The Senate Finance Committee approved its health care reform bill on a 14-9 vote yesterday, with all Democrats and Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine voting in favor. Ranking Republican Chuck Grassley, a key member of the committee’s “gang of six” negotiators this summer, joined the rest of the Republicans in voting against the bill. Speaking to the Des Moines Register Grassley “said he has no regrets about working with majority Democrats on the committee, only to oppose the bill. Given more time, he might have struck a deal, he said.”

This guy is the perfect picture of a bad-faith negotiator. From the Register:

Grassley said he objects most to provisions in the bill that would require Americans to obtain health insurance. But Grassley also said the bill does too little to block federal money being spent to provide abortions and provide coverage for illegal immigrants.

“Those aren’t the only things, but I think they are the most controversial or the most difficult to deal with,” Grassley told The Des Moines Register.

As Jason Hancock reported for the Iowa Independent last week, Grassley publicly supported the idea of an individual mandate to purchase health insurance this summer. I agree that requiring individuals to purchase insurance is problematic if there is no broad-based public health insurance option (because then the government is just subsidizing private insurers), but of course Grassley opposed the public option too.

In addition, the “gang of six” made changes in the bill before markup to address groundless Republican claims about illegal immigrants. According to PolitiFact, the “Baucus plan explicitly states that no federal funds – whether through tax credits or cost-sharing credits – could be used to pay for abortions (again, except for rape, incest, or the life of the mother).”

Trying to cut deals with Grassley is a waste of time. For more on that point, check out the skipper’s recent diary.

Speaking of Grassley, Cityview’s Civic Skinny thinks he should be worried about a potential race against attorney Roxanne Conlin. When a reporter asked Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack whether his wife, Christie Vilsack, might run against Grassley, he replied, “You should ask her about that.” (UPDATE: Dave Price did ask her and wonders whether she is the mystery candidate.)

As for the health care bill, the Finance Committee and HELP Committee versions have to be merged before a floor vote. It’s imperative that a public option be included in the version sent to the floor, and HELP Committee representative Chris Dodd says he will fight for that. On the other hand, Snowe and a few Democrats, like Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, might vote against the bill on the floor if it contains a public option. Chris Bowers wrote more at Open Left about the merging process in the House and Senate.

Senate Democrats have not given up on passing health care reform through normal procedures requiring at least 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster. The problem is, several conservative Senate Democrats are on record opposing a public health insurance option. Meanwhile, a bill with no public option will have trouble passing the House of Representatives, where the overwhelming majority of the Democratic caucus supports a robust public option tied to Medicare rates.

The obvious political solution is to include some watered-down public option in the bill, giving cover to Progressive Democrats who insist on a public option while placating House Blue Dogs and Senate conservatives who want to protect private insurers’ market share.

The “triggered” public option favored by many industry allies didn’t fly, because most Democrats understand that the trigger would never be pulled. This past week, a new possible compromise emerged:

It was pulled out of an alternative idea, put forth by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and, prior to him, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, to give states the power to determine whether they want to implement a public insurance option.

But instead of starting with no national public option and giving state governments the right to develop their own, the newest compromise approaches the issue from the opposite direction: beginning with a national public option and giving state governments the right not to have one.

I consider this idea’s pros and cons after the jump.  

A year ago tonight, nearly 240,000 Iowans spent a couple of hours in overcrowded rooms during the Democratic precinct caucuses.

Thousands of others came to freezing cold Iowa to knock on doors or make phone calls for their presidential candidate in late December and early January.

Share any memories you have about caucusing or volunteering in this thread.

After the jump I re-posted my account of what happened at my own caucus. I was a precinct captain for Edwards.

The Senate will debate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act today. Despite the heroic efforts of Senators Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold, all signs point toward capitulation by the Democrats.

Glenn Greenwald again tells you why you should care.

Daily Kos front-pager smintheus explains why the advocates touting this new, improved version of FISA are wrong about the oversight potential of inspectors-general.

The Barack Obama supporters against the FISA bill have been organizing at an incredible pace, but he indicated last week that he will vote for the bill. How far will he go in supporting various amendments offered by Senate Democrats?

I won’t be watching C-SPAN today, but if you are, feel free to “document the atrocities” in the comments (as Atrios might say).

UPDATE: mcjoan has more detail on the key votes that will take place today.

SECOND UPDATE: The FISA bill passed 69-28, with three not voting. McCain dodged another big vote.

The roll call vote is here:

http://www.senate.gov/legislat…

No surprises from the Iowa senators: Grassley voted yes, and Harkin voted no.

Obama voted yes, as expected. Hillary voted no.

Paul Rosenberg put up a post well worth your time if you are disturbed by the House vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Key point:

MapLight.org is reporting that House Democrats who changed their vote to support Telco immunity received much more, on average than their counterparts who did not change position.  This is a group correlation, of course.  Not all those who voted for immunity received more money than those who voted against.  Indeed, 11 of those who voted for immunity received nothing at all from the three Telcos.  But the group correlation is quite strong.

Click the link to find a chart listing all 94 House Democrats who voted against retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies on March 14, but voted for the FISA bill containing immunity on June 20. (Our own Leonard Boswell is in this group). The chart shows how much money each of them received in PAC contributions from AT&T, Sprint or Verizon.

Boswell is in the middle of the pack, having received $10,000. I wouldn’t assume those contributions are the only reason he has favored the telecommunications companies’ interests over protecting constitutional rights. But he does have a long history of voting with Republicans and corporate interests rather than with the majority of House Democrats on a lot of issues.

The Des Moines Register ran a strongly-worded editorial on FISA in the Wednesday edition:

Federal law authorizing secret intercepts of international communications may need amending to account for changes in technology and behavior of terrorist groups, but the job should be put off for a new Congress and a new president next year. In the current political climate, with an election looming, the temptation is to ram something – anything – through to avoid the accusation of being weak on terrorism, even if the constitutional privacy rights of American citizens are sacrificed in the process.

That apparently motivated 105 House Democrats to go along with 188 Republicans to give President Bush what the Washington Post described as “one of the last major victories he is likely to achieve.” That, along with the administration’s last-minute decision to allow the Democrats to toss in an additional $95 billion in domestic spending in a war-appropriations bill.

That’s a pathetically small price for authorizing this president, and future presidents, to ignore the 4th Amendment restrictions on “unreasonable searches and seizures.” […]

Those are just some of the problems with the House bill. It’s hard to say how many others exist, however, because there was precious little public debate. The operations of the spying program are classified secrets, and only a select few members of Congress have been clued in on how it works. Even legal experts are struggling to decipher the bill.

This is in stark contrast to 30 years ago, when the FISA law was enacted after months of public discussion, hearings and testimony. Changing the law implicating a fundamental constitutional right mandates nothing short of that same process today.

My only quibble with this editorial is where were the Register’s reporters on this issue during the third district primary campaign?

Boswell advocated retroactive immunity for telecoms in February, then changed his position in March. In early May, there was some speculation that he had cooperated with House Republicans to get this provision back on the table.

I tried for weeks to get Boswell’s office to comment on this issue and got the runaround. Naturally, they were not going to return phone calls from a blogger supporting Ed Fallon. But the Register’s Jane Norman or Thomas Beaumont could have at least forced Boswell to clarify where he stood on FISA before Iowa Democrats voted on June 3. Why didn’t the Register’s assignment editors give this issue some space this spring?

Glenn Greenwald has been writing extensively on FISA over at Salon, and I highly recommend his latest post, Chris Dodd’s speech and a glimmer of hope for stopping the FISA bill. It’s long and includes some great quotes from Dodd and Senator Russ Feingold, as well as many other links to good commentary on this issue.

