Chris Dodd for President

Experience. Achievement. Respect. Likability. These are all traits commonly considered requisites to winning the U.S. presidency. They are also terms commonly used to describe Senator Christopher Dodd.

Yet the Connecticut Democrat, who's seeking his party's presidential nomination, remains mired in the low single digits in national polls and in the critical early contests. Media pundits and pollsters say it's a three-way race: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

That says something about both this particular contest, with its unusual number of political heavyweights, and the presidential-selection process in general, which too often ignores the crucial question of qualifications for the office.

Dodd, 63, says he is unfazed by his lowly status in the polls: "This race is still very open and a lot can happen." He says campaigning this year has been "tremendously uplifting for me to see how, despite our problems, optimistic Americans are, how serious they are, and how much faith they have in the system."

More than Iraq or any other major issue, he says, there is a central question on voters' minds: "Are you listening to them?"

"He is very effective, with a great temperament for public office, a willingness to listen to competing points of view, yet a strong advocate for his principles," said the former Senate leader George Mitchell, a Democrat who served with Dodd for 14 years. "I never heard any senator say anything negative about Chris Dodd; in itself, that's striking."

Some political heavyweights, like Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, have held off entreaties for support from the front-runners, mainly because of their regard for Dodd. . . .

A day after a massive recall involving toys from China, Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, of Connecticut, called for suspending all imports of toys and food from China Wednesday.

"This is an issue of safety," Dodd said. "Parents should be confident that the toys and food that they give their children have been inspected and are safe. That's why I am calling on the President to use his authority to immediately suspend all imports of toys and food from China."

Dodd addressed the Iowa Federation of Labor and called for the tough standards to ensure fair trade with China.

Dodd said the country has the legal right under the World Trade Organization to keep products out of the country that threaten the health and safety of U.S. citizens.

"I'm going to do all I can to ensure we do so," Dodd said. . . .

No national union, including the AFL-CIO, has endorsed any candidates, state AFL-CIO President John Olson said Thursday. But Olson, who just returned from Chicago, where he watched the presidential debates, said he personally wants to see U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd elected president. . . .

Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), the new chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, wants to overhaul parts of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to protect industries and jobs that are vital to national security. Dodd told Defense News (January 29) he is “very concerned about whether we are doing everything possible to ensure that our nation’s defense production capabilities are as strong as they should be.” Dodd said the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy “is hemorrhaging, plain and simple – including jobs in defense manufacturing.”

The Senator is correct and the DPA is the right place to look for a solution, as it gives the government all the authority it needs to draft and implement an industrial policy that can safeguard the American economy in a brutally competitive and politically dangerous world.
The DPA was first enacted in 1950 and drew on the painful lessons the United States had learned in the world wars. On the eve of World War I, the United States was the world’s foremost economic power, with manufacturing output greater than Germany and Great Britain (the number two and three producers) combined. But the war would demonstrate that generic economic size did not smoothly transform into military power if a nation did not invest in defense industries prior to the outbreak of hostilities.

The United States declared war in 1917, but when American troops went into combat in 1918, they did so armed mainly with French machine guns, artillery, tanks and airplanes, supplemented by British equipment. U.S. factories could not shift quickly enough from consumer goods to military hardware, especially for items not built in America before. Manufacturing requires experience, not just a set of blueprints. And in some cases, British and French firms were reluctant to supply American firms with blueprints. This was particularly true in the emerging aircraft industry where European firms wanted to protect the progress they had made during the war from any post-war competition by American firms.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Christopher Dodd's 5-year-old daughter, Grace, was sick Thursday - but Dodd's wife works from home, so she could take care of the child.

"Suppose we both worked outside the home? Do I not go to work? Does she? This is what people grapple with every day," the Connecticut Democrat said at a news conference.

He used his own life to promote his latest effort to expand the Family and Medical Leave Act.

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