Chris Dodd for President

Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd is the longest of long-shot candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. But he doesn't seem too agitated about that.

He's an experienced politician. He knows how the caucus game often breaks late. Because of his 33 years of experience in Congress, he also knows something about U.S. foreign policy and the war in Iraq.

He does get agitated about that, particularly when the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination appear to be in no big hurry to get out. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all declined in last week's debate to say they'd have U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term - in 2013.

"I was stunned, literally stunned" to hear them say that, Dodd said in an interview for last weekend's Iowa Press program on Iowa Public Television. "It was breathtaking to me that the so-called three leading candidates would not make that commitment. That's six years from today."

"The one issue that gave us the majority in the House and Senate last year was Iraq. It's the dominant issue in the country. We're spending a fortune, $10 billion a month. Reconciliation is no closer today. I think for anybody out there wondering whether or not Democrats get this at all, or not ... to stand up and say six years from now, I will not make the commitment that U.S. forces will be out of Iraq, I found breathtaking."

And therein may lie an opportunity in Iowa for Dodd and the two other back-of-the-pack Democratic candidates, Bill Richardson and Joe Biden. All three of them promise to have U.S. combat troops out of Iraq well before that date.

While it's clear the three front-runners are hedging their bets, trying to be presidential by refusing to get pinned down on a key question, many Democratic activists are looking for something more definitive.

That gives those second-tier candidates a chance. That's because the Democratic presidential race has essentially been fought to a draw among the three front-runners in recent weeks. The Clinton-Obama-Edwards camps are deadlocked. Polls show them in a statistical tie for first place. Nobody's breaking through.

Clinton's unfavorable ratings are still troublesome, Obama lacks experience and Edwards has lost his hold on first place and his money has grown so tight he now must take federal matching funds.

Dodd is also probing those weaknesses.

On Clinton: "Electability is important here," Dodd said. He said the questions about whether Clinton can win are "legitimate, not because she has created it as such, but I think people want to move on." He said there's a sense "we need to get this behind us."

Dodd also said Clinton's promise to be a combative general-election candidate will turn off some voters. "Frankly, the country is tired of fighting," he said. "We want to know about succeeding and putting behind the bickering. Everyone is going to fight hard. But isn't it time the country came together and we started solving some of these problems? If it's just about a fight, a never-ending fight, the country is so turned off to that."

He noted Obama has served only 24 months in the U.S. Senate - 36 by November 2008, and "you're going to hear about that. We have major serious issues around the world. We're about as isolated a country as we've seen in our lifetime. And this is not just about rhetoric and appealing to people. Knowing how to do this and bringing people together is critical, and that's going to be an issue that will be raised, and I think it's a legitimate one."

Edwards, too, lacks experience. "This is a serious job," Dodd said, one that requires "more than just six years in public life."

The hope for Dodd, Biden and Richardson is that undecided caucus-goers, or those with only weak preferences for a front-runner, will agree with those concerns and opt for one of them.

It could happen. It's happened before. In this deadlocked race, the front-runners could fizzle if liberal Democratic activists think they're wimping out on Iraq - or would be wimps in November.

Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd expressed his hope Friday for talented people to join the military, an issue that arose after someone asked him why the military offered recruiting bonuses.

The Connecticut senator said it has become increasingly difficult for the military to retain soldiers, noting it is difficult for families.

"Families can't take it any longer," he said. "I want to see talented people want to make that a career choice. I don't want dumb, ignorant people who are less qualified joining the military."

Dodd said he was bothered by the perception that volunteers who sign up for the military are not "terribly bright or talented."

"We need to be as a nation here respecting those who do it and encouraging talented people and having leadership that won't send them to war as a choice, but will be there to do things out of necessity."

Dodd said that as president, he would begin redeploying troops from Iraq immediately. . . .

Standing on the front stoop of Joe and Sarah Pace's Pleasant View Drive home while his young daughter Christina hugged his leg, Sen. Chris Dodd told a crowd of 40 people why he decided to run for president.
Dodd, a longtime Democratic senator from Connecticut, told the crowd of his daughter's birth just two days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"I'm standing before you because of this young lady and her sister, who's 2 1/2, wondering what kind of world we're going to leave them," said Dodd, 63.
Dodd arrived at the Paces' house party just after 1:30 p.m. He addressed the crowd for more than an hour, touching up on his decades of experience in politics, his universal health care plan, his foreign policy experience and his plan for troop withdrawal from Iraq.
He acknowledged that he is not as well known as some of the candidates, but hopes the style of New Hampshire primary politics can change that.
Dodd was first elected to Congress in 1974 and served three terms in the House of Representatives before being elected a senator in 1980.
"I think experience does matter to people," Dodd said. "We've been through six years of on-the-job training with this administration." . . .

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., became one of first lawmakers to try to enact proposals from the president’s wounded warrior commission, introducing a bill Thursday night to give up to six months of unpaid leave to the family or caregivers of wounded combat veterans.

Dodd’s proposal would extend to military families benefits under the Family and Medical Leave Act, which allows up to 12 weeks of time off work.

Dodd introduced the bill, S 1894, at the urging of former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., one of the architects of the original Family and Medical Leave Act who also was co-chairman of the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors. That commission reported its recommendations to President Bush Wednesday.

“Our troops are giving their all on the battlefield,” Dodd said in a statement. “The very least our government owes them is its total support for their family and medical needs.”

In the days after Democrats took a beating at the polls in 1994, it was Chris Dodd who took to the podium in an empty Senate press room and reminded Democrats of who they were, what they had accomplished and what they had forgotten they were supposed to stand for. His leadership and vision at that time led Democrats to a presidential win two years later and started the path that recently led them to regain majorities in both houses of Congress.

When children went unnoticed and their needs unmet in the corridors of Washington, Chris Dodd took up their cause and became known to the nation as the children's senator. His efforts in Washington for more than 30 years have affected the lives of every family and every child in America, even before he came to know the joy of having children of his own.

Dodd is running a campaign for the presidency based on bold, comprehensive and thoughtful solutions developed to address our nation's most pressing problems.

His energy policy is more aggressive than that of any candidate in the field. He has called for bold solutions to address the warming crisis that plagues our nation and the world. In addition to raising fuel effiency standards, Dodd's plan will reduce 80 percent ofgreenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and make the Production Tax Credit permanent for clean and renewable sources of energy. It is the first among the presidential candidates' to advocate a corporate carbon tax, which will generate an estimated $50 billion annually to fund research, development and deployment of renewable technologies and expedite the process for bringing energy efficient technologies to market. . . .