Chris Dodd Walks the Line

From today's USA Today, it seems that Connecticut's bored-as-Senator Chris Dodd is running the squeeze play on the folks that appear before his Senate Committee on Housing, Banking, and Urban Affairs. Apparently seeing an investment in the frosty haired faux Iowan, Dodd has soaked up nearly $2.7 million of his $4 million first quarter money from finance, insurance, and real estate sector donors. Sheila Krumholz, the executive director for the Center for Responsive Politics, described the situation as creating a "perilous situation that policy might not be based on the interests of constituents, but based on these relationships" (USA Today: Senator Walks Line Between Regulation, Donation).

Senator Dodd, though bored with merely representing the good people of Connecticut in the United States Senate, surely owes the people who are still his constituents a little bit better than this. Wouldn't it be novel if Connecticut had a Senator who wanted to represent our state in the U.S. Senate, and not in the White House? Maybe if Mr. Dodd did not view being a Senator so much like a birthright and more like the honor that it is, we wouldn't have to sit quietly on the sidelines while 'our guy' makes a quixotic bid for President.