that says nothing about him -- that is our system. Every single senator except those who finance their own campaigns does the same. And no senator has done more to challenge and change that very system than Dodd, who until a mid-life marriage was consistently the poorest senator in a body loaded with self-financers. Dodd' support not just of mild campaign finance reform like the 2002 McCain-Feingold law, but of full public financing so that journeys to AIG headquarters would be unnecessary, was long-standing. He was the only candidate in the 2008 primaries to put the issue of campaign reform high on his agenda.

It's too bad that Dodd chose 2008 to finally follow through on his long wish to run for president. It was a tough field to break out of -- the opportunity just wasn't there. And in the course of it, he seems to have lost his connection to Connecticut's voters -- although I think that with enough time, he would have come back to win re-election. But even if he had, it's not as easy to function in the Senate the way Dodd (and Kennedy) did: to be partisan and unabashedly liberal and yet also find ways to work with people with whom they disagreed. That alone makes this a sad piece of news. But without the pressures of reelection, perhaps it will free Dodd to complete the work on financial regulation and the other issues he cares about -- including, I hope, campaign reform -- before he is able to at last spend more time with his two young daughters.

-- Mark Schmitt

[wisteria]

1. It is a shame it had to come to this. Dodd was and is a good man. n/t

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I am sorry he is going...

I have always respected him.

K&R

[bigwillq]

3. It's time for him to go.

I'm glad he made the decision to step down. I am now confident that DEMS will keep the Senate seat in CT.

[wisteria]

7. I think Dodd would have kept the seat for us if he would of tried hard to do so.

I am not so convinced that he would have lost. But, he would have had to try harder than he had in a long time to keep it. He did this for the party, but sometimes we have to remember that our party is made up of people who are not infallible,do make mistakes and have feeling too.
Your response seemed cold and heartless considering we are talking about a man-a patriot who has served this country for many, many years because he loves America and what the Democrats stand for.

[kickysnana]

4. For 15 years played good cop bad cop on Lyme with Spectre. n/t

[struggle4progress]

5. ... Dodd broke from the center of the party by opposing aid to the Contras as a "deal with the devil

Dodd Complex
The father, the son, and a Connecticut dynasty in peril.
Suzy Khimm
June 3, 2009 | 12:00 am
http://www.tnr.com/article/dodd-complex

17-Dec-1986
Publisher: Latin America Data Base / Latin American and Iberian Institute / University of New Mexico
Abstract: At a Dec. 13 press conference in San Jose, Costa Rica Democrat Sen. Christopher Dodd said US aid to the Nicaraguan contras was a mistake, pointing out that the recent $100 million aid package approved by Congress escalates tensions in Central America rather than promoting dialogue. Dodd will assume the chairmanship of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January. During the press conference, which took place at the El Zapote presidential residence, the senator was accompanied by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, Security Minister Hernan Garron and US Ambassador Lewis Tambs. Dodd stated that the region's serious political and economic problems must be resolved via diplomatic and political channels. For this reason, he said, support for the Contadora Group is paramount. Next, he stated that Nicaragua should be given a time period--one, two or more years--to channel the revolution towards democracy ...
http://lakh.unm.edu/handle/10229/70312

Sen. Dodd Presses Salvador on Slayers of Priests
January 11, 1990|MARJORIE MILLER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
SAN SALVADOR — After meeting with El Salvador's top military leaders, a key U.S. senator lauded progress in the investigation into the slaying of six Jesuit priests but warned that the Salvadoran government must push forward to prosecute the killers. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), head of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, also indicated at a news conference that Congress is seeking prosecution of the so-called intellectual authors of the Nov. 16 massacre of the priests, their cook and her 15-year-old daughter ... http://articles.latimes.com/1990-01-11/news/mn-209_1_dodd-priests-salvador

Dodd Honored by Washington Office on Latin America
Accepts Award for Work to Promote Human Rights in Latin America
September 18, 2008
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last night, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) was honored by the Washington Office on Latin America for his work in Congress to support and strengthen human rights in Latin America. Dodd accepted WOLA’s 2008 Human Rights Award at their annual gala, where he also addressed his vision for a strategic partnership between the United States and Latin America. “For too long, Latin America has been called our ‘backyard,’ and the people of Latin America have been treated in similar fashion,” Dodd said in his remarks. “But it’s not our backyard; it’s our neighborhood. And it is time for the United States to stop telling Latin America what it must do and start working with our neighbors to build a better community for us all” ... http://dodd.senate.gov/?q=node/4561

During "our" Central American wars in the era of Reagan and Bush I, Dodd was a bright light on the Americas (at least, in comparison to much of official Washington)

[wisteria]

8. Interesting information I did not know about. n/t

[Cha]

6. I haven't been following all

that Dodd has been doing but it's good to read this about him.

I can't wait until it's lieberman who is saying goodbye to Connecticut voters.

[Jennicut]

9. I am a bit sad but really, it was time. CT needs two new Senators.

Dodd did himself in with his own actions and though he did do some good over the years he really messed up with the mortgage thing.
Lieberman is not loved greatly here either.