Category: Chris Dodd

Meaningful Perspective From Dodd

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.

Big Fundraising Lead for Dodd

Some welcome news for Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd — he’s blowing his competitors out of the water in fundraising. Here’s the breakdown from the Courant:

Chris Dodd:

Dodd raised about $1.05 million in the first quarter of 2009, leaving him with a cash balance of nearly $1.4 million, according to a fundraising report he filed Wednesday with the Federal Elections Commission.

Sam Caligiuri:

Caligiuri reported collecting about $45,000 over the first quarter, mostly from individuals. After expenses, Caligiuri reported a balance of about $36,000.

Rob Simmons:

An aide said the Simmons campaign only recently opened a bank account and had no meaningful fundraising to report.

Also, there’s this key point for where Dodd’s money does not come from:

Notably, Dodd’s first-quarter fundraising report for the 2010 U.S. Senate election reflects no AIG contributions. …

Dodd returned $12,500 in contributions from political action committees or employees associated with firms benefiting from federal bailout money. He gave $1,000 that he received from an executive receiving an AIG bonus to a Mystic homeless shelter. Dodd also donated $2,500 that he received from convicted investment swindler Bernard Madoff to the Elie Wiesel Foundation.

Dodd had a much better quarter than I would have expected and this puts him on good footing to weather the serious challenge he has coming. It also shows that the Republicans challenging him are not yet able to turn their big media profiles into campaign contributions.

Shorter Dodd Challengers

Shorter Rob Simmons & Sam Caligiuri:

It’s disgraceful that Chris Dodd took money years ago from employees of companies now receiving federal bailout money. And since all of you AIG employees now have extra money in your pocket thanks to that returned Dodd check, you can make your donations out to our campaigns via check, money order, or credit card.

In all seriousness, this is what Simmons actually said:

“I don’t feel that I have any constraints on me,” Simmons said.

That’s for sure. During his career in Congress, Simmons has accepted more than $1 million from PACs and individuals associated with finance, insurance and real estate.

I tried again with Simmons. Does all this talk about Dodd being a lying weasel mean that you will reject the kind of contributions that the senator’s critics are slamming him for?

“I’m a private citizen right now. I’m not a member of the Senate. I’m not the chair of the powerful banking committee, which oversees this disaster to the economy,” Simmons said.

“I will make that judgment when the time arrives.”

And Caligiuri isn’t even sharp enough to realize the grenades he’s throwing at Dodd might bounce back his way:

 “I haven’t thought about that,” Caligiuri responded when I asked whether he planned on refusing any money from anyone.

Dodd is going to have to run a real race this cycle. But as long as he’s up against buffoons like these, I like his odds.

NYT on Dodd Credit Card Legislation

The New York Times editorial board gives Chris Dodd’s credit card legislation very high marks and urges the Senate to pass it swiftly and without reduction in its regulatory powers. Dodd blogged about the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act (Credit CARD Act) at Huffington Post recently. Dodd also did a live video chat at My Left Nutmeg, Connecticut’s main progressive community blog.

The Credit CARD Act will apply far greater restrictions to how banks treat their credit card customers, both while they are clients and when they are being recruited to be card holders. Additionally the Act gives customers far greater protections against usurious rates and unfair policies that aim to punish people for minor mistakes and small outstanding balances from larger initial debts.

The Senate Republican caucus is going to fight tooth and nail against any legislation that makes life harder for the credit card industry. But it’s critical that Dodd and the Democrats stand up for this good piece of legislation and not let conservatives water it down in the slightest. In these tough economic times, we can’t let working Americans be taken advantage of by unscrupulous credit card companies. For a man who is reviled by his opponents on the right for being a friend of the banking industry, it’s deeply satisfying to see Dodd do what he’s always done – stand alongside working Americans and protecting their interests from predatory banks and lenders. The great irony is that while the Rob Simmons, Kevin Rennie, Sean Hannity and the NRSC unfairly attack Dodd for being a friend of the banks, they and their Republican buddies in the Senate be fighting to protect the interests of their friends and campaign contributors in the credit card industry against Dodd’s progressive legislation. And, of course, they will do this with a straight face.

More on Dodd’s Opposition to AIG Bonuses

I’m with Glenn Greenwald and CaptCT: Chris Dodd’s CNN interview last night reaffirms, not contradicts, the reality that changes were made to the TARP bonus provisions at the behest of the Treasury Department.

Following the bad reporting on the CNN interview, which included the groundless assertion that Dodd had admitted he was the author of the AIG  bonus loophole, Dodd put out this statement which, I think, definitively clears things up:

STATEMENT OF SENATOR DODD ON EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION AMENDMENT

Washington, DC – Senator Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, today issued the following statement on his executive compensation amendment:

“I’m the one who has led the fight against excessive executive compensation, often over the objections of many.  I did not want to make any changes to my original Senate-passed amendment but I did so at the request of Administration officials, who gave us no indication that this was in any way related to AIG.  Let me be clear – I was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until I learned of them last week.

“Reports that I changed my position on this issue are simply untrue.  I answered a question by CNN last night regarding whether or not a specific date was aimed at protecting AIG.  When I saw that my comments had been misconstrued, I felt it was important to set the record straight – that this had nothing to do with AIG.

“Fortunately, we wrote this amendment in a way that allows the Treasury Department to go back and review these bonus contracts and seek to recover the money for taxpayers.  Again, I have led the fight to curb excessive executive compensation, and will continue to do so.”

