PeterGlenshaw.com

Who Needs Michael Kinsley's Experience?

In Sunday's Washington Post, Michael Kinsley asks of the Democratic and Republican candidates, "how important is experience in a candidate for president?"

Seeing the headline, I presumed Kinsley might mention Chris Dodd. After all, Kinsley has more than 30 years of professional punditry experience, on top of his Harvard-Oxford-Harvard Law real-world experience.  He knows things.  Right? 

The fact that the op-ed's sub-title was "How the candidates stack up based on the jobs they've worked and the lives they've lived" also gave me encouragement that Chris Dodd might be mentioned.

After all, Dodd has the most public service experience of all of the candidates running (yes, even more than Senator Biden). 

A Peace Corps volunteer for two years, a member of the US Army Reserve for three years, followed by six years in the US House of Representatives and 26 years as a US Senator, Dodd has a 37-year record of public service.

Dodd's public service record amounts to more public service than Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, COMBINED (which totals 29 years, and that's being generous by including Hillary's White House years).

But did Mr. Kinsley even mention Chris Dodd?

No.

He did mention Governor Bill Richardson, and suggested his resume amounted to little more than "ticket-punching."  It's fair to suggest, I think, that Governor Richardson brandishes his experience in exuberant ways that undercut the real governing experience he does have.  But....

It defies the imagination that Chris Dodd was not even mentioned. Heck, even a criticism of Senator Dodd would have been welcome.  A critique of Dodd would suggest that Kinsley did his homework, considered the record, and chose something other.

But there was nothing of the sort.  Instead, as it often does with Kinsley columns, the article went squishy with fawning comments about Obama's intellect and how experience is an issue which can cut both ways.

Fair enough.  But to ignore Dodd's experience COMPLETELY suggests a different kind of problem with experience.

It's the problem which comes from familiarity.  Or, to put in less kindly, the degree to which pundits like Kinsley follow the media herd.

Michael Kinsley, like so many professional pundits, works in a fraternity that rewards and encourages group-think.  His so-called analysis only examined the Democratic candidates by name anointed as the leaders by his fellow-pundits and experts:  Clinton, Obama, and Edwards.  The only Republican he named was McCain. 

If I was Mitt or Rudy, I'd be incensed. 

And since I support Chris Dodd, I'm beyond incensed.  I'm in the special place where head-shaking and shoulder-shrugging will only take you so far.

How do I hold Kinsley accountable?  How do you take a guy who knows only column-writing and "Cross-Fire," and suggest he has an inadequate conception of experience? 

Many years ago, Richard Ben Cramer wrote the best book (in my opinion) on running for President, What It Takes. The book opens with a detailed description of the bubble in which the modern US President operates (in this case, the bubble of George Bush, Sr. in 1988). 

Something of the same occurs with pundits like Kinsley.  For more than 30 years, he has operated in a bubble that rewards smugness, witty retorts, and facile judgments.  Is that experience sufficient to judge the experience of prospective Presidential candidates?

I will let you be the judge of that question.

The FISA Question (And Dodd's Defining Answer)

The what?

The FISA question.

The what?

Exactly. 

Thanks to Media Matters, a progressive media watchdog supported by the Democracy Alliance, among others, we now know that the FISA question -- perhaps the single most important Constitutional question to be raised in this post 9/11 era-- has simply gotten no airtime in all of the Democratic Presidential debates.

Here's the question (and one follow-up question):

1) Do you believe that intelligence and security agencies of the United States can wiretap an individual's  telecommunications without a warrant?

2) Do you believe that telecommunication companies who have provided information about such telecommunications to United States intelligence and security agencies without a warrant should be held responsible for possible breaches of privacy?

This is a big deal.  The Bush administration has repeatedly and routinely sought to bypass judicial oversight in the matter of domestic spying.  Simply put, they have ignored the law, ignored the courts, and then attempted to give telecom companies a get-out-of-jail card for the violations they made on behalf of the Bush administration.  It's enough to make you wonder if the democracy Bush professes to love would resemble anything you and I understand to be the foundations of American government.

Dodd, alone among all of the Presidential candidates, was the first to draw a line in the sand on the issue of immunity for telecommunication companies who violated privacy and other security laws with their illegal wiretapping. 

Not Hillary.

Not Obama.

Not Edwards.

