Chris Dodd for President

Last night Senator Dodd spoke to 2,000 union members at the Hawkeye Labor Council Presidential Forum in Cedar Rapids. Dodd was fired up talking about his life-long support for labor -- support that has been returned to him by unions along the way. The Gazette Online reports, "Dodd went beyond the other candidates' support for legislating an Employees Free Choice Act by pledging to enact it by executive order to make it easier for workers to join a union. He also supported passage of fair-share legislation in Iowa." Watch Dodd's speech:

Senator Dodd had yet another strong performance in last night's AFL-CIO debate at Soldier Field in Chicago. Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic said Dodd had "a solid performance" -- and that was just the start of the positive coverage. It's worth noting that Dodd set the tone for the debate by proudly showing his long-time support for unions and recognizing the close connection between the ongoing war in Iraq and the need to refocus our energies on growing the American economy in a way that helps our middle class.

I'm a union guy, I am proud to be a union man. I happen to believe that putting our country back to work begins by cutting the funding for the war in Iraq. Spending $12 billion every month, spending two billion dollars every week, has got to stop if we are going to have a different set of priorities in our country.