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Chris Dodd Gets Shafted At Debate -- Twice
Chris Dodd really got screwed today. First the debate moderator, Des Moines Register editor, Carolyn Washburn, asked Dodd a silly and insulting question about his father:
"Senator Dodd, you write in your book that you still struggle with the memories of when your father, former senator Thomas Dodd, was censured by the Senate in 1967 for alleged misuse of campaign money. How much are you motivated in your run for president by a desire to restore the Dodd family name that was hurt by this censure?"
Really, now. It's hard to know which question is more frivolous, inane and catty, this or the one she asked Biden about race.
And then, to top this off, CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed Dodd after the debate and asked him about everything except for...Chris Dodd. Well, not quite, but almost. The first three questions Wolf asked Dodd were about the tone of the debate, as if Dodd's a pundit, the Mitchell Report, and the Hillary-Obama drug flap yesterday. Only in the fourth question did Dodd finally get asked about, you know, himself and his policies.
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I tell you, the moderator for these Des Moines Register debates is just plain awful. They could have gotten someone off the street that might have done a better job. Not ready for prime time would be an understatement.
December 13, 2007 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've supported the candidacy of Sens. Clinton and Obama, and fmr. Sen. Edwards at different points during this long, exhausting campaign, but Sen. Christopher Dodd deserved to be taken seriously as a candidate all along.
There are few true statesmen left in our government today, but Chris Dodd has always been one.
December 13, 2007 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes when you're a politics junkie like me and you're in the bubble, you just can't understand why someone so smart, candid, and successful isn't a more viable candidate. Chris Dodd is one of those guys (and I'll add Joe Biden as well).
December 13, 2007 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd give frivolous to this one, catty to the Biden question, and split inane between the two.
December 13, 2007 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
The moderator for the Des Moines debates was bad, she was just as bad in the Repub debate as well.
Dodd however did an excellent job responding to her question and the audience who was very quiet for the most part gave a rare round of applause to his answer.
December 13, 2007 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why doesn't CNN just die?
December 13, 2007 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
2008 Presidential Election Weekly Poll
http://www.votenic.com
The Only Poll That Matters.
Results Posted Every Tuesday Evening.
December 13, 2007 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dodd didn't get on the ballot in New York or New Jersey.
He's a joke candidate and had less business on that stage in terms of viability than Dennis Kucinich.
December 13, 2007 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey spam for votenic...fuck you...
December 13, 2007 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
what nogo war said.
also,
re: ron paul -
"MOVE, Paul,
Git out the way.
Git out the way, Paul,
git out the way. . ."
if you know what I mean, votenic.
December 13, 2007 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I totally agree with votenic. A weekly online poll of middle class white men who work in I.T. jobs aged 30-45 is the only poll that matters.
December 13, 2007 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
DrinOH raised a good question, namely, why aren't Joe Biden and Chris Dodd taken seriously as presidential candidates? Considering how much time the press gives John McCain, you'd think they'd find his elder dem peers equally fascinating. Granted, his POW status gives writers a convenient jumping off point for stories about torture/torture-gate, stories that certainly need to be told. And I realize that he also has an ice cubes chance in Miami of garnering the nomination, but I would guess if Dodd or Biden, particularly Biden, were given the same amount of attention they would be higher in the polls.
Here's the more important question: Is Biden a lost cause?
December 13, 2007 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
My God!. Should anyone, Democrat, Republican or Communist running for any office from Dog catcher to President have to answer an asinine question like that?
Folks from the get go the Democrats have missed a huge opportunity. From Wilson's amazingly whorish 'Patton and Boots' question of Hillary to this insult directed at Senator Dodd never did the candidates in unison ask the questioner to clean up his or her act. Imagine this question being followed by Obama or Clinton immediately interjecting with impassioned outrage. Or Dodd walking to the front of his podium, looking the questioner right in the eye while protesting the insulting nature her words and asking if she thinks any of the candidates beside him are not sickened by such garbage...and then letting them all speak. The thing that has most contributed to the demise of Democratic candidates has been this kind of treatment. When to they show leadership and strength and pounce on it?
December 13, 2007 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wolf's an idiot. The only question he ever asks Ron Paul is if Paul's going to run a third-party candidacy. Ron should say, "Well Wolf, I guess even YOU didn't watch that sham of a "debate" on YOUR OWN NETWORK when that was the only question you putzes asked ME."
December 13, 2007 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I gotta say I have an opposite impression. I feel pretty certain the moderator represented Iowa's most significant paper and the questions must have been determined by a committee from the paper so blaming her alone for the questions seems a little off-base.
But, even more I thought the Dodd question was almost a softball, albeit one that might make a lot of sense to a state that has seen these candidates up close for a long time. In that time they possibly heard the story about Dodd's father, though not necessarily his response. The candidates have had a lot of time not only in Iowa, but elsewhere to hit the high points (Iraq), always worthy, but have they had the opportunity to respond to the whispers? I'm not in Iowa, but the questions seemed to me much more benign, with the real chance they meant a lot to the locals, even if sometimes a little confusing to the rest of us.
Anyway, sure seems to me that some of the recent stories on this site regarding Democrats are reaching to find controversy where there is none.
I say the questions were fine and the candidates handled them well. So well it's hard to pick a winner.
December 13, 2007 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well if you were from Connecticut and you had been watching Dodd for 20 years and not 10 months you would realize that is a very insightful question. Dodd has never voted to reprimand/castigate or against a fellow senator who has committed a wrong precisely because he does not want to bring the same kind of shame upon the fellow senator that his father RIGHTLY suffered. He stood up for John Tower for c'sakes. Like W who is motivated to do everything the opposite of what his Dad did,and he is doing a fine job of it, Dodd is deeply motivated and affected by his father's past which was not an insignificant event for Connecticut or the US Senate. So if a wrong is committed in a Dodd administration, will he look the other way? How will he treat a breach in government ethics or the law, will he look the other way? I think it is a legit question.
By the way, Dodd is from the insurance capital of the country and most assuredly are in their pockets. At a time when we are moving towards mandatory health care insurance coverage I would not want anyone who is cozy with that industry to be any where near the decision making.
December 14, 2007 4:17 AM | Reply | Permalink