Speaking of Feingold, Josh Orton of MyDD linked to the Progressive Patriots Fund Campaign Store. (Feingold is the honorary chair of that fund.) At the store you can buy t-shirts and mousepads with the slogan “Don’t Spy On Me” and a drawing of a telephone cord curled up like the famous Revolutionary War-era “Don’t Tread On Me” flag featuring a rattlesnake.

Ben Smith put up a post about Barack Obama’s prominent early supporters, who came on board when he was seen as having little chance of beating Hillary Clinton. Here is his list:

Senator Richard Durbin

Former Majority Leader Tom Daschle

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller

Oprah Winfrey

Iowa Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald

Former Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Gordon Fischer

Ted Sorensen

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine

Alabama Rep. Artur Davis

New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hodes

It’s easy to forget now that Gordon Fischer was on the fence between Clinton and Obama for some time last summer. He told the story of how Obama’s campaign hooked him in an interview with New Yorker journalist Ryan Lizza:

Obama, who had sometimes seemed to eschew the details of campaigning which Clinton appears to revel in, has become more enmeshed in the state’s idiosyncratic politics. Consider the conquest of Gordon Fischer, a former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party. Every campaign wanted Fischer’s endorsement, but the Obama campaign pursued him relentlessly. At a recent lunch at the Des Moines Embassy Club, a restaurant on the forty-first floor of the tallest building in the state, Fischer explained how Obama’s Iowa operatives used his closest friends to persuade him to back Obama. One, Lola Velázquez-Aguilú, managed to decorate part of Fischer’s house with photographs of Obama that featured thought bubbles asking for Fischer’s endorsement. (“Has anyone told you how great you look today?” an image of Obama taped to a mirror said. “So, are you ready to sign a supporter card?”) When Obama staffers learned that the late Illinois senator Paul Simon was a hero of Fischer’s, they asked Simon’s son-in-law, Perry Knop, to call Fischer and make the case for Obama. At one point, Obama himself invited Fischer onto his campaign bus and told him that he had to stay aboard until he agreed to an endorsement. When Fischer insisted that he had to make the decision with his wife, Monica, Obama demanded Monica’s cell-phone number, and he called her at once. “Monica, this is Barack Obama,” he said when her voice mail came on. “I’m with your husband here, and I’m trying to go ahead and close the deal for him to support my candidacy. . . . Discuss it over with your man. Hopefully we can have you on board.” The Fischers were sufficiently impressed to endorse him, two weeks later. “I think the Iowa campaign has been run better than the national campaign,” Fischer said.

When I read Lizza’s article last November, I showed that passage to my husband, who remarked, “That’s actually a really good argument for scrapping the caucuses.” I’m sure that wasn’t Fischer’s intention, though!

But I digress.

Ben Smith’s post reminded me that I’ve been meaning to put up a poll about which candidate had the best celebrity supporters.

For the purposes of this diary, I am focusing on celebrities who publicly endorsed or campaigned for a candidate. Lists of famous donors can be deceiving, since many rich and famous people give large sums to multiple candidates:

Actor Michael Douglas, for example, has contributed to five current and former Democratic presidential candidates. As of Sept. 30, the latest reports available, he had donated the maximum $4,600 $2,300 for the primary campaign and $2,300 for the general election to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd, and $1,500 to Dennis Kucinich.

[…]

Another serial donor in the current election is Paul Newman, who gave the maximum contribution to Obama, Clinton, and Dodd, and $2,300 to Richardson.

Some donors have spread the wealth around but have decided to back one candidate. Barbra Streisand gave $2,300 each to Clinton, Edwards and Obama, and $1,000 to Dodd, but recently endorsed Clinton for president.

[…]

Steven Spielberg and Rob Reiner are two other celebrities who donated to multiple presidential candidates four a piece before settling on Clinton. Reiner also shot a spoof video for Clinton’s Web site.

Actress Mary Steenburgen gave money to both Edwards and Clinton, but has backed Clinton, a friend for three decades, from the get-go. Steenburgen, a native of Newport, Ark., met the Clintons when Bill Clinton was in his first term as governor of Arkansas.

Last month the Huffington Post published this piece on the top ten celebrities for Clinton and Obama. Here is their list for Obama:

1. Oprah

2. will.i.am

3. the Kennedy women (Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Maria Shriver)

4. Ben Affleck

5. George Clooney

6. Scarlett Johansson

7. Samuel L. Jackson

8. Chris Rock

9. Robert De Niro

10. Jennifer Aniston

At least I have heard of these people. When I first saw will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” video, I swear that the only person I recognized was Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

HuffPo’s list of top ten Clinton supporters:

1. Ellen DeGeneres

2. Elton John

3. Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen

4. Jack Nicholson

5. Natalie Portman

6. Mario Lavandeira (I never heard of him, but apparently he is the celebrity blogger Perez Hilton)

7. America Ferrera (star of “Ugly Betty”)

8. Magic Johnson

9. Barbra Streisand

10. Eva Longoria Parker (star of “Desperate Housewives”)

The list of other famous people who have donated to Obama or Clinton is of course very long. I know that Bruce Springsteen and Tom Hanks are also public Obama supporters. If I’ve left out celebrities who played an important public role in either candidate’s campaign, please let me know in the comments.

John Edwards: A bunch of big Hollywood names donated to his campaign, but most of them did not play any public role, and many also gave money to other Democratic candidates.

I was fortunate enough to see one of the mini-concerts Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne did for Edwards in Iowa last November. They also campaigned for him in New Hampshire. Tim Robbins came to early-voting states to stump for Edwards as well. I heard from a friend who saw Robbins in Des Moines that his first comment to the crowd was, “I’m not Oprah.” Ben “Cooter” Jones, former Congressman and star of the tv show “Dukes of Hazzard,” also campaigned for Edwards in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

UPDATE: I can’t believe I forgot that Madeleine Stowe, Kevin Bacon, and James Denton (of “Desperate Housewives” fame) also came to Iowa to help out Edwards. In addition, Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte endorsed Edwards. Jon Mellencamp not only supported Edwards, he also invited him on stage during a concert in Des Moines.

Bill Richardson: Again, a lot of big Hollywood names maxed out to his campaign, but most of them didn’t endorse him. The exception was Martin Sheen, who came to Iowa in December to go out on the stump with Richardson. Sheen endorsed Obama after Richardson dropped out.

Joe Biden: The famous people listed here as his donors mostly contributed to other candidates as well. I cannot recall any celebrities coming to Iowa to campaign with Biden, but please correct me in the comments if I am wrong. He was often accompanied by family members, especially his sons Beau and Hunter. (UPDATE: I forgot that Richard Schiff, who played Toby the communications guy on “The West Wing,” came to Iowa to campaign with Biden.)

Chris Dodd: Many of the famous people who donated to his campaign also donated to other candidates. However, it is worth mentioning that singer-songwriter Paul Simon campaigned with Dodd in Iowa last July, and former Democratic Senatorial candidate Ned Lamont campaigned with Dodd in Iowa last November.

Dennis Kucinich: Viggo Mortensen came to New Hampshire to campaign with Kucinich after the candidate was left out of the last presidential debate before that state’s primary. Apparently Sean Penn gave Kucinich money during the 2004 campaign.

I am not aware of any celebrity supporters of Mike Gravel.

Click “there’s more” to take the poll after the jump.

Poligirl wrote a good diary about an op-ed piece by Elizabeth Edwards in today’s New York Times: “Bowling 1, Health Care 0.”

She slammed the media for its superficial coverage of the presidential campaign during the past year, and particularly during the weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania primary:

Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.

