Obama supporter Chris Dodd says he's got a simple solution to the standoff over what to do about Florida and Michigan's delegates: Divide them evenly between Hillary and Obama.

The Connecticut senator, an Obama backer and former presidential hopeful, said Monday such a move would save taxpayers from having to pay for do-over primaries that some party officials have proposed.

It's noteworthy that one of Obama's more prominent surrogates is floating this as a solution. But it's hardly something the Hillary camp would accept. Though neither candidate campaigned in Florida, she won the state by 17 points, and won the official delegate allocation, 105-67.

Michigan is a different matter altogether, of course, because her name was on the ballot and his wasn't.

Chris Dodd, who quit the presidential race after his poor showing in Iowa, will reportedly endorse Barack Obama today. Dodd then plans to hit the trail alongside Obama in Ohio.

Dodd's home state of Connecticut voted 51%-47% for Obama on Super Tuesday.

A source close to Chris Dodd's campaign tells me that he's expected to drop out of the race later tonight.

This just in: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has yanked the Senate FISA renewal bill containing telecom immunity off the floor. That means it won't be debated until next year.

Senator Chris Dodd had planned to filibuster the bill this evening, and it didn't look as if the other Senators running for President -- Hillary, Obama, Biden -- would lend support for the filibuster in person. Now the question's moot -- until January.

Why did Reid pull the bill now? "Sen. Reid refused to jam this bill through the Senate because he believes it’s an important bill that deserves to be debated thoroughly," a Reid aide told us.

But Dodd aides expressed satisfaction, saying that the Connecticut Senator's filibuster threat was what stopped the bill for the time being. They vowed that he'd be back to fight it again in January.

Earlier today we asked whether the Senators running for President -- Hillary, Obama, Biden -- would be on hand to support Chris Dodd's planned filibuster of the Senate FISA bill containing telecom immunity. First out of the box with a statement is Obama:

"Senator Obama unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies and has cosponsored Senator Dodd's efforts to remove that provision from the FISA bill. Granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect. Senator Obama supports a filibuster of this bill, and strongly urges others to do the same. It's not clear whether he can return for the vote, but under the Senate rules, the side trying to end a filibuster must produce 60 votes to cut off debate. Whether he is present for the vote for not, Senator Obama will not be among those voting to end the filibuster."

The issue here isn't just the 60 votes. Dodd is hoping that his fellow Senators will be on hand to ask questions during his filibuster, which under Senate rules would allow him to take breaks from talking and take a sip of water while keeping his filibuster alive. Obama seems to be saying he might do this. We'll see what happens, if anything.

On a conference call with reporters just moments ago, Chris Dodd's deputy campaign manager, Amos Hochstein, just vowed that the Senator will filibuster the Senate FISA bill containing telecom immunity later this afternoon for as long as he possibly can hold out.

"He will speak as long as he can," Hochstein said. "He will speak until he can no longer."

Asked how long he would be willing to stay away from Iowa, where he needs to be campaigining, Hochstein said: "As much as we'd love to be in Iowa, this is extremely important to the Senator."

The question now is, What will other Senators who said they'd support Dodd's filibuster do today? Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden have all pledged to support it. They can do so under Senate rules by asking questions during Dodd's filibuster, giving him a chance to rest or to take a drink of water. Will they?

"Senators Clinton and Obama have indicated their support," Hochstein said. "I believe that they are in Iowa. I hope they are here to help Senator Dodd in his filibuster today. You should ask them."

Stay tuned.

This morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on the Senate floor that the Senate FISA renewal bill containing immunity for the telecoms would go to the floor on Monday. The move, which many expected, dismayed opponents of telecom immunity.

Now the campaign of Senator Chris Dodd, who has promised to put a hold on and filibuster the bill, has just sent out an email to supporters containing a challenge for the other Dem Senators running for President: Will you stick by your promise to publicly support my filibuster of the bill?

Back when Dodd first announced his planned filibuster of the measure in October, the Dem Senators running for President came under heavy pressure to say they'd publicly support it. Senators Clinton, Obama and Biden all said they would.

