The Dodd Campaign

I remember where I was when I heard that Chris Dodd had been elected to the Senate. It was November 1980 and I was 17, reporting the Reagan landslide for the Columbia University radio station, WKCR. In a ballroom at the Sheraton, I think, I was there for Jacob Javits's final defeat. The longtime Republican was forced to run as an independent after losing his primary to Al D'Amato. That night I watched the Democrats get eviscerated. Presidential timber fell like so much Oregon lumber. George McGovern, Birch Bayh, Warren Magnuson, Herman Talmadge--so many major names in the Senate were swept away. A couple of Democrats squeaked through, including the son of former Senator Thomas Dodd. Chris Dodd was a survivor and in the 26 years he's been in the Senate he's made a formidable name for himself. He's probably one of the best liked senators around town. Hale and hearty, late-in-life children and a late marriage have tamed the Kennedy within him and he's known for his serious work.

Witness this week. At the meeting with Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson, it would have been easy for Dodd to use the platform to demagogue against Wall Street. After all, he's unlikely to be handed a bigger platform for his dwindling presidential campaign than the subprime crisis which has strode up and planted itself at his committee's threshold. Dodd resisted the call for legislation to rein in the subprime market saying the regulatory agencies had enough authority. His one modest proposal was to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy more and different kinds of mortgages. I don't have big thoughts on the merits of any of those proposals. What strikes me as important is the restraint it takes for a man whose campaign is on the ropes not to use such an opportunity to demagogue. Compared to John Edwards who has shed his DLC skin and now is doing a very poor WIlliam Jennings Bryan impersonation, it's an admirable model of restraint.

Like a number of inside-the-Beltway types, I thought Dodd's campaign had more promise. He's probably the best natural orator of the bunch but he has yet to turn in a good debate performance. (Oh, that fly that wouldn't get off his white mane at the Drexel University debate last week!) He's yet to offer a really good argument for why he should be president. Biden, his cohort as sober and experienced and gray, seems to be getting better traction. Maybe the subprime crisis will give Dodd a chance to impress more than he has lately. If he does so with quiet understatement, so much the better.

I note, as always, that my wife, Mandy Grunwald, works for the Clinton campaign.