None of them stood up and said, Enough....telecommunication companies who illegally collaborated with the Bush administration are responsible for their actions.

Only Dodd was willing to make this stand.  Because of his leadership, and the support of organizations like Democracy for America, whose members made nearly 2,400 phone calls in 48 hours and persuaded Senator Feinstein to join her Democratic majority, the FISA bill passed without any get-out-of-jail-card for the telecommunication companies.

Did anyone notice?

As Media Matters reported, through 17 debates and some 1,500 questions asked of all of the Presidential candidates, only ONE....ONE.....ONE question was asked about wiretapping, and none at all about FISA.

It's the kind of hair-on-fire moment that sends me outside, running around the house in pure frustration. 

Did the mainstream media -- Mr. Blitzer, Mr. Williams, Mr. Russert -- not read the incredible account on Page One on the business section of the Washington Post about Rick Klein?  Klein is the former AT&T technician who has publicly testified that the NSA and other security agencies were working hand-in-hand with telecommunications companies on domestic spying.  As he put it in the Washington Post story,  "They're sending the entire Internet to the secret room."

No, of course not.

Instead, they ask questions about UFOs or plant questions with college students about dress-styles.

Thanks, guys.  Next time, try reality TV.  You know, the show where real people ask real questions. 

Or better yet, come to New Hampshire.  Where candidates meet real people in unedited forums for hours and hours.  Republican, Democratic, it doesn't matter.  Here, there is no Wolf "King of All Questions" Blitzer.  There is Carl from Orford.  Steve from Piermont.  Joel from Haverhill.  Real people, real questions, real conversation.

Had the mainstream media done their homework, and asked as many questions over the past year about the FISA issues as they had about trivial matters, Chris Dodd might be polling a bit better.

On Sunday, Walter Shapiro of Salon had a great piece on Dodd and his situation.  It's clear he is the most qualified candidate, but there's a kinda weirdness in the interviewing committee.

For instance, Shapiro notes that Dodd is the best at beating-back (no, make that crushing) Hillary's claim of experience.   

Here is an excerpt from his piece....

Speaking Saturday afternoon at the local Democratic headquarters here, Dodd took aim at the front-runner when he declared, 'Anybody who stands before you and says, 'I'm ready to do the job on Day 1' ought to be disqualified. This is unique, this job. [When] you can sit behind the desk in the Oval Office, you can be better prepared and I believe I am. But you can't be totally prepared for this." In an interview afterward, Dodd suggested the proper attitude for anyone who inherits the White House in 2009: "They ought to be nervous."

During the question period in Marshalltown, the silver-haired Connecticut senator went after Clinton's television-ad claim that only she can pass healthcare reform because she "has the scars to prove it." With his voice dripping with derision, Dodd said, "The political scars are nothing. The scars" -- for people still without healthcare -- "are far more important than any bruises you got because you were in a political battle ... If repeated failure is an advertisement for the presidency, then George Bush should be considered the greatest American president in history."

So much for that.

As Shapiro notes, "For all of Hillary Clinton's eight tumultuous years in the White House, for all of Barack Obama's legislative victories in the Illinois state Senate, for all of John Edwards' courtroom triumphs, the three Iowa favorites collectively have only served 17 years in elected national office. In contrast, Dodd and Biden have each spent more than three decades on Capitol Hill. Yes, they often sound like stentorian senators rather than carefully choreographed candidates. But they do boast the traditional kind of Washington experience that was supposed to be required for future presidents after the towers tumbled and our world was upended on 9/11."

I remember those days.  "We are all New Yorkers," right?   We were One, not just in this country, but across the Globe.

It's always easy to play quarterback on Monday evening.  But even this amateur senses that the failure to address fundamental moral and democratic issues like the FISA question, and to forget the fundamental challenge before us -- which involves combating Islamic extremism with a combination of shrewd military, political, and ethical tactics -- has left the United States bereft of sound policy choices.

That's why Chris Dodd, even at this late hour, continues to make sense.  He is the one candidate prepared to balance our moral values with political reality.  And in this complicated era, an experienced hand at the wheel makes an enormous amount of sense.

Who Caused the Obama Surge and Hillary Crash? (Hint: Chris Dodd)

Give credit where it's due:  the last week (or more) has been good for Senator Obama. 