Political junkie that I am, I do know something about Joe Biden’s health care plan (no thanks to the mainstream media). Elizabeth Edwards tells it like it is:

What’s more, the news media cut candidates like Joe Biden out of the process even before they got started. Just to be clear: I’m not talking about my husband. I’m referring to other worthy Democratic contenders. Few people even had the chance to find out about Joe Biden’s health care plan before he was literally forced from the race by the news blackout that depressed his poll numbers, which in turn depressed his fund-raising.

And it’s not as if people didn’t want this information. In focus groups that I attended or followed after debates, Joe Biden would regularly be the object of praise and interest: “I want to know more about Senator Biden,” participants would say.

But it was not to be. Indeed, the Biden campaign was covered more for its missteps than anything else. Chris Dodd, also a serious candidate with a distinguished record, received much the same treatment. I suspect that there was more coverage of the burglary at his campaign office in Hartford than of any other single event during his run other than his entering and leaving the campaign.

Who is responsible for the veil of silence over Senator Biden? Or Senator Dodd? Or Gov. Tom Vilsack? Or Senator Sam Brownback on the Republican side?

The decision was probably made by the same people who decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate.

I said many times last year that if Biden had the media hype Obama was getting, he would be a strong contender for the nomination. He had a great stump speech and performed better in every debate than Obama did, but all you heard from the leading analysts was that Biden was a gaffe machine.

Thanks again to poligirl for including a link to an audio interview of Elizabeth Edwards talking about her op-ed piece.

How many presidential campaigns will our infotainment complex get wrong before they finally give people the news coverage they deserve?

Bleeding Heartland readers, I would be interested in your views on how the Iowa caucuses might have turned out differently.

Let’s assume that Barack Obama runs the exact campaign he ran last year in terms of strategy and execution, and has the same monetary resources he had available.

What, if anything, could other candidates have done to beat Obama in Iowa? Keep in mind that both Clinton and Edwards executed their strategies pretty well in Iowa (in my opinion), with

both of them getting more than 70,000 people to stand in their corners on January 3. That “should” have been enough to win, even if turnout had been “only” 50 percent greater than the previous record for Iowa Democrats.

Given the Obama campaign’s excellent strategy and execution, as well as their virtually unlimited monetary resources in Iowa, what could other candidates have done to win the Iowa caucuses?

These are examples of the kinds of questions I’m interested in:

Should Hillary have used Bill more, or used him less?

Would it have helped Clinton or Edwards to go negative on Obama?

Were there better methods Clinton could have used to identify and turn out supporters?

Was there anything Richardson could have done in the summer to build on the bump he got from his television commercials in May?

Would Edwards have done better if his stump speech and advertising had focused on different issues?

Should Edwards have spent some money on advertising in the summer, when he slipped behind Clinton in the Iowa polls, rather than keeping his powder dry?

Feel free to post your insights about these and similar questions on this thread.

Alternatively, if you have thoughts you’d rather keep off the record, please e-mail them to me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com, or e-mail me your phone number and I will call you to chat. I will keep your views confidential.

Chris Dodd and Joe Biden have both decided to leave the presidential race and will be going back to the Senate.  I wish them the best of luck.  In the extended entry, you can read Dodd’s remarks to supporters and you can read the release from Biden’s campaign.

On behalf of Iowa Democrats and the Bleeding Heartland community, let me say thank you to both Senators for their remarkable fight and effort they put into the caucuses.  Without Biden, we wouldn’t be able to have the serious debate about the future of Iraq like we’ve been able to have.  Without Dodd, things like FISA and restoring the Constitution would have been tossed aside.  These men have extraordinary experience and are good leaders for the Democratic party.

We Iowans are interesting people.  Of all the Senators and former Senators in the race, we picked the one with the least experience in that institution.  Maybe it is because of his message of hope, of unity, of change.  But we also looked past a combined 50+ years of experience in the Senate.  Is that a bad thing?  I don’t know.  I hope not.

However, these two men can now head back to the Senate and keep working hard for our majorities in Congress.  And pressing this reckless President for change.  Dodd can keep fighting and filibustering.  And who knows, maybe we’ll see one of these men later on as a vice president.

Or maybe as the new Senate Democratic leader.

One more time, thank you!

Iowa's state flag reads “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.”

What a fitting motto for the state that tonight will serve as the proving ground for the Democratic field.

In little over a year, a new President will be sworn into the Oval Office. That person will be tasked with many jobs from Day One, but perhaps none is more important than the restoration of our Constitution following eight years of abuse at the hands of the Bush administration.

While Iowans spend the last three hours or so before the caucus pondering which candidate they will stand with, I hope they take the time to look at their state flag. Re-read their state motto. Then make their decision.

Only one candidate has made standing up for the Constitution central to his campaign.

Only one candidate authored a book this year about our nation's proudest moment standing up for the rule of law.

Only one candidate left the campaign trail to return to Washington and stop another assault on our rights.

Only one candidate has pledged that on the very first hour of the very first day, he will restore the Constitution of the United States of America.

Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.

Iowans, the time is now: Caucus for Chris Dodd, because he, above all others, will use his presidency to not just maintain our rights, but restore and protect them. We know he will do that in 2009, because he's already doing it now, in 2007 and 2008.

So stand by your state's motto and please stand for Chris Dodd tonight.

A day before the Iowa caucus, the Des Moines Register is running a long profile piece on Senator Dodd. The article goes into great detail on his record of bringing people together to get results and be a force for positive, progressive change over his twenty-six year career in the Senate.

Here's a clip from the article:

Chris Dodd says voters want more than a symbol of change – they want real change.

Dodd, a U.S. senator from Connecticut, has relied on his experience as he has pursued a longshot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

He often points to changes he has made in the American policy landscape, including writing the Family and Medical Leave Act and helping reform election laws.

He was one of the authors of the Help America Vote Act, which his staff said was the first major step the country took toward reforming election law after the controversial 2000 election in Florida.

That act provided grant money to states to upgrade their election systems and put provisions in place to make polling more accessible for the disabled.

“I'm a great advocate of change, and on the cutting edge of it,” Dodd said.

The Family and Medical Leave Act requires employers to grant eligible employees a total of 12 workweeks of unpaid leave for reasons such as the birth of a child or to care for an immediate family member with a serious health condition.

Dodd calls the legislation the “most significant health care reform since Medicare reform” and as president, said he wants to expand the coverage to include paid leave.

Dodd's policy vision is also punctuated by his often-stated concern to preserve the Constitution, a copy of which he carries in his pocket every day.

It's always interesting to see which pieces of legislation or achievements reporters choose to highlight from Chris Dodd's record. Frankly, with a leader who's gotten as much done as Dodd has throughout his career, the task his daunting. Just ask Mike Caulfield about how many hours it took for him to whittle down the scores of stories he researched while writing his endorsement post.

In the article Dodd also talks about the virtue of public service as a calling for those who want to help as many people as they can.

“He said there's no other calling in life where you can do as much for as many people as you can through public service,” Dodd said at the debate. “Lawyers only have so many clients, doctors only so many patients, but a well-intentioned public servant can make a difference in the lives of millions of people. That's my motivation. I want to carry that tradition on. That's why I'm running for president.”

I can't think of a more admirable reason for a person to seek the presidency than this – it's one of the reasons I'm proud to be working for Chris Dodd.

I’ve been feeling for months that in December, when undecided Iowans started making up their minds, there would be significant movement toward one of the second-tier candidates. Some politically active Democrats are not satisfied with any of the top-tier candidates and are willing to give underdogs a chance.

This diary is about how Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd are campaigning in Iowa, how I think they will do on January 3, and how their showing could affect John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

A few other observations related to these candidates’ prospects can be found in How the Iowa caucuses work, part 8, which you may not have seen over the weekend.

Much more is after the jump.

I took this picture inside our phone banking room in the Des Moines HQ. Amidst copies of the Des Moines Register, call logs, talking points, fact sheets of Chris Dodd's record of results and lots of empty coffee cups, I saw a print out of Blue Hampshire co-founder Mike Caulfield's endorsement post.

People often ask what the value of blogger endorsements is and I think this is evidence of it. Mike's argument in support of Chris Dodd, like that made by many other bloggers, is a thoughtful presentation of why Democrats should support Dodd's candidacy. It's exactly the sort of thing that volunteers and field staff find useful when talking to voters here in Iowa. Beyond that, it's great to have the encouragement of someone writing outside the campaign to pick you up in the midst of a long phone banking session.

Today, I'm heading on the road to cover Senator Dodd's events in Waterloo at one of my favorite restaurants in all of Iowa, Steamboat Gardens. From there, I'll head with the Senator to Dubuque for our campaign's New Year's Eve event.

I'll be staying on the road on New Year's Day to cover events in Cedar Rapids and a few other stops. I'll be posting videos and pictures from the road, as well as writing about the events as the Dodd campaign heads into the new year and towards the Iowa caucus on January 3rd.

Stay tuned for more updates from Iowa on the Dodd Blog.

On January 3rd Iowans will be making a critical choice on behalf of the nation. The people here helping Chris Dodd are taking part in history here over the closing days before the caucus. I'm going to try to tell that story over the next week and give you a window into the Dodd campaign. Throughout our campaign I've covered hundreds of Dodd events. For the most part, I've eschewed writing the typical campaign blog posts cheering on how great the events are or how positive the crowds response is, because frankly, I think it's better to let the video from Dodd events do the talking for me. Now, though, I want to use my time in Iowa to show as much as I can what's happening on the ground.

After a hectic day of travel filled with missed and delayed flights, I arrived in Iowa last night to a bustling Dodd Headquarters in Des Moines. “Bustling” is a word you'll hear bandied about a lot when campaigns talk about the activity in their offices around Iowa this week, but to be honest it hardly covers what's going on. The winding halls of Dodd HQ were filled with staffers and volunteers fulfilling a range of tasks – planning the events between now and the caucus, calling Iowans to ask them to support Senator Dodd, honing the closing argument for Chris Dodd, keeping our web presence dynamic, and much, much more.

Last night Senator Dodd was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. A bunch of staffers watched his appearance at Lucky's, the bar next door to the office. We weren't the only ones, though — there was a buzz from people responding to Senator Dodd's mature leadership talking about the Benazir Bhutto's assassination. The next President is going to encounter issues that we haven't talked about in this campaign, and the question Iowans are going to be asking themselves “who do they trust to know what they are doing when that happens?”

This morning we awoke to snow in Des Moines. A few inches fell overnight and it's continuing to come down steadily. Fortunately for me, Erik Moe, our art director, is a Minnesotan with a lifetime of experience driving in the snow and muck, and he ensured the trip to the office this morning was a safe one.

First off the bat, we recorded two videos with Senator Dodd (which you'll be seeing shortly). Tim Tagaris took   this picture of Senator Dodd and I talking about the response online to his efforts to stop retroactive immunity from being part of FISA legislation. The Senator was humbled by the scale of support he received from the netroots in this fight and is committed to continuing it when the Senate returns in January. This is a team effort and together we can win this fight for good.

As I write this post now, people are working hard to prepare for a rally that will be taking place at our HQ in just a few minutes. We'll be posting pictures and video from at just as soon as we can, so you'll be able to see what the mobilization for Chris Dodd in Iowa looks like even if you can't be here to take part.

Stay tuned for more updates at The Dodd Blog.

Disclosure: I proudly work for Chris Dodd's presidential campaign.

cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD

A few weeks ago I wrote a diary on where the Democratic presidential candidates have field offices in Iowa.

My purpose was to document the information so that after January 3, we can see whether campaigns with the most field offices did better in the counties where rivals had field organizers and volunteers working without the visibility of an office.

I am publishing a new version of this diary because several campaigns have added more field offices this month. Also, someone at the Iowa Democratic Party informed me of slight adjustments to the number of state delegates awarded by a handful of counties.

More information than you probably wanted to know is after the jump.

The Boston Globe has an article by Charlie Savage – the journalist whose investigation first brought President Bush's use of signing statements to light – about the various positions by Democratic and Republican candidates on executive powers. Here are a few of the most direct answers to critically important questions that the tenure of the Bush administration has raised to date.

4. Under what circumstances, if any, would you sign a bill into law but also issue a signing statement reserving a constitutional right to bypass the law?

Never. If I thought it was unconstitutional, I would turn to the Courts, which is what our founding fathers expected and provided for in cases of Executive-Congressional differences.

5. Does the Constitution permit a president to detain US citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants?

No.

6. Does executive privilege cover testimony or documents about decision-making within the executive branch not involving confidential advice communicated to the president himself?

No.

What's remarkable, I think, is that Senator Dodd's dedication to upholding the Constitution and the balance of powers requires this sort of answer to these sorts of questions, though you won't see the GOP candidates or top Republican talking heads giving the same consideration to these issues. Standing up for the rule of law makes us more safe at home. We need a President who will stand up for these issues, even if it means rolling back some of the powers and practices used by the Bush administration in contravention to the Constitution and at the expense of the balance of powers between the executive, legislative, and judiciary branch.

You can read Senator Dodd's full response to the Globe's questionnaire here.

Today is a big day in the Senate. Majority leader Harry Reid has decided not to honor Chris Dodd’s hold on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Dodd objects to a provision that would grant retroactive immunity to telecom companies that illegally helped the U.S. government spy on Americans.

For background on the issue and Dodd’s filibuster plans, see this diary by DavidNYC and this diary by drational. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a version of this bill that would not give retroactive immunity to telecoms, but unfortunately, Reid is going to introduce the version that came out of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which would grant immunity.

In light of some Senate Democrats’ inability to stand up to the Bush administration on a whole range of issues lately, I am not optimistic that we will find 41 votes to uphold Dodd’s filibuster. Or, to put it another way, I fear that the other side will easily get enough Democrats on board to reach the 60 votes needed to break Dodd’s filibuster.

But let’s all hope I am wrong.

Memo to Senators Clinton, Obama, and Biden, who often tout their leadership qualities on the stump: show us you’re a leader by standing with Dodd today.

UPDATE: Head over to Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com) and MyDD (www.mydd.com), where several posters and diarists are keeping us all up to date on what’s going on today in the Senate. Video clips of Dodd speaking on the Senate floor are at MyDD.

SECOND UPDATE: The maneuvering was a little confusing today, but Dodd was able to buy us some time as Harry Reid pulled consideration of this bill until next month. Watch Dodd explain who helped him accomplish this and what still needs to be done:

Thank you, Senator Dodd. He’s my second choice, and I will absolutely try to help him get a delegate in my precinct if I can do so without costing John Edwards a delegate.

They are revealing.

Looking at this piece by the editorial page editor, Carol Hunter, you can see that even they feel a little guilty that they didn’t endorse Biden:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

Also, this piece on “rating the other candidates” has some fascinating passages:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

It’s clear that they almost went with Biden:

Even in our last major round of deliberations, we kept coming back to the question, “Why not Joe Biden?”

Many of the arguments we have made on behalf of the tested leadership of Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain apply to Biden as well. He knows how to get legislation passed. He, too, has deep foreign-policy expertise. We’re inspired by his fierce defense of civil liberties. His work on legislation to combat domestic violence has no doubt prevented injuries and saved lives. He might, indeed, make a good president.