Better Reporting

The New York Times‘ Jackie Calmes and Louis Story do a better job of correctly reporting the falsehood of the “Blame Dodd” meme being pushed by Republicans and some Democrats.

That position was being questioned at the Capitol. Congressional Republicans, eager to implicate Democrats, initially blamed Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who heads the banking committee, for adding to the economic recovery package an amendment that cracked down on bonuses at companies getting bailout money, but that exempted bonuses protected by contracts, like A.I.G.’s.

Mr. Dodd, in turn, responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the exemption actually had been inserted at the insistence of Treasury during Congress’s final legislative negotiations.

It’s still in he said-she said mode, but at least it’s not a flat out lie being masqueraded as fact.

Ending the “Blame Dodd” Meme

Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald have to phenomenally detailed and thorough posts explaining why the current “Blame Dodd” meme regarding AIG bonuses is 100% bunk (Media Matters led the way with pushback against Fox News & Drudge’s attacks on Dodd). The very short version is that the current provisions, passed in February, that exempted bonus limitations on preexisting contracts were pushed through at the behest of Geithner, Summers, and the Obama administratoin — over the objections of Senator Chris Dodd. Dodd had in fact introduced provisions that would have stopped future bonuses regardless of when they were promised.

The efforts by the media, Treasury officials and even White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to lay the AIG bonus scandal at Dodd’s feet is disgraceful and disgusting. Dodd is up for a very tough reelection campaign in 2010. It may be politically expedient for administration officials to blame Dodd for something they did which he vehemently opposed, but it isn’t without consequence. At a time when he is politically vulnerable, his reputation is being unjustly attacked.

I don’t doubt that the administration’s top economic officials failed to grasp the political consequences of exempting existing AIG bonus schedules from TARP regulation. Clearly they now get that the optics are terrible. But trying to pass the buck to the guy that had the foresight to introduce provisions that would extend oversight and limitation to all AIG bonuses – foresight that Geithner and Summers failed to pay heed to – is the wrong path.

The sad thing is that Senator Dodd is such a loyal and collegial politician that he is unlikely to ever publicly express the anger and outrage he must be feeling now, for fear of doing damage to President Obama’s stewardship of the economy and the trust the public has in the administration’s top economic team. If only the administration were able to recognize and repay the loyalty and dedicated service of Senator Dodd in kind.

CT-SEN: Dodd/Simmons Tied, Dodd Job Ratings Up Big

While there is going to be a lot of breathless blogging by the Right today on a poll that shows former Rep. Rob Simmons leading Senator Chris Dodd 43-42 in a Quinnipiac Poll, I think this is probably more important:

Dodd, whose approval ratings were in the negative range on Feb. 10, have rebounded slightly. Connecticut voters approve 49 to 44 percent of the job Dodd is doing compared to the 41 to 48 percent approval rating he received on Feb. 10.

The head to head shows a statistical tie with Simmons, which is obviously not good news for Dodd. But Dodd moving +12 in one month in job approval is more important 20 months out. Job approval is relevant. I don’t know how this move can be described as “slight.”

If you want to pull something relevant from the head to head with Simmons, it’s that Dodd is getting killed by Simmons among independents:

In a 2010 Dodd-Simmons match up, Democrats back Dodd 74 to 15 percent while Simmons leads 80 to 10 percent amongst Republicans and 49 to 32 percent among independent voters.

This is pretty much how we should be looking at numbers in these polls, per how we look at these numbers with every other Senate incumbent in America. Last month’s Q-Poll was either an outlier for Dodd’s approval numbers, or Dodd has done phenomenal work in the last month to repair his image in state, despite rabid attacks by Kevin Rennie and the GOP in Connecticut. I can’t make a judgment as to how to read that based solely on the top line release, but either situation reflects much better on Dodd’s chances for reelection than Simmons’ chances for beating Dodd.

Moreover, Dodd is way ahead of other possible challengers.

Sen. Dodd leads State Sen. Sam Caligiuri 47 – 34 percent and tops CNBC-TV host Larry Kudlow 46 – 34 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

As counter intuitive as it sounds, I think this poll is good news. All the focus has been and should remain on job approval until there are actual candidates in the race. Dodd has moved back close to the 50% mark for job approval, a standard benchmark for incumbent reelection chances. If he has another good month, he can get back over 50%. I like his chances for reelection significantly better with his approval at or above 50%, regardless of what this head to head with Simmons says. He’s also not going to be threatened by Caligiuri or Kudlow, which should make his job easier in that he can focus on one opponent at a time.

It’s still 20 months from the 2010 Connecticut Senate election and anyone making pronouncements about an impending defeat for Chris Dodd are not thinking honestly about this race. No doubt Dodd is going to be one of the top targets for Republicans in 2010, perhaps the only incumbent Democrat who will face a serious challenge. Republican bloggers and the NRSC are already gunning for him. But Dodd being a target doesn’t mean we get to misread polls or go breathless in anticipation of Simmons beating him. Or rather, I encourage Republicans to presume this race is done for because Simmons has a 1% edge in a poll with a 2.8% margin of error twenty months ahead of the election as Dodd’s job approval ratings are climbing double digits. Be my guest. But I’m going to take this poll, look at the rising job approval and say that maybe Chris Dodd will have to campaign a lot harder than in 2004, but I’m not ready to hand this seat to Rob Simmons by a long shot.

Disclosure: I was proud to work on Chris Dodd’s presidential campaign, but I no longer work for Senator Dodd.