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.