Beginning with the major article in the New York Times Sunday magazine, Senator Obama has started getting traction in the mainstream media about not only his campaign, but the incredible risk which Hillary Clinton offers as a presidential candidate. 

From his appearance on Saturday Night Live, to the cover piece in the Atlantic magazine by Andrew Sullivan, to the debate performance and post-debate coverage, and then last night's Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa, Obama has helped the mainstream media begin to understand that Hillary Clinton's campaign -- and indeed, a prospective Hillary Clinton administration --  is an artifice of  triangulation,  a  poll-driven exercise in political marketing at a time when the American republic needs authentic leadership.

And who got this surge started? 

It was Chris Dodd who turned the tide against Clinton in the debate, and perhaps the entire primary campaign.  Alone among all of the candidates, near the end of the two-hour debate when even many of the professional pundits had declared the debate over and were wrapping up their stories to file in time for the deadline, Dodd caught Clinton in her classic double-talk.

Here is how the debate transcript reads...
                                                                         

MR. RUSSERT:  Does anyone here believe an illegal immigrant should not have a driver's license?               

REP. KUCINICH:  Believe what?                                       

MR. RUSSERT:  An illegal immigrant should not have a driver's license.                                                   

SEN. DODD:  This is a privilege.  And look, I'm as forthright and progressive on immigration policy as anyone here, but we're dealing with a serious problem here, we need to have people come forward.  The idea that we're going to extend this privilege here of a driver's license, I think, is troublesome.  And I think the American people are reacting to it.                                                             

We need to deal with security on our borders, we need to deal with the attraction that draws people here, we need to deal fairly with those who are here; but this is a privilege.  Talk about health care, I have a different opinion.  That affects the public health of all of us.  But a license is a privilege, and that ought not to be extended, in my view.                                                      

MR. WILLIAMS:  Who else?  Senator --                                 

SEN. CLINTON:  I just want to add, I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do it.  And we have failed --                                          
SEN. DODD:  Wait a minute.  No, no, no.  You said yes, you thought it made sense to do it.

Bango.  There it was. The great unraveling of the Clinton campaign.  Dodd saw Clinton triangulate, called her on it, and then the fireworks began.

As Rick Klein of ABC News put it while live-blogging the debate, "10:54 pm ET: Sen. Clinton is actually engaged in a good debate with Sen. Dodd over illegal immigration -- harmed by the fact that her stance is less than firm. It's still not clear whether she supports the initiative of her own governor.

Here's the rest of the transcript...

SEN. CLINTON:  No, I didn't, Chris.  But the point is, what are we  going to do with all these illegal immigrants who are (driving ?)  -- (inaudible)?    

SEN. DODD: Well, that's a legitimate issue. But driver's license goes too far, in my view.

SEN. CLINTON: Well, you may say that, but what is the identification if somebody runs into you today who is an undocumented worker --

SEN. DODD: There's ways of dealing with that.

SEN. CLINTON: Well, but --

SEN. DODD: This is a privilege, not a right.

SEN. CLINTON: Well, what Governor Spitzer has agreed to do is to have three different licenses; one that provides identification for actually going onto airplanes and other kinds of security issues, another which is an ordinary driver's license, and then a special card that identifies the people who would be on the road.

SEN. DODD: That's a bureaucratic nightmare.

SEN. CLINTON: So it's not the full privilege.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I just want to make sure what I heard. Do you, the New York Senator Hillary Clinton, support the New York governor's plan to give illegal immigrants a driver's license? You told the Nashua, New Hampshire, paper it made a lot of sense.

SEN. CLINTON: It --

MR. RUSSERT: Do you support his plan?

SEN. CLINTON: You know, Tim, this is where everybody plays gotcha. It makes a lot of sense. What is the governor supposed to do? He is dealing with a serious problem. We have failed, and George Bush has failed.

Do I think this is the best thing for any governor to do? No. But do I understand the sense of real desperation, trying to get a handle on this? Remember, in New York we want to know who's in New York. We want people to come out of the shadows. He's making an honest effort to do it. We should have passed immigration reform.

MR. WILLIAMS: New subject.

Senator Edwards, you have young children. As you know, the Internet can be a bit of a cultural Wild West. Assuming a lot of homes don't have parental support, would you be in favor of any government guidelines on Internet content?

MR. EDWARDS: For children and try to protect children and using technology to protect children? I would.

I want to add something that Chris Dodd just said a minute ago, because I don't want it to go unnoticed. Unless I missed something, Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes just a few minutes ago, and I think this is a real issue for the country.

 

After Edwards built upon Dodd's remarks, Obama did the same thing, and then over the course of the next week, so did a 1,001 pundits and journalists worldwide.  All because Chris Dodd had the courage to call out Hillary Clinton's desperate desire to please even in the waning moments of a very long debate.

The race is just now starting to get interesting, and I expect a lot of volatility in the coming weeks.  Dodd's steadiness, and game-changing insights, put him in a terrific position to take advantage of that situation.  Look for more good news ahead.

Obama on SNL: the Pop Moment of the 2008 Primary Campaign?

Maybe, like me, watching Saturday Night Live has become something you once did but can no longer stay awake for.  While my viewing habits have changed, the show has stayed the same.  It's still funny, relevant, and a showcase for national comedy talent.

In case you didn't watch it, or hear about it from a friend, Barack Obama made an unannounced appearance on SNL over the weekend.  He appeared in the opening sketch, a Halloween Party held at the Clinton home in Chappaqua, New York, for all of the Democratic Party candidates. 

There have been many great SNL skits, and Saturday's performance will certain join that pantheon.  It was, as we say around here, wicked good.

In about 5 minutes, the skit not only captured the entirety of the Democratic primary so far, but did so in a manner which simply eviscerated HIllary Clinton and favorably showcased Barack Obama.  All of the candidates took a beating -- including my man, Chris Dodd, though he did get in a wicked line about HIllary -- but none so much as Hillary.

Click here to view the video, and decide for yourself. 

Apparently, plenty of people have done the same thing.  When I first watched the video Sunday morning at 8am on Youtube, about 25,000 had watched it.  This evening, a scant 72 hours later, that figure had grown exponentially to nearly than 600,000. 

Obama's appearance on the show, and its strong Internet half-life, might just have the 2007 equivalent of Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on cable TV in 1992: a cultural moment that becomes the zeitgeist of political campaign.

No Simple Divide (What Does It Mean to be a Liberal and a Parent?)

Although the Huffington Post has evolved into little more than a tarty Internet tabloid, its editor and founder, Arianna Huffington, has consistently and wisely argued that the so-called divide between liberals and conservatives is illusory and more complex than mainstream media would care to admit.

A recent personal experience confirms her insight, and further calls into doubt the moral posturing of so-called social conservative columnists like Michelle Malkin and Laura Ingraham.

First, here's the incident.

On Halloween Day 2007, I opened my morning newspaper, The Valley News, to a seemingly innocent picture with a horrifying caption. 

Anticipating the evening's festivities, the Valley News sent a photographer to a local costume store.  Instead of capturing a sweet child in a cute or crazy costume, the photographer photographed a 10-year old boy who would be dressing up as a pimp this Halloween.

A pimp?

How does a 10-year old boy decide he's going to be a pimp for Halloween? 

The caption provided the horrifying answer:  a video game.  That, and an insanely permissive parent.  Here's the whole caption.

"Nick Stevens, 10, of Enfield tries on glasses at CostuMania in West Lebanon yesterday to go with the pimp costume he will wear for Halloween.  Stevens got the idea for the costume from a character in a video game.  'I've tried to get him to be anything else,' his father, Ron Stevens, said. 'I've suggested other ideas, but in the end it's up to him.'"

I sat down at the breakfast table, stunned.  What parent permits their child to have a video game with a pimp in it?  And what parent allows their child to dress as a pimp for Halloween?

What happened to saying, "No."  Or "Hell, no."  Or "over my dead body?"

I am far from a perfect parent.  It's a tough job.  The work never ends, and the challenges are significant.  And sometimes you make mistakes.  And since you love your kids more than anything else in your life, it's those mistakes which you remember the most. 

Last night was an interesting example of how challenging parenting can be.  With my daughter, Hannah, spending the night at friend's house, and my wife, Elizabeth, away on a business trip, it was just me and the two boys at home.  On the spur of the moment, we decided to watch a movie.  On TV.  How novel!

So I checked the TV listings -- which is something I've not done in a long time, since we hardly watch it -- and found one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies was being shown from 8pm to 10pm.  Yes, 10pm is past their bed time, but hey it's Friday, right?

So 10pm comes, and the movie is still going strong.  The two boys are loving the film, but it's getting late.  I re-check the listing and realize I mis-read the time when it would end.  The movie ends at 11pm, not 10pm.

Time to make a gut parenting call.  Allow them to stay up or say it's time to go to bed?

A quick check of their eyes convinced me of the answer.  Time to go to bed.  We'll finish the movie tomorrow after we rent it at the video store. 

Of course, there were HUGE protests at this decision from the boys.  But once in bed, Jacob and Noah were asleep within minutes.  It had been a busy week and they were more tired than they realized.  And now they had something to which look forward the next night.

Now, is that the sort of parenting decision you'd expect from a liberal like me? 

If you listen carefully to socially conservative columnists and other media figures (e.g., Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin), only their people know how to parent.  According to this crowd, liberal parents are lame supporters of the porno-fied culture (Malkin) who think only of themselves and their next trip to the south of France (Ingraham).  They are rolled by school boards and AWOL when it comes to setting limits.

To get inkling of their self-righteous posturing, watch this recent interview of Ingraham by Malkin.  It's almost as horrible as seeing a 10-year old boy wanting to be a pimp for Halloween.  The horror moment in the interview comes when Ingraham (age 43, never married, no kids of her own) claims insight into the challenges faced by large families when she takes six neighborhood kids to a Shrek movie. 

Undeterred by her complete lack of experience, Ingraham (at Malkin's prodding) goes onto give advice to parents, first by saying they've ceded their parental authority.  And then she claims liberals want parents out of the way so they can "occupy the bodies of children [with their agenda]."

If it was  slightly intended as funny, this rhetoric might take the prize for best black humor of 2007.  Instead, as it is shot through with meanness and triumphalism and lies, this rhetoric has a very different intention.  Ingraham does not really want to give parents advice or guidance (how could she?).  Instead, her point is to announce a divide in America, and demand parents join either Them (the evil liberals) or Us (the righteous conservatives).

Unfortunately, when it comes to parenting, there is not a liberal or conservative position on bedtime.  Same thing with providing good, healthy food.  Or fresh air.  Or books.  Or music.  Or art.  Or laughter.  Or support.  Or rules.  Or love.  Or a lot of love.

Being a parent is not a political act.  It's a giving act.  You give love, guidance,  education, safety, challenges, expectations, rules, opportunities...The list is almost endless.  Put simply, you give and shape life.

But do you give politics?  No way.  Look, I'm a political person but I don't give politics in this household.  It's really the last thing my kids need (or want).  Instead of politics, my kids want and cherish growing up in a safe, secure, and loving home.  It's not liberal or conservative, or Us versus Them.  In fact, in a family, it's never about Us versus Them.

And I think most Americans instinctively know this and want this.  Unfortunately, with dinosaurs like Malkin and Ingraham roaming the earth, it becomes difficult to keep your perspective.  In their eyes, liberals caused Mr. Stevens to allow his son to become a pimp on Halloween.  From where I stand, the problems Mr. Stevens has don't occur because of his political choices.

I deplore the Halloween choice his son made, but I also know it won't be fixed if his father votes for the "right" candidate in the November 2008 election. 

So....what will fix it? 

Here's where I become a "conservative."  I believe everyone benefits from "how to parent" guidance.  I came from a large family (6 kids, of which I was the oldest).  I did a lot of babysitting of kids.  I knew how to be a parent, right?

Wrong.

Even I needed guidance.  There's no more scary place than to be in the shoes of first-time parent during their first 100 days.  It's exhausting.  It's overwhelming.  It's wonderful and terrifying, all at the same time.  The calm words I got during my rookie season stay with me today, and help inform my parenting today.

Maybe Mr. Stevens could benefit from this.  Maybe we parents need support not only during the first 100 days (or 3 months) , but intermittently during the first 7,000 days of our tenure (until our kids become 19 years old). 

Maybe that kind of help -- informal, but informed by wisdom -- would keep 10-year old boys from aspiring to be pimps, and instead aim for something far greater.

Is that a liberal or conservative position?  It's neither.  At the end of the day, being a liberal or a conservative has nothing to do with being a good parent.  And maybe, if Laura Ingraham ever has kids of her own, she will understand that simple fact.

