This is pretty much why I think Chris Dodd will be reelected in 2010: he has real perspective about what his job is now and the importance of doing the peoples’ work ahead of worrying about electoral politics. My rough transcript (video courtesy of Connecticut Bob):

People say you’re going through tough times, political times. Winning and losing elections isn’t tough. Losing you home is tough. Losing your job is tough. Losing your retirement is tough. Watching your kid get sick and you can’t afford to take them to the doctor, that’s tough. Winning or losing elections is not tough. And so I’m going to just do my job the best I can over the coming weeks and months to help get this country back on the right track again — not that I expect that to miraculously occur. But I didn’t get elected to get reelected. I got elected to do a job. And that’s what you do. And if you do your job – and no one expects perfection, no one expects you’re going to make every decision correctly, and if people think that, then they’ve got the wrong guy — but I’m going to try to do everything I can to get this working in the right direction. And if you do that, then the elections will take care of themselves to some degree. But if people don’t trust you, don’t think you’re on their side, that if they think you have a different standard for yourself than other people, then they’re going to let you know that pretty quickly.

Dodd is humble here and shows he has real perspective. He is a hard worker and I think he’ll get a lot of credit back home if his CREDIT Card Act passes the Senate this week, as it will rein in unscrupulous, predatory practices and show Dodd as using his position as Banking Committee chair to fight for working people during tough economic times.