Dodd In Political Trouble

Senator Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., is facing a rebellion in his home state, according to a new Time magazine article.

The Connecticut voters' unhappiness with Dodd ranges from his role in the mortgage meltdown to his sweetheart deal with mortgage lender Countrywide.

The Time article reads in part:

Much of Dodd's current woes stem from a pair of mortgages that he must wish he had never gotten. His reputation still has not recovered from the revelation last year that he received a sweetheart deal on his mortgage, saving upwards of $75,000 courtesy of Countrywide, one of the biggest pushers of the subprime mortgages that have landed the U.S. economy in such dire straits. Connecticut officials say there is no evidence of wrongdoing, and Dodd, who has allowed reporters limited access to his mortgage documents, denies he got any preferential treatment and insists he is going to refinance with a different bank. "I made the mistake of not addressing it earlier," Dodd concedes in an interview. Still he will not allow reporters to further examine the "hundreds of pages" of mortgage documents, saying, "no one has ever showed as much as we have." But the scandal has left a bad taste with Connecticut voters; in a January Quinnipiac poll, 56% of them said the Countrywide connection made them less likely to vote for Dodd.

The voters' ire was also raised when Dodd moved his family to Iowa during his short-lived presidential campaign in 2007.

Time goes on to say that Dodd's worries over his re-election and health care reform has distracted him or stretched him too thin:

Still, the double distraction of a looming tough reelection battle and the ongoing health-care talks has some worried that Dodd might be neglecting the Banking Committee at a crucial time, or at least be stretched too thin. "Health care is yet another distraction on the list of things that have distracted Dodd from his [Banking] Committee work," says one Republican senator who has served with Dodd on the committee. "Legislation to regulate the insurance industry and to crack down on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac languished before the committee while he was on the campaign trail. Then Countrywide distracted him from the housing bill, a bill that had to be overhauled by the Obama Administration this week," the senator said, referring to the Obama Administration's changes to the housing program created by Dodd's bill last summer. The changes, which did not require congressional approval, were badly needed to loosen up the $300 billion fund that had been choked by conditions Congress had placed on the money. "We created a bill that did a lot of good things but made it cumbersome to deal with foreclosures," Dodd concedes, adding that his committee held 82 hearings "on the foreclosure issue" in the 110th Congress.

To add to Dodd's woes, a botched book deal announcement was met with ridicule.

Crown Publishers announced that Dodd would be the author of "Thirteen Days: How the Financial Crisis Changed the Politics of Washington" last month. Republicans attacked the announcement. "You have to wonder who advised Senator Dodd that striking a book deal on a crisis that he was at least partially responsible for was a good idea," said Brian Walsh, a National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman. "A more apt title would be '13 Weeks: The Senate Banking Committee Chairman's Time in Iowa While the Housing Market Collapsed.'" The publisher has backed away saying that a book deal hasn't been finalized. Right.

It is good that Connecticut voters are unhappy with Dodd. Whether there's enough of them to defeat him next year is another question. But his role in the mortgage crisis continues to dog him and that can only be helpful to the Republicans. Dodd was one of several Democrat senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years. Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, received more than $165,000 in contributions from Freddie and Fannie's PACs. When the crisis was jelling, Dodd said Freddie and Fannie were "fundamentally strong". He also said they were in a "sound situation" and "in good shape" and to "suggest they are in major trouble is not accurate". We know differently now, don't we? He should be in jail, instead of writing banking legislation.

To read the full article, go here.