Three Cheers for Blue Hampshire (and 5 Cheers for Chris Dodd)

"I knew you when...."

That phrase came roaring back into my mind this evening as I read today's Wall Street Journal. There I was, fresh/tired from a steep training run up Oak Hill in Hanover, NH, and looking the WSJ issue  and below the fold of the newspaer, was the famous WSJ image of none other than Dean Barker from Blue Hampshire.

Wow. 

The story was an in-depth piece on the Blue Hampshire, the must-read political blog (at least in western NH) that emerged after the 2006 elections.  Dean and his crew -- Laura Clawson and Michael Caufield -- first caught the attention of politicos everywhere when they revealed that then NH-Congressman Charlie Bass had a staffer using US government computers to post fake comments on political websites.  I remember meeting Dean (then known as the "Yankee Doodler") while I was on the campaign trail, and he shared with me his plans for Blue Hampshire.  Their site launched shortly after the 2006 elections and the rest is history.

Today, the WSJ gave them the full, and favorable, treatment today in a long profile that suggested that perhaps Blue Hampshire was the key blog in New Hampshire politics. 

Well done and congratulations!

Equally of note in the article was the presence of Matt Browner-Hamlin, the Internet/blog guy for the Dodd campaign.  As the story unfolded, it became clear that the Dodd campaign has resonated very well with the likes of Blue Hampshire.  In fact, in early September, Dean Barker of Blue Hampshire endorsed Senator Dodd. 

That story comes on the heel of a very good week for the senior Senator from Connecticut.  Here are some of the highlights:

1. Dodd wins the Philadelphia Debate.  At least, that's the consensus of Pennsylvania Democrats, who conducted an online survey after the most recent DNC debate in their capital city.  Dodd won first place with 31% of the vote.  The second place finisher, John Edwards, was nearly ten points behind.
2. Dodd gets the backing of Jim Craig of New Hampshire.  Jim Craig -- the former Minority Leader of the NH House, the presumptive candidate for Congress in the 1st Congressional District in 2006, and temporary candidate for Chair of the NH Democratic Party -- endorsed Dodd last week.  This is a big deal.  Jim remains an influential party leader in New Hampshire, and his decision reinforces the opinion of many that Jim Craig is a person of principle.
3. Dodd campaigns, and gets very strong support, from NH Congresswoman Carol-Shea Porter.  The Congresswoman, who defeated Craig in the primary (and then Republican Jeb Bradley in the general election), joined Senator Dodd in New Hampshire last week for a rally to end the war in Iraq.  In the Congresswoman's words, "'I'm standing next to a Senator who has known all along what the direction should be and he knows the way out. And he has the courage to talk about it."
4. Senator Dodd stood up this week for the right of shareholders in public companies.  As Chair of Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Dodd came strongly out in opposition to two resolutions which would have limited the ability of shareholders to participate in the election of corporate boards.  As more and more Americans participate in the public equity markets through their retirement and saving plans, it's critical that their voice in the governance of public companies remains heard.
5. My mother, Mary Glenshaw, passed along this comment tonight:  "I saw Dodd on 'Meet the Press' this weekend.  He did a good job.  I was very impressed." .....OK, not everyone should be so taken with the recommendations of my mother -- who, in all fairness and the perspective of pure objectivity, is a saint and a font of Irish-Catholic wisdom -- but it's interesting to me (for a variety of reasons, as you might guess).  From a purely political point of view, here is how I see my mother's tacit encouragement.  A lifelong Reagan Democrat, my mother represents the slightly older wing of the Democratic party (Mother, please note the friendly modifiers concerning age).  This wing looks at the current lineup and says...Hillary (no thank you!), Obama (nice but too young), Edwards (good guy, great wife, but get real), Richardson (car salesman), Biden (shoe salesman)...and begins to look at Dodd.  Hmmmm.....maybe the real deal?  Maybe a guy who is serious but does not take himself too seriously.  Maybe just the guy we need?
6. Oh, and did I mention, Dodd released the funniest commercial yet?  Take a look.  It's hilarious.  Oh, and watch the reactions of the young man in the barber shop chair as the scissors come close to his face!

Halloween is over.  It's time for the real characters of this primary to emerge, and my thinking is Dodd is ready to strike!