My View of the Presidential Speeches. Part I: Chris Dodd

by: Hopeful

Sat Feb 03, 2007 at 02:38:05 PM EST

While Jay Lassiter and JRB were doing an amazing job with DNC Winter Meeting videos at blogger's alley, I sat in the press section and watched the first crop of Presidential candidates. You can see videos of the DNC speeches at democrats.org. I urge you to sit and watch the candidates you're interested in -- I'll try to tell you my perception of the events based on my notes. (I decided to break this into separate diaries since it was too long.) For disclosure, I have not decided on any candidate -- I like Edwards and Obama the best, but in principle I want a governor with a record of success -- but I have an irrational bias against Hillary Clinton that you can filter out. Also, since I was too tired to go to Saturday's meeting, those candidates (Biden, Richardson, Vilsack, Gravel) won't be covered. Blue Jersey has no position for or against anyone. So please feel free to advocate and organize for your favorite candidate, here or in your own diaries. We hope to have all the candidates participate here.

First of all, I've never been at anything like this. It's been a long time since I saw Jesse Jackson and George H. W. Bush in (separate!) rallies in 1988. So I was totally psyched. But I think that the whole room -- indeed the whole meeting -- was especially excited. The victories in 2006, having the first woman speaker of the House, the knowledge that the public has rejected Bush and the Republicans, and the victories in the Mountain West and other 'red states' all add up to a rejuvenated party. It was clear in the speeches, in the crowd, and in the caucus meeting that Democrats feel that at last it is our turn. Almost every speaker promised universal health care in the first term, and praised Howard Dean and the 50 State Strategy. Howard Dean said that the speakers were limited to 7 minutes, which no one obeyed, and 100 signs or less, which everyone but Hillary Clinton followed. They also got up to 30 seconds of intro music. I had visions of Derek Jeter coming up to the plate with loud rap music blaring or Mariano Rivera and 'Enter Sandman' , but strangely enough, no one chose rap music or heavy metal.

Hopeful :: My View of the Presidential Speeches. Part I: Chris Dodd

Senator Chris Dodd was the first speaker. I didn't expect much, since I had a picture of him as a sensible but boring senator who talks about military affairs on the Sunday morning shows. It turned out to be a strong, passionate speech that I loved. it made me think of an old style stump speech. (I think a lot of these speeches look worse on video than if you're in the crowd with the energy and excitement.) He asked "Give me a chance to be heard," in an implicit acknowledgment that no one knows why he is running or gives him a chance. He had a great summary about the 2006 victories, and that now "The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party is in all 50 states!" He argued that Republican failures helped us win in 2006, but it won't be enough to win in 2008. He sees a hunger of leads who stand up for the values of equal justice and opportunity. He also said that before bipartisanship we need leadership.

So far, this seemed pretty general to me, though it worked great as an introduction to the entire Democratic field. The first issue he chose to highlight was the shameful Vote to overturn habeus corpus. He said soft power helped us win the cold war, and will help us win the war on terror. (I thought it was great to bring up what really happened in the Cold War, which was much more dangerous than the war on terror. I think the Republican party today is the equivalent of the people Eisenhower rejected who wanted to invade "rollback" Eastern Europe. We'd all be dead if they were in power then.) He took the habeus corpus personally since his father was a prosecutor at Nuremberg. The first thing he would do is overturn the "torture bill."

Second, he said he would bring our troops out of Iraq and that the Non-binding Resolution is disappointing. The White House has already said they would ignore it. This is a shot at Hillary Clinton, who went on and on in her later speech that this non-binding resolution was very important.

He also wants to eliminate dependency on middle eastern oil that passes through the Straight of Hormoz and that no one would be denied college due to financial aid. We can't give up our industrial base. He would take oath to bring health care to every single American. (He has two and five year old kids. He will challenge Americans to be part of something larger than themselves.

Summary: Chris Dodd is proud to be a Democrat and is clearly running to the Left. There was a bit of Kennedy in his speech. His proposals actually seemed to be about the same as Barack Obama's, though the speech was totally different in style. He has a group of supporters who sat in a block right in front of the press and help up signs at key applause lines: