It's Official: Senator Dodd Running for President

Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut is running for president. Here's the story by David Lightman of the Hartford Courant:

He launched his bid for the White House this morning on the Don Imus radio show, and then told the Courant he would file the papers today to become a candidate for the White House in 2008. ...

(snip)

Dodd also talked about his two young daughters, and how he has a responsibility to shape a better world, and said his experience and temperament make him uniquely qualified to lead the country.

"You have to have the capacity to lead and bring people together," he said, "and I have a lot of experience at that."

(snip)

"People look at President Bush and think part of his problem is that he was unprepared to be president," Fischer said. "That is a real opening for someone like Chris Dodd, because not even his fiercest opponents would be able to say he would not be ready on day one."

Dodd is one of the most respected and experienced senators in Washington but he's not that well known outside of Washington. He has a major job ahead of him getting his numbers into contender range.

Senator may also have to deal with some irrelevant issues; here's an AP story by Andrew Miga in The Boston Globe:

Sen. Christopher Dodd's image as a Northeast liberal could pose a hurdle in his longshot bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

The Connecticut senator will be running in the turbulent wake of another prominent New England liberal, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

Kerry's losing 2004 campaign embittered some Democrats who contend he squandered a prime chance for his party to capture the White House. Those bad feelings have lingered as the 2008 contest begins to unfold.

"The party just nominated a New England liberal whose campaign was a failure," said Dante Scala, an associate professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire who wrote "Stormy Weather," a book about the state's primary. "That's going to be one strike against" Dodd.

First, I don't think of Dodd as a Northeast liberal. I'm also tired of the usual political consultants and journalists trying to shape the dialogue. Christopher Dodd will have to make his case. If he has ideas, we need to hear him out.

Americans are going to have to look long and hard at what has happened to this country in the last six years. The Republican Party has lost its way and if somebody has an idea of where we should go next, we as a nation need to listen.