Chris Dodd for President

Though the day started with temperatures in the teens and cloud covering touching the tops of Des Moines' tallest buildings, it's turned into a beautiful, clear day in Iowa. Seeing the sun is a great feeling after two days of snow and gray skies. The weather hasn't held us back yet, though, and we're making sure we maximize every minute in the closing days of the Iowa caucus.

While Senator Dodd has been on the road today with stops in Denison, Carroll, and Sioux City, the campaign headquarters has been filled today with volunteers phone banking to make the case for Democrats here to caucus for Chris Dodd on January 3rd. We've also launched a door to door canvass in the Des Moines area to bring Dodd supporters face to face with the people who will bring our campaign to caucus success.

The work going on in this office today while the Senator is traveling around the state is a strong reminder of the tireless work going on in support of Chris Dodd. The collection of volunteers in the office today include fire fighters, Iowans who support longtime friends and family from Connecticut, and people who've known and worked with Chris Dodd for years.

Here are a few pictures from the phone banking this afternoon:

On January 3rd Iowans will be making a critical choice on behalf of the nation. The people here helping Chris Dodd are taking part in history here over the closing days before the caucus. I'm going to try to tell that story over the next week and give you a window into the Dodd campaign. Throughout our campaign I've covered hundreds of Dodd events. For the most part, I've eschewed writing the typical campaign blog posts cheering on how great the events are, how positive the crowds response, because frankly, I've tried to let video from Dodd events do the talking for me. Now, though, I want to use my time in Iowa to show as much as I can what's happening on the ground.

After a hectic day of travel filled with missed and delayed flights, I arrived in Iowa last night to a bustling Dodd Headquarters in Des Moines. "Bustling" is a word you'll hear bandied about a lot when campaigns talk about the activity in their offices around Iowa this week, but to be honest it hardly covers what's going on. The winding halls of Dodd HQ were filled with staffers and volunteers fulfilling a range of tasks - planning the events between now and the caucus, calling Iowans to ask them to support Senator Dodd, honing the closing argument for Chris Dodd, keeping our web presence dynamic, and much, much more.

Last night Senator Dodd was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. A bunch of staffers watched his appearance at Lucky's, the bar next door to the office. We weren't the only ones, though -- there was a buzz from people responding to Senator Dodd's mature leadership talking about the Benazir Bhutto's assassination. The next President is going to encounter issues that we haven't talked about in this campaign, and the question Iowans are going to be asking themselves "who do they trust to know what they are doing when that happens?"

This morning we awoke to snow in Des Moines. A few inches fell overnight and it's continuing to come down steadily. Fortunately for me, Erik Moe, our art director, is a Minnesotan with a lifetime of experience driving in the snow and muck, and he ensured the trip to the office this morning was a safe one.

First off the bat, we recorded two videos with Senator Dodd (which you'll be seeing shortly). Tim Tagaris took this picture of Senator Dodd and I talking about the response online to his efforts to stop retroactive immunity from being part of FISA legislation. The Senator was humbled by the scale of support he received from the netroots in this fight and is committed to continuing it when the Senate returns in January. This is a team effort and together we can win this fight for good.

As I write this post now, people are working hard to prepare for a rally that will be taking place at our HQ in just a few minutes. We'll be posting pictures and video from at just as soon as we can, so you'll be able to see what the mobilization for Chris Dodd in Iowa looks like even if you can't be here to take part.

Stay tuned for more updates at The Dodd Blog.

Jonathan Backer of Milwaukee, WI talks about why he supports Chris Dodd. He's a member of the Columbia University College Democrats and he's come to Iowa to spend 10 days doing Get Out the Vote work for the Dodd campaign.