As a Connecticut resident I’ve been hearing the rumblings about Chris Dodd for a while now but they’re finally starting to come into national focus:
HARTFORD, Conn. – Howard Rosenblatt voted for U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd five years ago. He won’t do that again.
“It’s time for Chris to resign,” said the 62-year-old owner of Rosenblatt’s department store in Naugatuck, Conn., a working-class borough of more than 30,000. “He sits on the Senate banking commission, and he had his hands on funny money loans.”
Earl Reilly, a 59-year-old factory worker from Naugatuck, shares Rosenblatt’s anger with the state’s senior senator.
“Don’t get me started on Dodd,” he said. “He’s been doing the job too long, and he’s got a hole in his canoe and it’s sinking.”
While Dodd, 64, has only recently found himself in the nation’s political hot seat because of his role in the AIG bonus debacle, it has become clear that his issues with voters back home have been festering for two years. The AIG controversy appears to have exacerbated his popularity problems.
“His numbers started to fall two years ago, and it had nothing to do with the economy,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz. “It’s been a cumulative effect that has brought him down.”
Dodd’s decision to move his family to Iowa to campaign for a doomed bid for president, his initial refusal to release documents of his two controversial mortgages with Countrywide, criticism of how he financed a vacation cottage in Ireland, and now his involvement as Senate Banking Committee chairman in the bill that ultimately protected bonuses for executives at insurance giant AIG have all taken their toll. Read the rest…
The 2010 mid-term elections are still a long way off but there’s no doubt Chris Dodd is more vulnerable than he’s ever been… Connecticut voters aren’t happy with him but whether that dissatisfaction will translate into defeat at the ballot remains to be seen.