But spending virtually his entire adult life in the Senate also makes his experience somewhat narrower than that of some other candidates. And in making sometimes slim distinctions in this talented bunch, we see his well-known loquaciousness as a weakness. It reflects a certain lack of discipline, and it’s gotten him into trouble on occasion with ill-considered remarks related to race. (We do, however, wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment expressed uniformly by his campaign rivals that his heart is in the right place.)

It’s also clear that they don’t disagree with Edwards on anything of substance:

We still believe he’s right about two Americas, the one for people who have everything they need and the one for people who struggle to get by. He’s right about the stagnation of middle-class wages. He’s right that the tax system and overall economic policy have become too tilted toward the affluent, making it virtually impossible for poor and middle-class families to get ahead.

He’s right that the baby-boomer generation risks breaking the “one moral commandment” of Americans: “To give our children a better future than we received.”

Edwards is most persuasive when he appeals to America’s goodness to do better by the vulnerable among us, as he did in last week’s Register Democratic debate:

“…Somewhere in America tonight, a child will go to bed hungry. Somewhere in America tonight, a family will have to go to the emergency room and beg for health care for a sick child. …Somewhere in America today, a father who’s worked for 30 or 40 years to support his family will lose his job. That’s what’s at stake in this election. What’s not at stake are any of us. All of us are going to be just fine, no matter what happens in this election. What’s at stake is whether America is going to be fine.”

Edwards has set the ambitious goal of eliminating poverty in a generation. He’s developed creative proposals to help families save and make college more affordable. (Other Democrats have outlined similar plans.) Edwards or whoever is the party’s standard-bearer should work to take those plans to the White House.

The question on Edwards is whether a self-described fighter for change, who wants to “cast aside the bankrupt ways of Washington,” can get results in Washington. For someone trying to reunite the two Americas, would he be too divisive a figure?

This part of their analysis on Barack Obama also tells you a lot about the people on the Register editorial board:

One board member described the case for Obama in the Clinton vs. Obama discussion as a bank shot versus a straight shot in pool. Success is less certain with a bank shot, but the gamble (in this case for a more cohesive, hopeful country) might be worth it.

Another veteran editorial writer described the choice as similar to picking Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a calculating but masterful politician at maneuvering needed legislation through Congress, versus John F. Kennedy, whose youthful vigor inspired the nation to take on new challenges. That’s not a bad choice.

This endorsement shows how risk-averse the Register editors are. They were worried about a few gaffes Biden has made (as if Clinton doesn’t have 10 times as much baggage). They didn’t want someone who would antagonize corporate interests like Edwards, even though they can’t point to anything he’s wrong about. And they think Obama would be too big of a gamble.

They also fondly remember FDR for his “calculating” skills at maneuvering legislation through Congress.

Although I don’t doubt FDR’s talents in this area, I think of him first and foremost as someone who had tremendous vision. He didn’t shy away from proposing huge changes to deal with the crises of the day, even if they were a gamble, and even if they risked upsetting the powerful corporate interests of his day.

Also, FDR was a very combative and partisan president. He did his best to pin every economic failure onto the Republican Party, and his presidency succeeded in realigning American voters for a generation.

That’s very different from the Register’s praise of Hillary’s legislative skills in reaching across the aisle.

Just wanted to bring this piece to your attention.

Today's Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential debate, as usual, will be clocked by the Dodd campaign. Here's the famed Talk Clock:

You can get the embed code to put the Talk Clock on your blog here.

Live from Dodd HQ (warning: no sound):

This is a view inside the Internet office – where the clocking takes place, as well as our other Dodd-related interactions in Teh Tubez.

 We're looking forward to this debate and once again expect Chris Dodd to stand out as the best candidate for the Presidency.

The Edwards campaign announced today that they have opened 10 new field offices in Iowa in recent weeks. I have updated my diary on Where the Iowa field offices are accordingly.

As of today, 42 Iowa counties have at least one field office for a Democratic presidential candidate. The current tally of Iowa field offices is:

Barack Obama 37 (includes two in Des Moines)

Hillary Clinton 34 (includes two in Dubuque and two in Cedar Rapids)

John Edwards 25

Bill Richardson 16

Chris Dodd 13

Joe Biden 9 (with possibly two more to be added)

Click the link if you want more detailed information.

Google Trends is a neat little tool created by Google to chart how popular a search term has been over a given length of time–in the standard search, it's a few years' time. The tool then links spikes in search volume to news stories that came out about the time of the spike in public interest in the term. It also tells the top three cities where people are looking for this term. I ran the full names of the top democratic candidates through this tool and I'll share the results with you in no particular order.

Check it out for yourself:  http://www.google.com/trends

“Hillary Clinton”:
Peaked: Jan 21, 2007
Story: Entered 2008 race
Trending: flat for most of 2007, up since August
Top Three Cities: Washington DC; New York, NY; Boston, MA

“Barack Obama”:
Peaked: July 27, 2004
Story: 2004 Convention Speech
Trending: flat for most of 2007, up sharply this last week
Top Three Cities: Chicago, IL; Washington DC; Austin, TX 

“John Edwards”: 
Peaked:  July 6,2004
Story: Picked as Kerry's running mate
Trending:  Flat
Top Three Cities: Raleigh, NC; Washington DC; Boston, MA

“Bill Richardson”: 
Peaked: Jan 21, 2007
Story: Entered 2008 race
Trending: Flat
Top Three Cities: Santa Fe, NM; Albuquerque, NM; Washington DC

“Joe Biden”:
Peaked: Jan 31, 2007
Story: Entered Race/made controversial comments
Trending: up sharply since August
Top Three Cities: Washington DC; Reston, VA; Philadelphia, PA

“Chris Dodd”:
Peaked: sometime in October 2007
Story: Unknown
Trending: up for the year, down since October's inexplicable peak
Top Three Cities: Meriden, CT; Hartford, CT; Des Moines, IA

For the record, can anyone explain why Dodd would have seen a spike in searches for his name around late October? 

cross-posted at MyDD and Daily Kos

I decided to write this diary when I learned that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton each have more than 30 field offices in Iowa.

After January 3, we will see whether campaigns with the most field offices did better in the counties where rivals had field organizers and volunteers working without the visibility of an office.

More information than you probably wanted to know is after the jump.

I have listed the counties in descending order, based on the number of state delegates they will assign on the Democratic side. I took the numbers from this post by Drew Miller, who calculated how many state delegates each Iowa county would contribute to the 2,500 total. [UPDATE: I corrected the delegate totals for a few counties after hearing from Drew Miller.]

I also give the 2004 caucus results for each county. Those numbers come from this table on the Des Moines Register’s website. The results reflect the percentage of county delegates assigned to the various presidential candidates (not the percentage of raw votes each one received in the county).  

I’ve got to say that Bush and the Democratic Presidential candidates are pulling the wool over our eyes on the housing crises.

On freezing interest rates for subprime loans, Bush’s plan today is a total crock. The NY Times reports his plan would “exclude many — if not most — subprime borrowers” including those who are delinquent on their payments. In a nutshell it’s a sham.

But what’s worse: a President no one trusts making promises no one believes or the Democratic candidates presumably trying to replace him covertly aiding and abetting his policies?

Jesse Jackson spelled out the problem recently, noting nearly every single Democratic candidate lacks an agenda to promote African American issues while condescendingly expecting votes from that community. Presidential candidate Senator Chris Dodd is a key example. While loudly denouncing Bush for allowing the housing crises to precipitate, as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, he has been helping Bush’s HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson to close the last remaining resource for helping homebuyers avoid predatory loans. Senator Dodd is siding with Republicans in the Senate to oppose Maxine Water’s and Barney Frank’s bill in the House to save downpayment assistance programs, which allow nonprofits to help working families with the 3% downpayment necessary for Federally insured home loans.

