Shockingly, the Senator From AIG Might Be in Trouble
Chris Dodd should be one of those safe Senators-for-life. He's a Connecticut Democrat and he's been in congress since 1975. He's untouchable, like Teddy Kennedy. But the industry he actually represents fucked America over.
Dodd is the official Senator of the insurance industry, and hedge funds, and banks, and basically everyone else who we hate now. He got cheap mortgages from Countrywide, and he was the top recipient of cash from AIG and Fannie and Freddie. He lied about the AIG bonus thing. He has crabs. Now he's going to lose his seat, probably!
The Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday shows Dodd, a 28-year veteran of the upper chamber, notching just 34 percent in a 2010 match-up against former Republican Representative Rob Simmons, who netted 50 percent - this in an emphatically blue state that Barack Obama just won by 23 points.
So now the Dems would like to maybe convince Chris to step aside—maybe he could be an ambassador or something?—so they can protect what should be a really safe seat. But this Dodd fellow will never let this happen. He is going to stay in the Senate until he's dragged out by dogs. Why? Because he went into politics not out of some desire to serve the public good, but because of Freudian family issues. His dad, Thomas Dodd, was a Senator. Thomas was censured by the Senate for misusing campaign money. Connecticut Dems abandoned him, and Thomas Dodd ran for reelection as an independent, with "his son Chris at his side, serving as his campaign manager." He handed the seat to the Republicans. Then he had a heart attack and died.
In other words, Chris Dodd is one of those terrible bastards who thinks his Senate seat is his birthright. "Every time I walk on the Senate floor, I feel that he's vindicated," Dodd once said of his father, because he is an entitled asshole.
At the moment, the DSCC is pretending there's nothing worrying about Dodd's poll numbers, but he'll be a fun one to watch this year.