Dodd - Missing Votes and Having a Ball

U.S. Senator Chris Dodd continues his magical mystery tour for President while leaving the people of Connecticut in his rear view mirror. This past weekend, he was seen on national TV riding in a rag-top with his wife and kids in an Iowa fair being greeted by Republican Mitt Romney. The Des Moines Register gave him a few paragraphs.

"A few minutes later, Dodd made his shoulder-patting, hand-shaking way down the school's hallway, past the counter where volunteers were dishing up beefburgers, potato salad, baked beans and pie, and into the small gymnasium.

Dodd, a senator from Connecticut, said when he walks into a small community and sits with locals at a lunch table that folds down from the wall, people are assessing a lot more than simply his views on issues such as Iraq and health care.

"Really they're asking two questions," he said. "'Do you know who I am, are you listening to my hopes, my aspirations, my fears? And what is your character?' In July of 2009, there's going to be some issues that come up that we never even considered here. They want to know your character, if you have the talent to do the job."

Dodd raised around $2 million for the last reporting period - mostly from people who still want his vote when he returns to the Senate in the fall. It was also reported by the Connecticut Post, that Dodd has blown off a considerable number of votes in the process. That is what Dodd calls the Presidential Election time and time again, a "process."

But mostly it is a process of elimination, and sadly his home state is not getting their money's worth from Dodd anymore. And given the hatred the Democratic base has for Joe Lieberman, there must be plenty of peeved Democrats in Connecticut who watch with gritted teeth as Joe endorses the Bush Administration's positions on Iraq, while Dodd wanders the Iowa countryside looking to put a crowd of 20 people together to talk about "the process."