Macon Telegraph, GA
11-20-07
Dodd's spent lifetime in politics, thinks he's due to step up
By DAVID LIGHTMAN - McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON
Christopher Dodd, then a rookie U.S. senator, eagerly opposed Dr. C. Everett
Koop's nomination to be surgeon general in 1981, arguing that "his personal
beliefs would keep him from impartial judgments."
Koop, whom the news media described as "a noted anti-abortionist" at the time,
won confirmation easily and turned out to be a popular, articulate health-care
spokesman. A few months later, a chastened Dodd sent him a note, apologizing.
"I voted against him, and I regret it," Dodd would say, "because he turned out to
be one fine surgeon general."
The story is vintage Dodd. "He sees the big picture, and he works on a very
human scale," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a longtime friend and
confidante.
But the Koop story also illustrates what skeptics say is Dodd's biggest weakness:
He's too much a creature of Washington.
"All he has is Washington experience, and that's an enormous burden," said
Steffan Schmidt, a professor of political science at Iowa State University.
"His image outside Washington is that he's a tax-and-spend liberal."
Dodd counters that that's too simplistic, but Washington unquestionably has
shaped him.
Dodd's political roots stretch back to his father, Sen. Thomas J. Dodd of
Connecticut, who served from 1959 to 1971. His career was broken in 1967,
when the Senate censured him for using campaign money for personal
purposes.
Tom Dodd never recovered: He lost his 1970 re-election bid badly and died at
age 64, five months after he left office.
His son made it his mission to restore honor to his father and their name.
"Sometimes, I think almost everything Chris Dodd does down here is meant to
vindicate his father," said Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who served with both
men. Chris Dodd sits at his father's desk in his Senate office, and an illuminated
life-sized portrait of Tom Dodd hangs there.
Equally important, though, is how Dodd grew up watching and enjoying the
peculiar rhythms of the U.S. Capitol.
He loved the action, the process, the people. When he was 30 in 1974, he
triumphed in a tough primary and won an eastern Connecticut seat in the House
of Representatives. Six years later, when Democratic incumbents were falling as
rarely before in the 20th century, Dodd became one of two freshmen Democrats
elected to the Senate.
He had an innate understanding of the institution. His father's Senate friends
counseled him, and the young senator patiently built a reputation and seniority on
the Banking, Labor and Foreign Relations committees, hoping someday to
emulate mentors such as Tennessee's Jim Sasser and Maryland's Paul
Sarbanes, who quietly crafted sweeping consensus legislation.
From them, Dodd learned patience and the value of collegiality.
He'd come to the Senate at a highly polarized time, when conservatives were
newly ascendant and Republicans had won control for the first time in 26 years.
Dodd made alliances with Republican colleagues who were hardly political soul
mates: Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter on children's issues, Texas' Phil Gramm on
securities law, Utah's Orrin Hatch on family legislation, Nebraska's Chuck Hagel
on infrastructure overhaul.
Dodd became a highly popular insider, so much so that when Sasser, in line to
be the next Democratic Senate leader, was upset in his 1994 re-election bid,
veteran senators urged Dodd to jump into the race. He wound up losing his lastminute effort to Tom Daschle by one vote, but President Clinton noticed.
Clinton offered him the general chairmanship of the Democratic Party; a shocking
choice, since Dodd had never been active in party affairs and was viewed
outside Washington as the kind of Northeastern liberal who'd just led the party to
electoral ruin.
Dodd took the job and toured the country, charming skeptics, finding common
ground in state after state.
But his new job came at a price. He was the chairman in 1995 and 1996, a time
when Clinton was letting big donors sleep in the Lincoln bedroom or have coffee
with White House big shots.
A Senate committee investigated. While it found that Dodd had done nothing
wrong, the controversy kept him from seeking the vice presidential nomination in
2000 when Al Gore's representatives asked whether he wanted to be considered.
Instead, the nod went to Connecticut's junior senator, Joseph Lieberman. That
blocked Dodd from the White House not only in 2000 but also in 2004, when
Lieberman sought the office and Dodd deferred to his more prominent homestate colleague.
Dodd thought his time had finally come this year, but his Democratic rivals
contest his natural constituencies. Hillary Clinton is the darling of Wall Street and
the Northeastern liberal crowd. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and Clinton are the
favorites of the black community, whom Dodd has championed throughout his
career.
Dodd speaks fluent Spanish and served in the Peace Corps in the Dominican
Republic, but Latino voters may be drawn more to New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson, who's Hispanic. Even in foreign relations expertise, Dodd, number
two on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is vying with the panel's
chairman, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden.
Ironically, Dodd, who stresses his experience, still has to overcome his resume.
"All people know of Dodd is that he's from the U.S. Senate," said Dennis
Goldford, a professor of politics at Drake University in Des Moines.
Typically, Dodd betrays no disappointment, no frustration at such talk. Sit with
him on a long bus ride through Iowa, talk to him on the streets of New
Hampshire, and he betrays no anger or irritation.
After all, this is a man for whom things usually have worked out. He spent many
years mired in the Senate minority, but now he's the chairman of the Banking
Committee. He's seen his father's reputation restored: Today there's a research
center at the University of Connecticut and a minor-league ballpark in Norwich
named for Tom Dodd. He himself just finished writing a book about the senior
Dodd's experiences as a prosecutor in the Nuremberg war-crimes trials after
World War II.
Patience and perseverance, Dodd is convinced, will pay off.