Chris Dodd for President

Chris Dodd passes along his thanks for the support the blogs, including Jane Hamsher and the FireDogLake community, have given to his efforts in this campaign and through his Senate leadership on New Year's Eve after a huge event in Waterloo, Iowa.

Happy New Year everyone! Your support is crucial, it's been what's driven our campaign and will continue to carry Chris Dodd to greater and greater success in Iowa in a few days and throughout 2008.

Yesterday's Daily Kos straw poll showed Senator Dodd surging into second place in the poll, tripling last month's performance, to 21% support with over 12,000 people voting.

dKos Reader Poll. 10/22 -- 10:24 a.m. to 1:22 p.m. PT. 12,369 respondents.

            2007                                     2006

            Oct Sept Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan Dec Jul

Edwards      31  39  34  36  40  39  42  38  26  35  28  15
Dodd         21   7   0   1   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0
Obama        16  21  29  27  22  24  25  26  25  28  28
H. Clinton    9  11   8   9   6   6   3   3   4   4   5   2
Other         6   5   7   9   6   5   9   8   *   *   3   6
Don't Know    5   5   5   7   7   5   8   6   *   *   3   4
Kucinich      5   6   4   3   2   2   2   4
Richardson    2   1   6   5   8  13   8   6   5   4   2   1
Biden         1   1   1   0   0   0   0   1   0   1   1   1
Gravel        0   0   0   1   1   3   0   0   0   0   0

It's not a stretch to say that we're ecstatic here at the Dodd campaign with these results. But this hasn't come out of the blue.

Chris Dodd's work to stop the illegal wiretapping bill and on ending the war with a firm enforceable is resonating with Americans who feel a sense of frustration that Congress hasn't followed through on its mandate to change the direction of the country. It's this type of leadership that offers clarity and boldness, combined with his ability to get results, that sets Chris Dodd apart from the field and that will earn him the nomination.

This poll represents the strong, growing support that exists for Chris Dodd in the netroots. The netroots are a community of Democratic and progressive activists, a hyper-informed group that is distributed around the country, but is very influential and socially connected to large numbers of people. In academic terms, a great deal of bloggers and blog readers are "poli-influentials" and "community hubs" -- the best kind of advocates for a campaign trying to reach out to voters who are ideologically similar to their candidate. Dodd's support in the Kos poll comes after months of hard work, issue leadership, and action fighting for issue the netroots care about.

Ari Melber, writing at the Huffington Post, explains why Dodd is likely to get this kind of support online:

Dodd is well positioned to benefit from the online attention. He's already been leading on the netroots' three major priorities: Iraq, the Constitution and Proud Aggressive Politics. As an agenda, that boils down to: End the war, Defend the Constitution and instead of apologizing for your beliefs, Fight like hell when opponents attack you or the country. Alert readers will note these are key items for plenty of Democratic voters offline.

I think Melber's spot-on. In my travels with Senator Dodd around the country -- including extensive time in rural Iowa and New Hampshire -- these issues have come up at effectively every event I've been at. Americans are sick and tired of this war and the Bush administration's abuses of the Constitution. They're fed up with Democrats' inability to follow through on campaign promises to change course in Iraq and bring our troops home. They want to see someone stand up for the rule of law and stop the flow of power towards this President and his political appointees. But most of all, they want to see leadership through action and unapologetic commitment to Democratic principles. That is, the results we see online are just another manifestation of sentiments seen and felt by Democratic voters around the country offline.

Chris Dodd has been out front, leading with clarity and conviction. From his Restoring the Constitution Act and the citizen generated whip count around the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act, to the Dodd amendment and a commitment to not vote for another dollar for war in Iraq without there being a time line for withdrawal tied to funding, to his passionate and principled defense of the netroots against Bill O'Reilly's attacks -- Chris Dodd has built a clear record this campaign of being the only candidate who's proving to the the Democratic base that he's a guy who they can trust as President to stand with them on the issues that matter most.