The posturing on this is reaching new heights….but where is the press in uncovering the double talk? Absent as usual.

John Deeth posted an update on legislative endorsements, along with a helpful chart showing which candidates Iowa Democratic legislators endorsed in 2004, and which counties the legislators represent.

The latest tally is Clinton 19, Obama 18, Biden 14, Edwards 10, Dodd 3 and Richardson 1. 

Deeth's chart also shows who has yet to endorse, and who those legislators backed (if anyone) four years ago. 

I listened to most of the NPR debate this afternoon. Although I am usually more interested in hearing the candidates debate domestic policy, I thought it was good for NPR to go in depth on a few foreign-policy issues. The questions were solid and substantive, and the candidates had to go beyond their usual sound-bite answers on Iran, China and immigration policy.

It’s too bad Richardson couldn’t make it because of a funeral he was attending, because the format probably would have suited him. I have heard him answer questions on immigration, and he makes a strong case on that issue.

I thought Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Biden and Dodd all did pretty well.

If you listened to the debate, what did you think?

Mark Halperin’s post-debate scorecard is here:

http://thepage.time.com/excerp…

Here are video clips from yesterday’s Heartland Presidential Forum, sponsored by the Center for Community Change.

<!–break–>

When the presidential candidates release plans to deal with important issues, such as education, global warming, or veterans’ affairs, the Des Moines Register more often than not buries the story in the middle pages of the Metro Iowa section.

That is especially true for the second-tier candidates.

Tuesday morning I picked up the Register and saw a photo of Chris Dodd and Joe Biden on the front page of the main section. Wow, that’s unusual. But what do you think the story was about?

Both Dodd, a senator from Connecticut, and Biden, a senator from Delaware, each are hoping to emerge and knock out a front-runner. But both facing an increasing amount of questions about whether they are different enough for voters to tell them apart.

Increasing amount of questions? From whom? I talk to Democratic caucus-goers literally every day, and while I have heard undecided voters praise Dodd and Biden many times, I have never heard anyone express concern that they may not be different enough for voters to tell them apart.

The Register goes on to tell us that Dodd and Biden get along well, charter planes together sometimes, and are “old school” senators. It mentions a recent Saturday Night Live sketch making fun of their similarities and quotes experts suggesting they are political insiders who lack “sex appeal.”

I expect meaningless process stories from most of the national press corps, but couldn’t the Des Moines Register at least pretend to cover the substance of the campaign on the front page?

Haven’t the Register reporters who cover the town-hall meetings and house parties all over this state noticed that caucus-goers want to hear where the candidates stand on the issues?

That is especially the case for the second-tier candidates, because most Iowans are less familiar with their records. Dodd and Biden have plenty to say about how they would govern and what their priorities would be–not that you’d get any idea about that from the article.

I noticed this quote near the bottom of the piece:

Kathy Elsner, a dentist in Des Moines who supports Dodd, said voters should look seriously at people running for president, and not just their campaign style.

Please, Des Moines Register editors, take Elsner’s advice and assign your reporters to compare and contrast the candidates’ proposals for dealing with the issues.

This Wednesday at 8PM Eastern, the Republican Presidential candidates will be holding their own YouTube debate. Similar to the Democratic version in South Carolina in July, the candidates will be asked questions via YouTube videos. YouTube accepted thousands of videos and those submissions will be winnowed down to a handful that are presented as questions for the GOP. Senator Dodd jumped on the opportunity to ask the Republican field a question about the issue that matters most to him: protecting our Constitution.

Here's a transcript of Dodd's question:

Hi I'm Chris Dodd. I'm from East Haddam, Connecticut and my family and I are spending a little time in Iowa these days.

I have a question about the Constitution.

Many Americans are concerned that the administration seems to be making a false choice, that is, to be safer we have to give up rights. I don't believe that, I wonder if you do.

And if you believe that we ought not give up our rights, then what would you do in order to protect our Constitution?

It's up to CNN to pick which questions are asked, but what would help them see it is if you take the time to give it a good recommendation, leave a positive comment, share it with your friends, or add it to your favorite videos. If you have a blog, post it. The time to ask your own questions of the Republican field has expired, now it's time to push the best videos to the top and get the Republican candidates on record about what they will do to protect our Constitution.

Jamison Foser of Media Matters recently documented the lack of discussion of the Constitution and rule of law issues during both parties' presidential debates. With over 1,500 questions asked, there's been almost no focus on the most fundamental issue that the next President will have to deal with. Senator Dodd is hoping to change that by asking the Republican field what they will do to protect the Constitution. I hope they get a chance to answer Dodd's important question.

Cross posted at Daily Kos.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is going to mark up the FISA reform legislation tomorrow. They had originally scheduled to do it last Thursday, but we expect it to happen this time, though it's not clear that the SJC will complete mark up tomorrow.

The bottom line is that now is the time to call the Senate Judiciary Committee and ask them to oppose retroactive immunity for telecom companies that helped the Bush administration spy on Americans without warrant.

We want the Senate to hear your voice on this issue — we think it's so important that we're paying for you to do the calls. Call today – and the Dodd campaign will do the dialing for you, making it free for anyone calling for a hardline to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Four Senators on the Judiciary Committee have already said they oppose retroactive immunity. We need just six more Senators to oppose retroactive immunity to kill it in committee.

Visit http://chrisdodd.com/immunity to take action now!

Christy Hardin Smith also brings up basket warrants and Emptywheel brings up minimization as other key issues that the FISA legislation needs improvement on.

Call now and report the results back:

http://chrisdodd.com/immunity

Cross posted at Blue Hampshire, My Left Nutmeg and the Dodd Blog.

Senator Dodd's speech Saturday night at the Iowa Jefferson Jackson Dinner was truly electric. What really blew me away was his opening remarks on restoring the Constitution and standing up for the rule of law. He dedicated six minutes – a third of his speech – to the issue. While I've heard him talk about why he cares about the Constitution literally hundreds of times, his speech struck a chord in me on Saturday night. Maybe you felt the same energy hearing him rattle off the wrongs he will right as President.

Maybe it's because our country deserves a President who will do the things he pledges to do when he takes the oath of office. Or maybe it's because Chris Dodd is the only person who's stepping up now to do something about the problems he's talking about…but I thought Senator Dodd defined himself on Saturday night as the person that our country needs to be our next President.

Restoring the Constitution isn't just something Yale Law professors and liberal bloggers care about – Americans around the country of all political stripes are longing for leadership committed to returning our government to the rule of law. We saw that clearly Saturday night, as nearly 10,000 Iowans responded to Chris Dodd's commitment to act according to his oath as President. A desire to stand up for and preserve the Constitution is intrinsic in patriotic Americans, and we saw that patriotism come out at the Iowa JJ Dinner.

The bottom line is that when Senator Dodd campaigns on the Constitution, he's not making an argument about himself. The Constitution isn't about him and he's not so foolish as to think so. It's about who we are as a country and how our government is supposed to work. Saturday night, that humble understanding was rewarded with eruptions of applause.

Here's a transcript of what Senator Dodd commits to on the very first hour of his very first day in office:

  “This much I commit to you here in Iowa this evening. On the very first hour, of the very first day on January 20, 2009, as I have fought for over the last number of years in this administration — I will restore to the American people, the Constitution of the United States.”

  “You're gonna get your Constitution back! You're gonna get your Constitution back.”

  “No more Abu Ghraibs!”

  “No more Guantanamos!”

