From the National Journal:

Q: As I mentioned earlier, you were the General Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Now, you know that a lot of Democrats feel that this increasingly bitter race between Obama and Clinton is hurting the party. First of all, do you think that is true, and secondly, if you were in charge, what would you do?

Dodd: Well, I think it is hurting. Look, we’ve got five more months to go before the Democratic Convention at the end of August and, candidly, we cannot go five more months with the kind of daily sniping that’s going on and have a candidate emerge in that convention. My hope is that it will be Barack Obama, but if it’s Hillary Clinton, she too will suffer, in my view, from this kind of a campaign that I think is undermining the credibility and the quality of the two candidates that we have. We have two very strong candidates. So I’m worried about this going on endlessly and to a large extent, Linda, the media, a lot of these cable networks, are enjoying this. It’s what is keeping them alive financially. The fact that this thing is going on forever, back and forth every day, all night — I don’t think it’s really helping the candidates or the political institutions.

Q: What’s the solution?

Dodd: Well, the solution is, look, we’ve got a contest coming up in Pennsylvania and one in North Carolina and Indiana very quickly afterwards. In my view, the outcome of those three races will determine — I think the race has been determined, anyway, at this point. I think it’s very difficult to imagine how anyone can believe that Barack Obama can’t be the nominee of the party. I think that’s a foregone conclusion, in my view, at this juncture given where things are. But certainly over the next couple of weeks, as we get into April, it seems to me then, that the national leadership of this party has to stand up and reach a conclusion. And in the absence of doing that — and that’s not easy and I realize it’s painful — but the alternative, allowing this sort of to fester over the months of June, and July and August, I think are irresponsible. I think you have to make a decision, and hopefully the candidates will respect it and people will rally behind a nominee that, I think, emerges from these contests over the next month. That’s my suggestion, that’s what I would do.

Q: So you’re talking about putting together, what, a committee of elders? What do you mean, exactly?

Dodd: Well, again, I think you are looking at people who are already in positions of leadership in the Congress– Governors, Senators, and others, the leadership of the DNC, whatever it is. It seems to me you’ve got to have an issue here that transcends your favorite candidate and decide whether or not the best candidate we have to win this election, to bring our country together and to get behind that choice, instead of having this sort of drip on for the next five months — that is devastating in my view. I think it hurts our candidate at a time when the country is looking for an alternative choice, I think we have an opportunity to do that. So I would advocate that we try and let this run out for the next few weeks, but then consolidate behind that candidate that’s clearly the choice and will win the nomination.

Q: So you go to the person who seems to be the winner after these most recent contests and you tell the other person to drop out? Is that, essentially, what you are saying?

Dodd: Well, it’s more deciding who the winner of this is — I mean, if a person wants to stay in the race, stay in the race. But if you have enough people rallying behind what appears to be the likely choice, and I believe the choice is Barack Obama, and I believe that will be the choice over the next several weeks. Then I think you have to step up to the plate and say, enough is enough. We want this to be over with. We want to get behind this candidate, and we want people to pull together to win that election in November — to build those majorities in the House and the Senate if we can, and then start doing the work on health care and Iraq and all these other issues that demand our attention.

After a poor showing in Iowa Senator Chris Dodd has ended his bid for the Democratic nomination.

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From CNN and candidate blogs:
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Right now you can stream C-SPAN 2 and watch Senator Chris Dodd filibuster immunity for telecom companies for wiretapping.

It might not be how YOU want to spend a Monday night BUT it is digital democracy.

From Ballot Access it appears Senator Chris Dodd did not file to be on the ballot for the NYS primary. All a candidate needs is to collect 5,000 signatures and file.

Political Wire asks if this a sign that Dodd is on his way out?

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has been writing a book about his term in the administration. This morning his publisher released a small nugget from the book in which McClellan reveals he passed along false information on behalf of the admin in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case.

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the president himself.

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Politics is largely about expectations and rarely about real perception.

One of my favorite things to watch are candidates who aren’t polling well or aren’t raising money (or both) discredit both factors. At the moment Senator Chris Dodd is on Chris Matthews program talking about how polls don’t matter. He doesn’t believe in them and said something to the effect of “people in Iowa don’t want a national newspaper telling them how to vote.”

He supported his reasoning by saying his own private phone banking has found that 70,000 people they’ve talked to across the country say they haven’t made up their minds yet on the candidates. So Dodd showed his disbelief in polling by citing polling numbers. Does something about that not sound right to you?

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From Bloomberg:

June 27 (Bloomberg) — The fate of U.S. immigration legislation was cast into doubt when at least six senators who helped revive the proposed overhaul said they either oppose or are leaning against a move to permit a vote on final passage.

The measure is in more jeopardy “than I thought a few hours ago,” said Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.

My personal opinion? Not so good. I like Bob’s spirit and he seems sincere, the idea is sweet and nice but to be honest it doesn’t project and it doesn’t really make Dodd stand out. I see this and think: “He authored some legislation, that’s nice, how will he tackle Global Thermonuclear War?”