That's why I can safely say that Dodd's meteoric rise over the last two months in the Kos straw poll has staying power. Dodd has earned this. His leadership on FISA may be a tipping point, but it's also an opportunity for many people to take a good, hard look at Chris Dodd's record and find even more reasons to support him as their candidate. And let's not forget, Chris Dodd is still the only candidate who has made restoring the Constitution and standing up for the rule of law a driving factor in his Presidential campaign. He will continue to fight against telecom amnesty and will stand firm in his defense of the Constitution when it comes to stopping torture, closing Guantanamo, honoring the Geneva Conventions, and only approving Bush administration appointees who understand how the Constitution works. That means Dodd will continue to be right there with people of all political stripes who think that the Constitution demands protection from people who swear an oath of office to uphold it.

Dave Johnson points out in his post on Senator Dodd that our home page currently says "Support the Netroots" on its banner (the graphic links to a page that was created around Senator Dodd's appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor" to defend the netroots and Daily Kos). What to me is a clear statement - Support the Netroots - may be unclear to other people. Who are the netroots?

I think the most insightful comment I heard at Yearly Kos this weekend was an answer to that question. "The netroots," one blogger said, " are Americans with computers."

To go a bit deeper, the netroots is the community of progressive, liberal, Democratic Americans who turn to blogs for news and analysis, and to engage in political debate and activism. They voice their opinions and their engagement in politics is a civic act of patriotism. They represent diverse communities from all over the country and are of a full range of ages (the average age is almost 50 years old). But, at the end of the day, they're merely Americans with computers.

Pretty simple, huh?

Dean Barker, a managing editor at the community blog Blue Hampshire, has a very thoughtful post up today praising the Dodd campaign's internet outreach strategy, particularly as we're reaching into New Hampshire. First, Dean has "a light bulb moment" about internet politics in this cycle. This commentary follows:

Chris Dodd's campaign has figured out how to use the internet effectively, and the others haven't. He's got the only team in place that seems to have advanced the Howard Dean campaigning-via-internet revolution of 2003-4. Sure, all the contenders have formidable websites, and some of the bigger ones even have their own NH-based subsites. Edwards' is clearly the most "people-powered". But they all share one thing in common: they are fiefdoms unto themselves. To see netroots Hillary, Obama, Edwards, et alii in action, you have to first go to their websites. That's like requiring a Granite Stater during the primary to come to a candidate's HQ to learn more about them. Chris Dodd has decided that he will leverage the internet to come to you instead. Important Iraq funding bill coming up? Bang, a diary and a YouTube almost immediately. Civil Unions passed in New Hampshire? Zoom, another YouTube, from a NH house party. Nothing flashy, no slick production values. But suddenly, people who are not on a candidate's website are learning about Chris Dodd, and getting a clear picture of where he stands. That's a whole lot more powerful than a web ad, which, if you haven't noticed, we aren't doing at the moment. It's so freaking easy. Voters have to find you before they can hear you. Team Dodd has figured that out. It's the internet version of New Hampshire retail politics.

We believe firmly in using blogs, video content, and social networking communities to share information about Chris Dodd. Providing a window into the campaign, into what Senator Dodd believes and cares about, is not a hard decision for us to make, even if it's a rare one in the managed, crafted world of presidential politics. We think the more you get to know Chris Dodd, the more you'll like him. That goes for people who get their news and information online, as well as those folks lucky enough to attend political events in the early primary states. As I said yesterday in a radio interview with Colin McEnroe, we believe the internet allows us to engage people around the country in the same kitchen-table settings that Senator Dodd is meeting voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. Not everyone who we, as a campaign, want to talk to will have the privilege of sharing a conversation in person with Chris Dodd. But we can make that number smaller through live video chats like this week on FireDogLake or sharing clips of the Senator speaking on YouTube. With that in mind, our desire to proactively ensure that as many people as possible get to take a look through the virtual window that we're creating into the Dodd campaign is clear. It's what the Dodd internet team is here to do and it's how we can best get more people to join us in our belief that Chris Dodd is the best candidate to provide real leadership at a time when America needs it most.

Via Yahoo News

"The Dodd Campaign was smart to tap a true believer who challenges the conventional wisdom in the blogs and the papers, even if he's never worked on a campaign before. Dodd is not "second tier" on the issues; his policieis on Iraq, human rights and energy are some of the boldest and most thoughtful in the entire field. A travelling blogger might just press others to cover that substance, or disintermediate the entire horse-race framework so that voters can judge for themselves."

What he said.