Now the Dodd campaign is reaffirming that he is going to come back to D.C. and stage his filibuster -- and it's asking people to put a new round of pressure on the other Senators to stand with him. From the Dodd campaign's email from Dodd Internet guru Tim Tagaris:

Remember when this all started playing out? A lot of people rushed to send out strongly worded press releases about how committed they were to "supporting a filibuster."

They'll have a chance to show they are true to their word.

Call or email the Senators that pledged their opposition to this bill to support the Dodd Amendment and a filibuster if necessary. And ask them to be there with Dodd when it counts.

The Dodd campaign is clearly mindful of the fact that when Dodd announced his filibuster in October, it gave his campaign a boost in fundraising and media attention. And it'ss surely aware that the same thing might happen again if and when the bill comes to the floor and Dodd takes a stand against it. As it did last time, the campaign is again looking to use the issue to highlight the fact that he's been out front on this in a way his Dem rivals haven't. The full email after the jump.

Late Update: Senators Leahy and Wyden have now commented on this. Their statements after the jump.

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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.

Chris Dodd just let his supporters know that his campaign is opting in for matching funds, with these sentences buried in a fundraising email that just went out to supporters:

We have decided to take matching funds -- your $25 contribution will mean $50 in the campaign coffers today.

Double down, right now!

Which means that John Edwards will no longer be the only candidate facing matching funds questions.

In Chris Dodd's new Iowa ad, the candidate goes over how he isn't the most famous candidate, but also says he is qualified for the office, and is "the candidate who can win next November." Additionally, he clears up some possible confusion — he is not a former first lady:

Over at TPMmuckraker.com, Spencer Ackerman has a big story: The White House today released its guidelines for what will effectively be permanent U.S. bases in Iraq.

Naturally, the question of whether we should have such bases is a good one to pose to the Presidential candidates. So we've begun to ask them for a response.

Now Chris Dodd has become the first Presidential candidate to respond to our story. Dodd spokesman Hari Sevugan sends us a statement with the following key quote:

"Senator Dodd is fearful that the [White House's] lack of clarity on the long-term presence will be used as a justification by this Administration for a permanent military presence in Iraq, at precisely the time when we should be declaring the opposite. In a Dodd Adminsitration, there will be no permanent bases in Iraq."

That's pretty clear.

We'll bring you other candidates' responses as we get them. The Dodd camp's full statement after the jump.

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The upcoming CNN/YouTube Republican debate has received a submission from a certain Democratic voter. None other than presidential candidate Chris Dodd is pitching a question about whether the GOP candidates think Americans have to give up their Constitutional rights in order to be safe:

A Facebook group has started up, petitioning CNN to accept this questions and other cross-candidate ones like it.

Former Sen. John Durkin (D-NH), the last Democrat to win a Senate election in New Hampshire, will reportedly endorse Chris Dodd.

Durkin was elected to one term in a special election in 1975, following a close, disputed result in the regular 1974 race, and was defeated in 1980 by Republican Warren Rudman. He endorsed Howard Dean in the 2004 race, then rescinded his endorsement after the "Dean Scream" speech and switched his support over to John Edwards just before the New Hampshire primary.

One of the weirder aspects of last night's rush vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as AG is that none of the four Senators running for President voted on this -- despite the fact that his confirmation was a big issue in the Dem Primary. So what happened?

The question is being asked today because many opponents of Mukasey feel that his confirmation could have been stopped -- or at least slowed -- by a filibuster. Since the Senators running for President -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd -- all oppose Mukasey, they might have been likely candidates for that filibuster, or at least would have added "No" votes to the No column.

So why weren't they on hand for the vote? The answer is pretty straightforward -- but it also deepens the mystery of what really went down here.

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Chris Dodd is trying to get the other campaigns to pledge that their Iowa staffers and volunteers — many of whom live temporarily in the state and become eligible to vote — will not participate in the caucuses. No other campaign has yet signed the pledge.

"I've been here long enough to register to vote and be involved, but I shouldn't be," said Taylor West, a Dodd staffer from Virginia. "That violates the spirit of what the caucuses are about."

