Biden: Dodd Is Getting 'Living Bejesus' Beaten Out Of Him

I wish this were true, but the dismal news coming in would ordinarily push a legislator in the exact opposite direction. If Dodd has no earthly chance of winning reelection because disaffected low-information voters are pissed at him for things he didn't do, why should he bother to work in their interests? Any rational person at that point would be working to guarantee a future for themselves. If Dodd is presented with no future out of ignorance (which I believe it is) he would be better of working to secure a job in the financial services industry rather than screwing it, which is what I believe he'd rather do. I fear more than anything, as a CT resident, that he will reach that decision in January or February once the HCR debate is finished and the financial services legislation is being debated. I don't see how Dodd's coming down hard on the financial services industry will save him at this point. The ignorati have already made up their mind, so don't confuse them with the facts. It will be more fun watching the owner of a make-believe sport spout on TV for six years.

John, I would agree with you, as a resident of CT, except for one very important fact: all of your facts are wrong. If anything, Dodd was representing financial services industry interests as part of his job because so many investment banks, insurance companies, and hedge funds are located in CT. But, for all of that, Dodd is being pilloried for legislation which was passed under Republican leadership, not Democratic. Dodd is being blamed for Bush administration failures and the emergency bail-out from last year, when Paulson was holding a gun to Dodd's head about providing the emergency loans to the banks and investment houses who were about to disappear up a black hole of greed and excess. Yeah, Dodd wasn't able to get the deals he would have liked, but he never was given the time to craft the detailed legislation which was necessary. However, despite all of that, I can tell you Dodd has been far more accessible to public opinion about all of the issues affecting this nation than that weasel Lieberman, who has sucked off the financial services and insurance teat more than Dodd ever did. Lieberman made a studied effort to avoid meeting with constituents this past summer of discontent and I know, because I contacted his office to find out when Lieberman would be meeting with CT voters and was lied to about Lieberman meeting with voters in anything resembling a town hall setting. Dodd's chances don't look good in large part because the meme disseminated by the brain-dead MSM to the low-interest voter bloc combined with the anger due to the continuing economic disaster we're facing is preventing any countervailing message from penetrating. None of the Republicans has idea one on how to fix any of these problems and all of them are guaranteed to screw CT voters the way Lieberman has done. For Christ's sake, Simmons is a card-carrying member of the Bush Incompetence Brigade and he leads the pack. Does anyone think he cares at all about improving the lot of CT voters? If they do, I'd like to know what chemical refreshments they use.

I tend to agree, but that's only part of the picture in this case. The conventional wisdom is that Dems will get killed in midterm elections and lose effective control of the House if they can't pass health care, not to mention what it will say about Obama's legacy. And it's not just legacy: health care is important, and we're looking now at throwing the baby out with the bath water.

When the Dems are swamped in 2010 and we have no health care and Obama is being laughed at, what exactly is the bargaining power worth?

I believe he actually had a Jimmy Stewart moment, and his pressure (tho ultimately futile, of course) did at least temporarily put a stick in the spokes of the wagon wheel.

(disclaimer:I didn't google, so I could be misremembering, but it was the heat of the presidential primary, and all sorts of Potemkin backbones were on display (hint: you can use paper mache and it almost looks like you have a spine--alas, like the evil witch in munchkinland, a little rain, and...)

Right, I'm going to want to replace Dodd with a buffoon (trust me, I've seen him on TV in CT), who is a major trust-fund baby but who has never grown up. Yup, that's the way to fix the problem. Schiff will do nothing to fix the financial services industry in this nation and his free-booter philosophy will merely drive this nation into another Depression.

What evidence do you have that Dodd is a crook? All of those allegations about his financial dealings have been shown to be smoke, blown up the skirts of no-nothings. I've seen the interest rates on the deal Dodd is supposed to have gotten for his CT residence. You know what? The interest rates are market rates and I know because I also refinanced around the same time. Dodd got no special deal. Let me repeat that - Dodd got no special deal. Take that claim away and you've got no substance for your charge that "Dodd is a crook."