Chris Dodd for President

Senator Chris Dodd issued the following statement on New Hampshire's Civil Unions law taking effect today.

"Today, New Hampshire took a big step forward in ensuring that gay and lesbian couples enjoy the same rights and responsibilities as their fellow citizens. I was proud to support civil unions in my home state of Connecticut and I was proud to support Governor Lynch and the State Legislature when they passed this law last spring. I hope that New Hampshire's commitment to providing equal rights and responsibilities to all its citizens will serve as a positive example for the rest of the country."

Susanthe has a great diary about this at Blue Hampshire.

I took this picture inside our phone banking room in the Des Moines HQ. Amidst copies of the Des Moines Register, call logs, talking points, fact sheets of Chris Dodd's record of results and lots of empty coffee cups, I saw a print out of Blue Hampshire co-founder Mike Caulfield's endorsement post.

People often ask what the value of blogger endorsements is and I think this is evidence of it. Mike's argument in support of Chris Dodd, like that made by many other bloggers, is a thoughtful presentation of why Democrats should support Dodd's candidacy. It's exactly the sort of thing that volunteers and field staff find useful when talking to voters here in Iowa. Beyond that, it's great to have the encouragement of someone writing outside the campaign to pick you up in the midst of a long phone banking session.

Today, I'm heading on the road to cover Senator Dodd's events in Waterloo at one of my favorite restaurants in all of Iowa, Steamboat Gardens. From there, I'll head with the Senator to Dubuque for our campaign's New Year's Eve event.

I'll be staying on the road on New Year's Day to cover events in Cedar Rapids and a few other stops. I'll be posting videos and pictures from the road, as well as writing about the events as the Dodd campaign heads into the new year and towards the Iowa caucus on January 3rd.

Stay tuned for more updates from Iowa on the Dodd Blog.

Only ten days to go until Primary Day. Now is the time to get out there and do everything you can to convince the voters of New Hampshire that we need Chris Dodd and his proven leadership in the Oval Office.

With that in mind, our field team has put together a list of ten things you can do between now and January 8th to help Chris Dodd win the New Hampshire Primary.

1. Take off time to volunteer on January 8th, Primary Day

2. Call undecided voters in your neighborhood

3. Write a letter to the editor

4. Put up a yard sign in your yard- or your families’ or friends’ yards

5. Write to an undecided voter about why they should support Chris Dodd with our neighbor to neighbor postcard program

6. Participate in a visibility to show your spirit

7. Volunteer to house a staffer for the period of time between the caucus and the primary day

8. Canvass and drop literature in your neighborhood

9. Call in to drive time radio shows and talk about why you support Chris Dodd

10. Make or donate food to feed our staff and volunteers

I'm very happy to let everyone know that Mike Caulfield, one of the founders of Blue Hampshire, has endorsed Chris Dodd for President. Dean Barker, another Blue Hampshire co-founder, endorsed Senator Dodd in early September.

While Senator Dodd has been able to accumulate a great number of endorsements from a wide range of bloggers, Caulfield takes a very unique approach in writing his endorsement. Caulfield goes back over the course of Senator Dodd's twenty-six year tenure in the Senate and quotes news articles telling of Dodd's principled, progressive leadership in the face of adversity that produced real, meaningful change. Caulfield brings us back to Dodd's leadership in helping bring peace in Latin America and Northern Ireland, to standing up to the Reagan administration's bellicose foreign policy, to fighting tirelessly to pass the Family & Medical Leave Act, to managing the passage of McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, and more.

After spanning an inspiring range of stories about Chris Dodd, Caulfield writes about why he think Chris Dodd should be our President:

Dodd entered the Senate the very year the conservative movement arrived to dismantle the the progressive dream wholesale. Yet in that environment, in the 25 year period that will go down as the Conservative Era, he found ways to expand and extend that progressive dream.

Sometimes it was by getting on TV and telling the truth, no matter how offensive the civilized members of his party may have found it.

Sometimes is was through thoughtful negotiation with enemies. Other times it was through skillful navigation of complex rules of parliamentary procedure. Sometimes it was a late evening bulldozer push. And yes, sometimes it was about waiting to the 17th hole of golf to bring up the question of Gerry Adams's visa.

But it was always about how to get things done.

I've seen this on the campaign. Confronted with any new tool, the first question that occurs to Team Dodd is not "Can we use this for marketing?" but "How can we use this to advance our progressive agenda?"

So while Hillary took online suggestions for a campaign song, Dodd took online suggestions for filibuster reading material. While Obama built up his MySpace account, Dodd and his team built tools to route anti-FISA calls to Senators. While other campaigns invited bloggers to phone calls where the latest talking points were recycled, Dodd invited us into war-room like sessions where the strategy for cutting war funding was discussed and explained.

Personally, I believe we are at a 1932 moment in history. The last gasp of the Reaganism that tainted even the Clinton administration is being played out on that Republican debate stage. After November, they will sweep the remains of that grand movement into the dustbin of history.

You could choose those that stood back, and waited until history was on their side before they moved bold agendas forward. You could hope that their theories of change were correct.

Or you could choose the person, who, against all odds, advanced the progressive agenda through every means at his disposal.

I've seen Dodd sailing against the wind and been amazed. I can only imagine what he will do with the wind at his back.

Please join me in supporting Chris Dodd.

His readers will be able to look at this and see with utmost clarity why he stands with Chris Dodd.

Frankly, I cannot imagine a more ringing endorsement of a candidate who is basing his run on a career of leadership that got the job done than one in which the author sees results as the true test of the value of a person's words. I'm impressed that Mike - like many New Hampshire voters and astute political commentators - isn't content to decide who he will be voting for based on the coverage we're seeing about rhetoric being bandied about today. Instead he looks at Dodd's full record and measures the other Democratic candidates against it.

One of the themes that Caulfield brings out most convincingly is that Chris Dodd didn't just find out what he believes in when he started running for President. He didn't gain his voice when handed the microphone of a presidential candidacy - he's always had the courage to speak out on principle. He doesn't measure his experience by the resumes of the people advising him on policy - he helped shape the course of our country over twenty-six years in the Senate. He has consistently produced results that Democrats can be proud of.

As Mike writes, "I've seen Dodd sailing against the wind and been amazed. I can only imagine what he will do with the wind at his back."

Thank you for your support Mike! With your help and the help of countless others, we will see Chris Dodd in the White House in January 2009.

I hope everyone had a great Holiday. We came back from a short break to find another great letter to the editor about Senator Dodd's FISA fight. This one comes from Andrea Calandrella of Lebanon. It ran in today's Valley News.

There was a showdown on the floor of the US Senate on Dec. 17. The debate was over the proposed renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). At stake was nothing less than the US Constitution and the preservation of our civil liberties.

The specific issue was a provision to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally disclosed millions of private records, including yours and mine. These disclosures were made in response to warrantless requests from the Bush administration beginning in February 2001, months before 9/11.

FISA as it exists provides reasonable means to conduct surveillance legally and with proper oversight. To date, only 5 of 18,000 requests under FISA have ever been rejected. If the telecom companies acted in a legal manner, there is no need for immunity. If they acted illegally, the proper place to address this is in a court.

Chris Dodd left the presidential campaign trail to fight this granting of retroactive immunity. With passion and eloquence, he held the floor for over 8 hours on Monday until the majority leader, Harry Reid, postponed action on the bill until January 2008. Without Chris Dodd’s leadership and political backbone, there is no doubt that the bill would have passed with the inclusion of retroactive immunity. Watching him on C-SPAN was seeing democracy and statesmanship in action.