Carrie Giddins, the communications director for the state Democratic Party, said the party's rules would seem to eliminate anyone who comes to Iowa in the final days of the caucus specifically to participate.

It looks like Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and his family are serious about spending time in Iowa — the Dodds have gone so far as to enroll their six year-old daughter Grace in kindergarten at Hanawalt Elementary School in Des Moines.

Chris Dodd hits the airwaves in Iowa today with this new ad:

The ad is designed to capitalize on the sudden acrimony that's erupted in the Dem primary by saying that while the other Dems proclaim their willingness to fight for results, Dodd himself has gotten them in the Senate. Intriguingly, however, there's no mention of the thing that got him tons of attention in the past couple of weeks: His taking the lead in the battle against telecom immunity by threatening to block the Senate FISA bill, something that prompted similar opposition to telecom immunity from Hillary and Barack Obama.

Chris Dodd has just become the first Democrat to say he's voting against Michael Mukasey for AG. His reason: Mukasey's assertion that the President can overrule a Federal statute when the country's defenses are at risk.

Dodd's campaign emails over the following statement:

"Mr. Mukasey's position that the President does not have to heed the law disqualifies him from being the chief attorney for the United States. We have seen for too long, and at great expense to our national security, an Administration that has systematically attacked the rule of law and turned our Justice Department into a poltical wing of the White House. I'm afraid that Mr. Mukasey as Attorney General would be more of the same."

As on FISA, Dodd is again staking out a forward position on a critical legal and Constitutional question facing the country in a way sure to win him plaudits from Dem activists. What will the other Dem Senators running for President say on this?

Chris Dodd's new ad in Iowa features a pair of actors portraying barbers — filmed at an actual barbershop in Iowa — talking about how the candidate managed to get all that white hair.

"Twenty-six years on the Foreign Relations Committee," Dodd says, "oh yeah, that'll do it."

Dodd spokesman Hari Sevugan sends over the following statement on Obama's support for filibustering any FISA bill with telecom immunity, and Hillary's refusal to go that far:

There is some confusion as to what Senators Clinton and Obama meant in their statements, and we are pleased that Senator Obama has attempted to be more definitive in his position today.

We hope that other candidates will follow Chris Dodd’s lead in unequivocally stating that they will filibuster any FISA bill that contains retroactive immunity for telecom companies -- because this issue demands clarity.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton sends over this statement in response to our story saying that MoveOn and the top liberal bloggers are teaming up to press Hillary and Obama to get Chris Dodd's back on the threatened filibuster:

"Senator Obama has serious concerns about many provisions in this bill, especially the provision on giving retroactive immunity to the telephone companies. He is hopeful that this bill can be improved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But if the bill comes to the Senate floor in its current form, he would support a filibuster of it."

No direct mention of Dodd, but clearly supporting Dodd's idea of filibustering this bill. We obviously don't know what the ultimate bill will look like, but Obama can't really be expected to comment on theoreticals, and this represents at least a quasi-declaration of opposition to telecom immunity in general.

Late Update: Just to clarify, this statement, like Hillary's, in no way represents support for Dodd's threat to filibuster any bill containing telecom immunity.

Another interesting twist in the Dodd-FISA story.

In a move that will up the pressure on Hillary and Barack Obama to stand firm against the Senate telecom immunity FISA bill, MoveOn and a dozen top progressive blogs will launch an all-out campaign tomorrow to pressure the two Senators into publicly declaring their support for Chris Dodd's threat to place a hold on and filibuster the bill, Election Central has learned.

MoveOn spokesman Adam Green tells me that the group will send out an email to "thousands" of its members tomorrow morning, and thousands more throughout the day, asking them to call the offices of Hillary and Obama and demand that they publicly affirm their support for Dodd.

"We'll be asking Obama and Clinton to publicly get Chris Dodd's back and say in a statement that they will explicitly support his hold and filibuster," Green tells me. "Pretty much this is the exact same ask made to Joe Biden in a Washington Post chat. The question was, Will you join Chris Dodd? He said Yes."

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As promised, here it is, emailed out by the Dodd campaign to supporters: