Chris Dodd for President

Here is some video from the "12 Days of Results" kick-off event in Grinnell on Thursday. Dodd addressed a standing-room-only crowd for about twenty five minutes before turning to the audience members' questions. These videos are some of the best I've seen so far. Stay tuned for more video as the tour continues...

Dodd's Speech

Question and Answer Session, Part 1

Question and Answer Session, Part 2

M.R. Field of Around Des Moines has a great write up of Senator Dodd's visit yesterday to the House of Mercy, a transitional housing provider for women receiving treatment for substance abuse, where he talked about his Women and Families plan, among other subjects.

Lynda Waddington posted this video from yesterday's Women and Family plan roll out. Eva Bunnell's daughter Jacinta was born severely disabled and Eva's prolonged fight to give her daughter the care she needed was one of major motivations for Senator Dodd to write the Family and Medical Leave Act. In the video Bunnell speaks about her experiences and how Senator Dodd helped her.

John Lynch of The Gazette has a great write up on Dodd's event in Cedar Rapids yesterday.

Democratic presidential hopeful Chris Dodd called for a "new patriotism" that involves investing in people and making social programs like women's health, child care and education priorities and helps people be self-sufficient.

"We talk about patriotism and defending our country, which we understand," Dodd said after a round-table discussion of women's issues at the Jane Boyd Community House in Cedar Rapids on Monday.

"But patriotism also means investing in people here to make sure they have the opportunity to provide for their families, to be able to do all those things that we talk about as a part of an American dream in a sense," the Connecticut senator told about a dozen people who attended the discussion. "If you don't have the resources to do it, you're stuck because you don't have the financial capacity to do so, and it becomes very, very difficult."

Investing in domestic priorities is a security issue, too, Dodd said. Most of history's great civilizations didn't fall because of external attacks, but "because they weren't taking care of what was going on inside."

"You've got to be involved and engaged in what happens to people within our own country if we're going to remain strong and vibrant," Dodd told a Des Moines audience earlier in the day. "The outside forces will be there, we understand that. But ultimately our strength in facing those forces will be determined by how well we address the internal questions that we grapple with."

Those internal questions include tax fairness, which Dodd would address by expanding the $1,000 child tax deduction and the Earned Income Tax Credit for families with incomes too low to pay income taxes.

Lynda Waddington has more on the roll out of the Dodd Women's and Families Plan, which started yesterday in Iowa.

"Chris Dodd understands that women's rights have progressed in the last 50 years, but much more remains to be done," said Jennifer Lunsford, who serves on the Democratic State Central Committee and as chairwoman in Jefferson County. "I know he can work across the aisle to produce the policies that American women need."

Although nearly half the American workforce is now made up of women and women are more likely to have an advanced degree, women continue to compete on an uneven playing field. Today, women earn only 77 cents for every dollar men earn and face unique challenges balancing the demands of work and family.

“The United States is leading the world on innovations in science, technology, communication, the list goes on,” said Dodd. “But we are still leaps and bounds behind where we ought to be on something so basic – ensuring that women have the same opportunities as men, and that parents are able to maintain their jobs while caring for themselves and their families.

“In a Dodd Administration, these priorities will be where they belong – at the top – and the United States will set an example for the world in the fair and equal treatment of women and families.”
...
"I think Chris Dodd knows how to get results for women and families and bring people together," said Kay Hale, who serves as financial secretary for the Linn County Democratic Central Committee. "He brought both Democrats and Republicans to the table when he passed the Family and Medical Leave Act. I think he is the only candidate in the Democratic field who has such a strong record of results for women and American families."

Read Waddington's full post here.