  “No more torture!”

  “No more rendering!”

  “No more providing retroactive immunity for companies that turned over their records to the Bush Administration without a court order!”

  “No more waterboarding!”

  “No more denying people habeas corpus in this country, a right that has existed for 900 years!”

  “And there will be no more Attorney Generals of the United States who believe an American President is above the law.”

  “That's gonna change.”

If you missed it, you can watch the whole speech here.

The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that California Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein will support retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. This puts the official tally at two votes in favor and four votes opposed to telecom amnesty. We still need to convince six more Senators on the Judiciary Committee to oppose retroactive immunity to ensure that it is killed in Committee and doesn't reach the floor of the Senate.

This means one of the “nay” votes has to come from a Republican member of Committee, which does not seem incredibly likely. The Republican who we'd previously targeted as most likely to vote the right was was Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Since Specter has also introduced a proposal that would indemnify the telecom companies by making the federal government sole defendant in all of the pending cases against the industry. This proposal – retroactive immunity by another name – makes it look unlikely that Specter will oppose other forms of immunity.

There are two paths from here:

First, we must continue to call all members of the Senate Judiciary who aren't currently opposed and ask them to oppose retroactive immunity. Everyone is not opposed needs to hear from the public on this issue – even conservative Republicans – because the Constitution and rule of law are not partisan issues, nor should they be.

Second, if you're feeling discouraged by the increased chances of amnesty for telecoms making it out of the Judiciary Committee, remember that Senator Dodd has vowed to stop any such legislation from becoming law, either through a hold or by filibuster if necessary. Dodd will stand up for the rule of law. He will defend the Constitution.

Now is the time to take action, though. Chris Dodd won't wait until 2009 to lead and we shouldn't wait until 2009 to stand up for what we believe in.

Call the Senate Judiciary Committee – we'll do the dialing for you through our Citizen Generated Whip Count calling tool: http://chrisdodd.com/immunity

eRiposte at The Left Coaster has a very comprehensive analysis of where the various current and former Senator-candidates stood on various pieces of bankruptcy reform legislation. The post covers the 2000, 2002, and 2005 Bankruptcy Bills and compares Senators Dodd, Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and Biden — with Senators Lieberman and Feingold included as well for comparison. The focus of eRiposte's analysis is on the 2001 and 2005 Bankruptcy Bills, which had the majority of this group of senators around to vote on it.

On the 2001 Bankruptcy Bill, eRiposte says this:

Sen. Dodd (and Sen. Feingold) had the best voting record on this version of the Bill. They voted the progressive position on almost every amendment, but more importantly, also voted against cloture (which has the effect of supporting a filibuster) and voted against the Bill at the end.

On the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill, eRiposte finds a similarly strong performance for Dodd ahead of the field:

Senator Dodd again had the best, and an essentially perfect, voting record on this Bill. He voted in favor of numerous progressive amendments, voted against invoking cloture and voted against the final Bill.

In conclusion, eRiposte finds Dodd to be the measuring stick for all other Democratic candidates when it comes to bankruptcy reform:

In this post, I compared the voting records of key Democratic Presidential candidates on the topic of the Bankruptcy Bill. I reviewed the final vote on the Bankruptcy Bill of 2000, and the final vote and amendments/motions associated with the 2001 and 2005 Bankruptcy bills. The main findings are as follows:

1. Senator Chris Dodd has the best, and a near-perfect, voting record on Bankruptcy legislation. He has been consistently and strongly progressive on the topic of Bankruptcy “reform” at least since 2000. [Emphasis in the original in all quoted passages]

Dodd's record is clear and it's also worth noting that earlier this month he committed to reversing the worst parts of the bankruptcy bill. He will be introducing a more comprehensive plan in the coming weeks.

Water-boarding is term that describes strapping an individual to a board, with a towel pulled tightly across his face, and pouring water on him or her to cut off air and simulate drowning.  

When asked directly last week whether he thought waterboarding is constitutional, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey was evasive.  As noted by NPR, Mukasey “danced around the issue of whether waterboarding actually is torture and stopped short of saying that it is.” “If it amounts to torture,” Mukasey said carefully, “then it is not constitutional.”

As stated by Bill Richardson,

Waterboarding is torture, and anyone who is unwilling to identify it as such is not qualified to be the chief legal officer of the United States of America. If I were in the U.S. Senate, I would vote against Mukasey unless he denounces such specific forms of torture.

What about the Democrats in the U.S. Senate and other Democratic Presidential candidates?  Will they oppose Mukasey unless he denounces the use of torture by our government?

In Tuesday's FISA live chat at Fire Dog Lake, Senator Dodd talked about how caring about the Constitution is in his DNA:

I feel so strongly about this. It’s part of my DNA, in a sense. Some of you may know, that I grew up in a household where my father was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, here. And, Robert Jackson, the great prosecutor, the great Supreme Court Justice, made the case as others did. That we were going to stand up for the rule of law, even with some of the greatest violators of human rights in recorded history. That we were going to provide a trial for them, that which they never gave to their victims. So I heard all about the rule of law growing up, and how important it is. I didn’t discover this a week ago, or year a go or two years ago. It’s something I believed in very strongly when I served on the House Judiciary Committee…So my history on these matters go back a long way, here. They didn’t come up recently, and I’m urging people to stand up.

If caring about the rule of law is in Senator Dodd's DNA, it's critically important to remember as citizens that the Constitution is our nation's DNA. And this administration's actions against our founding document risks fundamentally altering who we are as a nation.

We have seen strikes made against the Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment; the Fourth Amendment, which mandates searches be conducted with warrant; and the Fifth Amendment, which demands due process for all persons.

Habeas corpus. Warrantless wiretaps. Torture. Extraordinary rendition. Secret Prisons. The Military Commissions Act.

Now we see the pernicious idea of retroactive immunity or amnesty for telecom companies who helped the Bush administration spy illegally on innocent Americans without warrant. If this dangerous move becomes law, the courts will never be able to discover what the Bush administration asked these companies and on what grounds. We will never learn what was perpetrated against the American people by its own government, in contravention to the laws of our land.

The efforts we have seen to change the DNA of America do not stop with the Bill of Rights, but tragically have extended into dangerous revisionism when it comes to the purview of the legislature and the executive. Article I and Article II of the Constitution.

The system of checks and balances between the three branches of government is being cast out of balance. The Vice President has gone so far as to suggest he's a previously undiscovered fourth branch of government.

Our Constitution — and our nation — may represent a great experiment in the power for representative democracy to make the world a better place. But the erosions and invasions of our Constitution and Bill of Rights — the DNA of our country —  under President Bush threaten to turn America into a modern island of Doctor Moreau. What we get will not be what our Founders intended.

And so while Senator Dodd ties the roots of his passion for the Constitution and rule of law to the household he was raised in and the hard work of his father, we can all find our passion in a need to defend the document that most fundamentally defines who we are as a nation. And with our passion, we can move to act — today — by calling the Senate Judiciary Committee and ask them to oppose retroactive immunity for telecom companies in the latest FISA legislation.

Update:

Here's Sen. Dodd's speech from the floor of the Senate today on the Constitution, FISA, and rule of law:

Cross posted at the DoddBlog.

DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas is interviewed by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo on his thoughts on the presidential race. Markos said this of Dodd's principled leadership:

Obama's played it safe. Everyone else is playing it safe. Hillary Clinton has definitely played it safe. So finally, you know, people like me are looking for somebody to be inspired who gives us the kind of rhetoric and policy proposals that actually seem to move the Democratic Party forward. And Chris Dodd on bankruptcy reform, on the war in Iraq, on civil liberties and I mean this is a guy who is essentially running on a platform of restoring the Bill of Rights. How much more inspiring can you get than that? Especially in this climate, with this administration, that has made absolutely clear that their number one mission in life is to eviscerate the Bill of Rights. So you have a candidate that has latched onto a very timely issue, one that is very relevant and actually is of great importance right now — and that's Chris Dodd.

