2008.01.06: January 6, 2008: Headlines: Figures: COS - Dominican Republic: Politics: Congress: Election2008 - Dodd: The Day: Dodd Says It's Good Feeling To Be Home

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By Admin1 (admin) (pool-141-157-18-99.balt.east.verizon.net - 141.157.18.99) on Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 1:25 pm: Edit Post

Dodd Says It's Good Feeling To Be Home

Dodd Says It's Good Feeling To Be Home

Asked if there was a high point for him in the campaign, Dodd said it was a speech he gave eight months ago at a New Hampshire spaghetti dinner. He was growing increasingly upset, he said, over the Bush administration's “assaults” on the U.S. Constitution: “Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, renditions, secret prisons, habeus corpus, torture, all of these things mounting up.” So he stood up. “And I said, 'By the way, on January of 2009, if I'm inaugurated as your president, the first thing I'm going to do is give you the Constitution back.' And 250 people jumped to their feet and applauded for 15 minutes. It was a physical experience.” Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic in the 1960's.

Dodd Says It's Good Feeling To Be Home

Done Campaigning, Dodd Says It's Good Feeling To Be Home

By Kenton Robinson

Published on 1/6/2008

East Haddam — Standing in U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd's backyard, a freelance photographer was making a joke.

Nodding toward the small, glass-sided box hanging from a tree, Rob Heyl winked and said, “I wonder when Sen. Dodd is going to fill the bird feeder?”

There's no question Dodd's been missed.

Dodd himself related an anecdote about one of the volunteers who worked on his presidential campaign in Iowa.

“He was a volunteer from this area,” Dodd said, “and his parents said, 'You can go out and work for him, but tell him we hope he doesn't win. We want him to come back home and be our senator.' ”

And so it was on Saturday, when Democrat Chris Dodd came home, he could not take a step without running into another hug, another kiss. About 50 family members, friends and state politicians were on hand to greet him.

At noon, he took his place behind a podium set up on a corner of his driveway, his back to the floes of ice on the Connecticut River, and said, “as I've said so many times on the front porch of this house over the last 25 years, great journeys always begin at home and end at home as well. And so today, it's a good feeling to be back home in Connecticut.”

Dressed in a perfectly pressed blue suit, and looking none the worse for the wear of what has been a brutal campaign, Dodd was wreathed in smiles as he said, “Honestly, I come home disappointed. I would have liked to have won this election. I've been through eight elections, and let me tell you, winning is a lot more fun than losing.”

He was accompanied by his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, and his daughters Christina and Grace, the two little girls dressed in matching pink car-coats and fidgeting as he spoke.

He thanked his supporters, his staff, his fellow politicians who joined his campaign, and then he said, “I want to tell you about a lady named Jackie, because Jackie, I think, four years from now could go back and run for president. She just did a great, great job in Iowa ... And these girls, Christina and Grace, did a great job as well. And they are happy to be home in Connecticut, I can tell you here.”

At which remark, Grace grinned a jack-o-lantern grin and swiped the back of her hand across her brow, a pratfall comedian's sign of relief.

Dodd withdrew from the race Thursday night when the results of the Iowa caucuses left him and other “second-tier” Democratic candidates in the dust.

Saturday the senator could joke about that too.

“Hey, look, from the very beginning, we didn't start out high in the polls and then shrink; we never really grew at all in the polls,” he said to gales of laughter. “And the fact that people were willing to stand with me and to be a part of that was really heartening.”

Colleen Flanagan, Dodd's national press secretary, and state Sen. Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, who worked on Dodd's campaign, agreed.

“Certainly it wasn't the outcome that any of us were hoping for, but the fact of the matter is that the senator ran a great campaign,” Flanagan said.

“Most people readily admitted that Chris Dodd had the most experience, that he had a terrific record on domestic issues, on foreign affairs, and a record of achievement,” Williams said. “But you know, unlike, say, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, the instant name recognition just wasn't there.”

Dodd decribed Obama, Clinton and Edwards as “good guys” and said he was not going to make any endorsements in the immediate future.

Asked if there was a high point for him in the campaign, Dodd said it was a speech he gave eight months ago at a New Hampshire spaghetti dinner. He was growing increasingly upset, he said, over the Bush administration's “assaults” on the U.S. Constitution: “Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, renditions, secret prisons, habeus corpus, torture, all of these things mounting up.”

So he stood up. “And I said, 'By the way, on January of 2009, if I'm inaugurated as your president, the first thing I'm going to do is give you the Constitution back.' And 250 people jumped to their feet and applauded for 15 minutes. It was a physical experience.”

Dodd laughed when he was asked if he would run for vice president.

“I've had my run,” he said. “This is enough.”

Furthermore, he said, with his seniority in the U.S. Senate he has more influence than most vice presidents have ever had.

Would he want to be Senate majority leader?

Dodd laughed again.

“No, no,” he said. “Being Democratic leader is like trying to keep frogs in a wheelbarrow.”

For now, he said, he wants to take a breather, and then “I will step back into this and once again be a full-time senator for the state of Connecticut. It's a good, good feeling to be home.”




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Headlines: January, 2008; RPCV Chris Dodd (Dominican Republic); Figures; Peace Corps Dominican Republic; Directory of Dominican Republic RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Dominican Republic RPCVs; Politics; Congress; Election2008 - Dodd; Connecticut





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