Chris Dodd for President

Do you still need a good Halloween costume? Well why not go as the next President of the United States?

Required Materials and Instructions for the Chris Dodd Halloween Costume:

White Hair - Use hair color to turn your hair into a bright white just like Chris Dodd's.

The white hair represents the seven years and two presidential vetoes that Chris Dodd had to work through to pass the Family and Medical Leave Act. It also represents the 26 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where Chris Dodd has been involved in every major foreign policy decision over the last quarter century. A fluent Spanish speaker, Dodd personally met with world leaders to help resolve conflicts in Latin America. In addition, he worked closely with Senator Ted Kennedy and President Bill Clinton to help facilitate the Good Friday Peace Accords that brought peace to Northern Ireland.

A Passion for Service

As a young man, inspired by President Kennedy, Chris Dodd joined the Peace Corps in 1966 and served for two years working in a rural village in the Dominican Republic, where he became fluent in Spanish, before going on to serve his nation in the National Guard and Army Reserves.

A copy of the Constitution

Chris Dodd carries a copy of the constitution with him everyday. As a Senator he has fought tirelessly to restore the constitution and roll back the Bush Administration assault on the rule of law. As President, the first thing he will do in January 2009 is restore the constitution, restore the rights of Habeus Corpus, and restore America's Moral Authority.

A folder with literature about Dodd's bold ideas

Whether the issue is Iraq, restoring America's standing in the world, driving down health care costs, fixing our schools, or building an economy that works for all Americans, Chris Dodd is offering bold, innovative ideas because he knows half-measures won't get the job done.

A few of Dodd's bold ideas to mention:
A corporate carbon tax that would punish polluters and spur the innovation of environmentally friendly technology.

Free community college for all Americans.

The American Community Initiative - a comprehensive national service plan that will draw upon the very best of our character to call Americans to service.

This video from Le Mars, Iowa is a couple weeks old, but in it Senator Dodd gives a great explanation of why we need to institute a Corporate Carbon Tax to stop global warming.

You can read the full Dodd energy plan here.

Last week DailyKos commenter episty wrote, "If Chris Dodd doesn't stop acting like a leader....I just might have to vote to make him one."

I think this sentiment captures Chris Dodd's candidacy for President and the leadership he has displayed in the Senate along the way very well. On issue after issue, Dodd has stepped forward and defined the forward edge of the Democratic field.

On Iraq, he has repeatedly called for ending America's involvement in Iraq's civil war by setting a date certain for withdrawal and enforcing that by tying it to funding. As another Democrat candidate has recently turned to saying, "No timeline. No funding. No excuses." That is the Dodd plan for ending the Iraq war in a nutshell. And not only does it exist on the small screen of America's TVs and the pixels of our computers, it's the only piece of legislation in the Senate that will succeed in ending the war in Iraq.

This isn't a recently arrived-at position for Chris Dodd. He lead the Democratic field during the supplemental funding debate in May -- declaring long before any vote was cast that he would not vote for legislation that failed to include a firm, enforceable date to end the war. Senators Clinton and Obama never said how they would vote and waited until the 18th minute of the 15 minute vote to cast their ballot in the right place.

This time around, Dodd stated that he would not vote for "any measure that does not have a firm and enforceable deadline to complete the redeployment of combat troops from Iraq" weeks before a vote would come. He called on his opponents to state clearly and directly if they would vote for Iraq legislation that did not include a firm timetable tied to funding. While none have directly answered the question, Senators Clinton and Obama seem to be making moves to follow Dodd's lead and do the right thing. They would not be there were it not for Chris Dodd's leadership and the pressure from grassroots Democrats around the country -- who've sent thousands of letters to their Senators -- to get them to support legislation that actually will end the Iraq war.

But Dodd isn't just leading on Iraq.

On energy policy, Dodd is the only candidate to call for a Corporate Carbon Tax. Any plan that lacks this bold move fails to pass the smell test -- because polluters will only stop polluting when it's made too costly for them to pollute.

Dodd is the only candidate who has pledged to restore the Constitution in his first hour in office. He's not waiting until January, 2009 to effect change, though. He's doing it now. The Restoring the Constitution Act will reverse the terrible Military Commissions Act -- not just restore habeas corpus, but ban torture and ensure that America honor our commitments to the Geneva Conventions.

And much, much more. Education. National Service. Health care. Protecting America's middle class. Transforming America's relationship with Cuba.

Quite simply, Chris Dodd has defined what it means to be a leader in America today. In the Senate he has used his office to push for the real, substantive change that these times demand. On the campaign trail he has pushed for the most bold plans for the future course of American policy. No other candidate has offered the breadth of leadership on issues that Americans deeply care about and are demanding leadership on.

Now is the time to take the support for Chris Dodd's leadership on these issues and turn it into votes for Chris Dodd to lead America as our next President. All apologies to you, episty, but Chris Dodd is not going to stop leading, so you'll just have to vote to make him President.

Amanda Griscom Little has an interview of Senator Dodd on the environment and global warming up in Salon today. Here's a clip of the interview on Dodd's corporate carbon tax plan:

You are the only candidate calling for a carbon tax -- a proposal that some consider political suicide, because you can't make taxes appeal to voters. What are you hearing on the campaign trail about this?

The American people handle the truth very, very well. What they don't handle well is people in public life promising results without talking about what has to be done to get those results.

We're talking about a corporate carbon tax that would generate $50 billion a year, with the likely cost passed on to consumers being about 10 cents per gallon of gasoline. My argument is, yeah, this is not inexpensive, but look what's happening to prices today, under the status quo. Gasoline is about $3 a gallon on average across the country. Many think it's going to go to $4 or $4.50 a gallon later this summer. So prices are going up a lot more than the 10 cents a gallon we're talking about.

Even if your prices were not going up that high, we spend about $300 billion a year to purchase fossil fuels offshore. About $100 billion goes to countries who are very hostile to our interests. So the status quo is both dangerous and costly.

Do you have any anecdotes from the campaign trail where you talk to voters about this and they say, "Hey, I get it"?

Yeah, they do. It takes you more than a bumper sticker to say it, so if you're looking for bumper stickers I don't have one yet for you. But I'm finding a very strong reaction to it. People are recognizing that this makes sense from a health standpoint, an environmental standpoint, a national security standpoint, a job creation standpoint.

How will the revenues of your proposed carbon tax be spent?

They'll be placed into a Corporate Carbon Tax Trust Fund to fund fast-tracked research, development and deployment of renewable technologies such as wind, solar, ethanol and other biofuels. It will also expedite the process for bringing energy-efficient technologies to market and ensure energy-efficient products such as bulbs and household appliances are price competitive, and it will offer tax credits on hybrids and other clean and efficient automobiles to make these cars affordable for all Americans. Being wealthy should not be a prerequisite to living green.

I have a couple video clips that I wanted to share with you from Senator Dodd's house party in Concord, New Hampshire earlier today. In the first clip Dodd talks about the need to tax polluters if we want to stop global warming. He's makes it very clear that while all Democratic Presidential candidates want to end global warming, no one else has stepped forward with "ideas that help us get there." He's the only candidate who's called for a Corporate Carbon Tax, which will discourage big corporate polluters. In this clip, Dodd talks about the questions voters are asking him on the campaign trail -- and more importantly what those questions really mean. Voters ask, "Are you listening to me? Are you paying attention to me?" They want to know what a candidate's values and principles are. Dodd says, "And I think most of you here are not just going out to a horse track and trying to pick who the winner will be. But you'd like to, I think, be a part of choosing who the winner ought to be. Who is the best candidate to represent our party? Who is the best person to lead our country?"