Sheesh. C'mon Chris, give it up and go for Harry Reid's job. The Democratic Senate is bordering on useless without a real leader.

well, he does have an elevator pitch: "i'm the candidate who will stand up against the imperial presidency and in favor of your constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy."

and my guess would be that based on the "show him the money" netroots outpouring, he believes that he can finance sitting in iowa for a few months, elevating the profile of not selling out on FISA. (and because of iowa's atypical and unrepresentative nature, he can do it by sitting around in coffee klatches with people, which is probably the very best way to make the case against Bush-style fear-mongering....)

and my further guess would be that that's what he hopes to accomplish (that, and setting himself up as, say, a veep hopeful and/or cabinet hopeful).

I see Sam has decided to write a TNR piece instead of just reading one.

The best thing Sam could do for TAP is to quit.

Just in case this wasn't clear, I don't dislike Chris Dodd. I probably wouldn't pick him to be the nominee if it was up to me, but the I don't think he'd be a bad candidate.

He does have an elevator pitch: "i'm the candidate who will stand up against the imperial presidency and in favor of your constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy."

And that's not a bad one, though I'm not sure whether it makes much sense in a Democratic primary. After all, is there another candidate Dodd thinks isn't going to protect privacy rights? If so, I don't really see him saying it. If not, this isn't a useful message. Sure, he was more active against FISA, but I guess I don't see a whole lot of light between him and others.

VP is never going to happen. Cabinet is unlikely as well because the governor of Connecticut is a Republican.

Sam, being more active on FISA is the issue (in my scenario): he's already gotten obama to also criticize telecom immunity.

as for the broader atmospherics: you asked what was his point? i have no idea, of course, whether i'm right, and even if i'm right on FISA, that doesn't make me right on veep or cabinet, but the question isn't whether he's going to be the veep or in the cabinet, the question is whether he believes that camping in iowa, elevating an issue, and potentially having a decent showing there will help make him veep or cabinet material....

Howard, I see your point and it does make sense, especially the trying to bring attention to FISA part of it...

"After all, is there another candidate Dodd thinks isn't going to protect privacy rights?"

Well, is there another candidate who *has* done anything to protect privacy rights against the Bush-Cheney "legal" juggernaut?

That may sound snarky, but after watching Hillary, Edwards, and Obama all fail to rule out troops in Iraq until 2013, and watching the rest of the field -- which does, you'll note, include a few other *sitting* senators -- do *nothing* about telecom immunity, much less warrantless wiretapping generally, I think Dodd can be inferred to be saying to himself, like a guy reading a motivational book alone in the corner of a deserted bookstore, "Yeah, why not me? Why not now?"

Dodd's a clear loser and may well have gone off the deep end. It would be too complimentary to characterize his bizarre carpetbagging as "quixotic."

He's up 14 points in this month's Daily Kos straw poll, behind only Edwards. It's hardly a win in January, but there's no way it's not "momentum."

Could it just be cognitive dissonance?

It's not entirely implausible that he finds living in CT, well, nauseating. He probably can't go pick up his newspaper in the morning without getting hit up by the money manager mafia.

I've really got to hand it to Chris Dodd. Up till now, he barely registered on the horizon. Now he's the only candidate who is making as a central feature of his campaign the restoration of constitutional government.

The Bush administration has flouted all lawful authority over the exercise of the presidency. Let's call it what it is - a rogue presidency. Remedying the damage done to the foundational framework of the country over the past seven years will require addressing this issue directly.

Although the need to restore normal operation of the government subtly permeates virtually every facet of national politics right now, it is often ignored. The failure of the other Democratic candidates to focus on the sheer unlawfulness of the administration is yet another manifestation of the moral deficit afflicting American politics in these times.

Iowa is nice in the fall.

Oh, come on. Countless senators move their family to DC or its suburbs and enroll their kids in schools there. As long as Dodd still owns or rents a place in the state he represents, I'm sure he's OK. Iowa isn't legally different from Maryland or Virginia, where many congresscritters live.

he's pandering to the constitutionalists. all 30 of us.

A good man with a good record. He can't win, but maybe he's running to show the world what presidential hair should look like.

homer www.altara.blogspot.com.

I for one feel Chis is the best candidate. He has made real progress. No easy feat with the press printing only the views of the leading front runners.
He needs more exposure for folks to hear his message. They will then perk up. It seems strange at this early stage that the press only prints the latest exhales from the front runners. This is the time to listen to all the candidates there will be plenty of time later on to focus on the front runners.

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thanks

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