I wish he was a really viable candidate, I wish he was in the top tier, then I could get really excited about him. As it is, I wish the top tier candidates would speak in the way that Chris Dodd does.

We can make Chris Dodd into a top-tier candidate by getting involved and rewarding his leadership. Tell your friends. Make a donation. Volunteer for the campaign. Start a personal fundraising drive. Write to your local paper.

You can make the Dodd campaign a success by getting on board in support of a candidate who is leading on the most pressing issues facing our country today. Your voice in support of Senator Dodd's campaign is what is needed to propel Dodd into the “top tier.” Wishing he polled higher than he does is well and good, but it's action that will carry Dodd to the nomination. If Democratic activists, online and off, sit on their hands while unsatisfied with what the “top tier” provides them, then we won't realize the promise of Dodd's inspiring campaign. We need your help and now is the time for you to join the Dodd Squad.

“We” being everyone who wants to derail the Hillary inevitability train.

Clinton supporters are crowing about the latest Des Moines Register poll showing her leading likely Democratic voters in Iowa with 29 percent to 23 percent for Edwards, 22 percent for Obama, 8 percent for Richardson and 5 percent for Biden.

Here is the link for the poll:

http://www.desmoines…

Hillary has to be happy not just about her overall lead, but also her lead among voters over 65 and her big lead among women.

It's not good news for the other candidates, but it would be a mistake to say Hillary is going to cruise in Iowa. I think she is going to lose delegates when people go to their second choices on caucus night.

Edwards has dropped since May, but he hasn't been up on the air, while all of the other major candidates have blanketed the airwaves for two months or more. Despite that, he still leads among men and middle-aged Iowa voters. He is building a strong organization to identify and turn out supporters. I totally disagree with those who say he has no room to grow his support in Iowa.

Obama is holding steady. If he were my first choice, I'd be worried about the fact that he trails badly among older voters and does best among groups that are relatively unlikely to caucus (under 45 or independent). Clearly Obama needs to turn out record numbers of independents and first-time caucus-goers if he is going to win Iowa. He will have plenty of boots on the ground, though, so it is too early to count him out. 

Richardson was at 8 percent in this poll, which is not a statistically significant change from the 10 percent he had in May. Clearly, though, he is stuck around the 10 percent mark in IA and NH and is not continuing to gain momentum. He needs to do something to change the dynamic of the race if he wants to break into the top tier in Iowa. He may be tempted to play it safe and try for a cabinet appointment in the event that Hillary wins, though.

All of the candidates need to try to reduce or eliminate Hillary's leads with women and older voters. Individual supporters and precinct captains need to make those voter contacts in their neighborhoods and make the case for alternatives to Hillary. 

What do the rest of you think about the poll? 

Last night's debate brought the issue of residual forces in Iraq to the front and center Democratic presidential campaign. The candidates presented their differing views on whether or not they would have all us troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term in office — 2013 — six years from now.

Sadly, there was little difference between the “top tier” candidates, as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards all said they will not have ended our involvement in Iraq by 2013.

Six years from now.

Blogger Jeffrey Feldman writes:

The top-tier candidates all agreed last night that the Iraq war is only half over–that if elected President, each will continue the U.S. occupation and U.S. combat operations inside Iraq until at 2013.   This means that the official Democratic position is now that the Iraq war will be a ten-year war.

Now, I strongly disagree with Feldman that waiting until 2013 is the “official Democratic position.” It is only the consensus position held by the three front-running candidates.

It is not Chris Dodd's official position. Nor is it the position of millions of Democrats and anti-war activists who are fighting to end the war today.

Dodd made his stance crystal clear in this exchange with moderator Tim Russert:

Tim Russert: I want to put you on the record. Will you pledge as Commander in Chief that you have all troops out of Iraq by January of 2013?

Chris Dodd: I will get that done.

Tim Russert: You'll get it done?

Chris Dodd: Yes, I will, sir.

That's where Dodd is. And yet, the consensus among the Clinton-Obama-Edwards trio, the three largest recipients of time in last night's Democratic debate, was that they would not end the war in Iraq by 2013.

Last night's debate made it abundantly clear that while there exists a consensus among the “top tier” of Democratic presidential that they won't be committed to end the war by 2013, there is an alternative: Chris Dodd. Dodd is the only candidate who's fighting to pass legislation to cut off funding for the war now while committing to get our troops out of Iraq in his first term in office if he can't succeed legislatively before then.

If you want to end the war in Iraq and if you have been a supporter of Barack Obama, John Edwards, or Hillary Clinton, I'd like to take this opportunity to invite you to join the Dodd Squad. You'll have a candidate who stands with you in your desire about ending the war and you will never, ever have to apologize for him pledging to keep US troops in Iraq for six more years.

I didn't have a chance to watch the forum.

What did you think?

Iowa Independent's liveblog is here:

http://www.iowaindep…

You can also find links to video from the forum at that site.

Noneed4thneed thought it was a great night for Biden and Edwards:

http://commoniowan.b…

Reaction from MyDD readers is here:

http://www.mydd.com/…

I still think it was insane for Obama to skip this one, given that up to two-thirds of caucus-goers may be over 50.

UPDATE: I finally got around to watching the debate. I thought all five candidates did well. As an Edwards supporter, I was very happy with his performance and his ability to make connections: for instance, between strong unions and pensions, between the solvency of Social Security and the need to stop taxing wealth at a much lower rate than work is taxed.

But I imagine that supporters of the other candidates also found much to like in their performances.

The format was also much better than the previous debates (it helped having only five people on stage). Judy Woodruff did a good job of asking direct questions and following up when warranted. 

More like this debate, please! 

This afternoon Senator Pat Leahy and Senator Chris Dodd introduced the Leahy-Specter-Dodd Amendment to the Defense Authorization bill. The amendment will restore habeas corpus and help us regain our moral standing in the world.

Sign up to be a citizen co-sponsor at http://restore-habeas.org.

Also, follow Senator Dodd's call to action above and call up your Senators and ask them to co-sponsor the Leahy-Specter-Dodd Amendment.

The fight will be hard and the vote, which will come later this week, is likely to be very close. But upholding the rule of law demands action and that's what Senators Dodd and Leahy are calling for.

Big news out of Cedar Falls today. Iowa State Senate Pro Tempore Jeff Danielson has endorsed Chris Dodd for President. Danielson is the first member of the Iowa Senate leadership to endorse a presidential candidate.  In addition to the endorsement, he will serve as a Co-Chair of Dodd’s Iowa Steering Committee, and a member of Dodd’s National Steering Committee.

Danielson is a Navy veteran and a fire fighter in Cedar Falls.

“When it comes to protecting this country and strengthening our communities, proven leadership and experience matter,” said Danielson.  “I am supporting Chris Dodd, because he is the candidate I trust to keep America safe and keep our middle class families strong.  Time and time again, Chris Dodd has shown not only that he has thoughtful, bold ideas, but that he has the ability to pull people together to get them done.
 
“With the stakes so high for our country in this election, Chris Dodd is the proven leader we need in the White House and the proven winner we need as our Democratic nominee.  I am proud to be endorsing Chris Dodd, and I’m ready to go to work across this state on behalf of his campaign.”

Iowa blogger Lynda Waddington has more on the Danielson endorsement and a slew of links to other positive events and coverage for Senator Dodd of late.