Chris Dodd’s mortgage woes are starting to find their way into the mainstream consciousness of the country, in what can’t be good news for Connecticut’s senior senator.
A few examples: The National Review has a piece on the Dodd approach to scandal management. Then there’s this Glenn Beck interview with Rick Green of the Courant, the song to which has been stuck in my head all day (h/t Bo).
Okay, yes. These are conservative media outlets–and they can be expected to take shots at Dodd. But then there’s this, from that most unlikely source, my favorite football blog Cold Hard Football Facts:
In other words, we like the Steelers. And we certainly wouldn’t mortgage the house on Arizona (unless we’re getting one of those sweetheart deals Sen. Chris Dodd received).
As it turns out, mortgaging the house on Arizona would not have been wise. But seriously, I was pretty surprised to see a reference to Dodd’s mortgage from the trolls over at CHFF!
What it all means is that this isn’t a local story anymore. It’s been doing Dodd some serious damage, and now things look like they could get worse. His approval ratings are as low as they’ve been in years, due not just to his mortgage problems but to the growing sense that he bears at least some of the blame for the financial crisis. After all, he was the head of the Banking committee, and derided critics who openly worried about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as alarmists. There are at least two or three really good ads in that.
Dangerous Times for Dodd?
So is Dodd in any kind of trouble? Well, yes and no. If Republicans follow the pattern they’ve followed since turning on Lowell Weicker and nominating a nobody (say, Peter Schiff, veteran nobody on the libertarian circuit) for U.S. Senate, then Dodd is probably safe. His margin might be smaller, but for him that means he’ll win by ten points instead of thirty.
If Republicans nominate a strong, well-known candidate, though… things could get interesting fast.
Republicans have three very strong potential challengers who could actually win the seat. Rob Simmons is one. Chris Shays is another. And a third, though I’d be a little surprised if she’s interested, is Jodi Rell.
How would Chris Dodd deal with a serious challenge? Well, it’s impossible to say. The last Dodd challenger who looked even remotely legitimate was Gary Franks, who was hurt by allegations of shady business deals and a surprise loss to Jim Maloney in 1996–and he only got 32% of the vote.
Dodd has been in a very competitive race lately, however: the presidential race. He spent countless days touring Iowa, even moving his family there, barnstorming and campaigning. It didn’t go so well for him, as he found he couldn’t break out of the pack. Despite a good campaign team, his fundraising was anemic, and he found himself overshadowed by more captivating, better-funded candidates. He dropped out after a miserable finish in Iowa, and it’s been all downhill since.
A challenger would still have a steep hill to climb. Still, Dodd’s Senate fundraising is very weak and his approval ratings are below 50%.
If the Republicans are ever going to get this seat back, 2010 is the time. They would have incredibly difficulty winning an open seat race against the likes of either Chris Murphy or Richard Blumenthal, but a fight against a wounded Dodd is far more promising.
GC… have you no confidence in the Paulistas??
btw, what really annoyed me last week was when he started yelling at the bankers’ for excessive compensation. Sure, I agree 100% that my tax dollars shouldn’t be paying bonuses.
But the question is if they broke the law?
So I read Dodd’s bailout from last fall (I recall Bush writing 3 pages, then Dodd saying he added 447 pages of “safeguards”) to determine if the law was broken.
As far as I can tell, the safeguard against “execessive executive compensation” is Treasury Secretary discretion.
Yes, folks… Tim Geithner determines appropriate executive compensation.
http://timwhitelistens.blogspot.com/2009/01/dodd-gets-indignant-needs-english.html
I’m glad to know that we have someone so altruistic making those determinations. I mean, Tim Geithner would never act in his own self-interest, right Mr. Dodd? I mean, you just voted to confirm him… so I’m sure he’s good peeps.
The Cardinals lost by 4. The point spread was Steelers +6.5.
Don’t forget about McKinney! McKinney could not only beat a weak Dodd but he could also win U.S. Senate elections in Connecticut for many years to come …
That’s an interesting possibility, I hadn’t thought of McKinney for Senate instead of U.S. Rep.
Why would we want to put Chris Shays in the Senate? It’s pointless to have an R there if they aren’t going to hold R positions.
As far as Schiff goes, when it’s becomes a bad idea to nominate someone with real world financial and executive experience who is not part of the political establishment the whole country is in trouble too deep to get out of.
If we are just going to put up the next in line unprincipled politician than why even bother?
This sounds like the Democrats’ justification for nominating Ned Lamont to get spanked by Lieberman in 2006, doesn’t it?
The democrats were 100% right nominating Lamont because that’s the ideology they believed in. They disagreed with Lieberman’s war stance.
They underestimated how staunch the war support still was. Had they waited till the next Lieberman election to run the same play it would probably have been successful.
They did the right thing running their beliefs; unfortunately for them that cycle their war belief was the minority one.
The republicans were the ones who really lost that election because the republicans abandoned the guy who actually stood for conservative principles, Schlesinger, for a guy who would support the one issue, war, while opposing conservative principles on everything else.
The lesson to be learned here is that the reason National and State Republicans have been failing is because they are being politicians, not statesmen.
The reason the GOP is now losing?
Try this. The culture war you guys have been waging, for more than a generation, has fallen flat on its face.
Twenty years ago Sarah Palin’s divisive bullshit might have worked, but now we have a country that has grown up and is moving on…
What culture war, Mr. Tolerant?