Dean Barker, one of the front page bloggers of the New Hampshire community site Blue Hampshire, has endorsed Chris Dodd for President.
After many months, since December in fact, I'm ready to make a decision and declare my support:
I am proud to endorse Chris Dodd for President.
Why Dodd? There are three fundamental reasons, but in the end it comes down to this. Chris Dodd is the strongest proponent of the progressive issues that matter most to me, and I trust him to carry those issues forward as President.
I teach Latin and Greek for a living. That means that I relive with students every year the collapse of the representative government of the Roman Republic and the rise of a dictatorship clothed in the language of "Empire." Today, we face a crisis in the very checks and balances of our constitution. Like the Romans, we have seen develop over the years an increasingly powerful executive branch. Its current manifestation is run amok - torture, secrecy, illegal spying, illegitimate war, a justice department no longer blind - take your pick. And like the Romans, we run the risk of losing one of the best experiments in government the world has yet seen if we do nothing to stop this trend. I do not want to see this country, which has given me so much, lose its soul in my lifetime. I at least owe it that much.
One of the central planks of Chris Dodd's campaign is restoring the Constitution. Others mention it, but he has put it front and center, and led on it. And this was the video that essentially sealed the deal for me.
Barker goes on to cite Dodd's bold plan for stopping global warming (in part through a carbon tax), and Dodd leading right now to end the war in Iraq and bring our troops home as the two other primary reasons that Dodd stands out as the best person to be President of the United States. Barker also adds that Dodd's swift and repeated calls to suspend the import of Chines food and toys impressed him immensely, as does Dodd's value of sharing the American experience through national service. Lastly, Barker is very impressed with Dodd campaign itself:
His campaign team presence, both in this state and within the netroots, has been outstanding. I know that's no reason to vote for a candidate, but considering what must be a smaller fundraising warchest than some of the others, I am amazed at how visible Dodd has been. His campaign does more with less, and perhaps that says a little about what type of administration he would run. And while many of the campaigns have figured it out at this point, there was a time when it seemed that Team Dodd was the only outfit around that understood that to get people interested in your candidate on blogs, you had to make the case at those blogs (instead of driving people to the website), and using recently shot video of events whenever possible. Or to put it another way, they have figured out how to do the NH style of retail politics in an online way.
We're very happy to have Dean on board in support of Senator Dodd and I look forward to his continued coverage of New Hampshire politics. If you're not already, add Blue Hampshire to the list of blogs you regularly read; it's a phenomenally strong community site and a great source for information about politics in New Hampshire, from the presidential campaign down to the municipal level.
And just to show that bloggers in early primary and caucus states are paying close attention to what's happening in other early states, Iowa blogger Lynda Waddington notes that Barker's is "an important endorsement for Dodd in the Granite State."
