Chris Dodd for President

One anecdote that I left out of my postings yesterday is a conversation Tim Tagaris and I had with Senator Dodd while we were prepping to shoot a short web video of him asking Iowans to caucus for him on January 3rd. Tim and I were filling the Senator in about the continued praise for his leadership in the FISA fight online. The Senator pointed out that while he appreciates that support of people online for his actions to defend the Constitution, he's seeing the same sentiments on the campaign trail as well. In fact, he said, when he returned to Iowa following the floor fight over retroactive immunity, a man came up to him in the airport and stopped him to thank him for standing up against the Bush administration over immunity.

I've always said that the issues of the Constitution and the rule of law are national ones, that Americans all over the country online and offline, care deeply about. Senator Dodd's airport story speaks to that and is certainly borne out on a daily basis as he travels around Iowa. Chris Dodd is running to restore the Constitution, something neither he nor most Americans would have thought would ever be a necessary platform for a presidential candidate. But this country needs Chris Dodd's leadership now and a Dodd administration would be a soothing tonic to our battered Constitution.

Chris Dodd's stand against retroactive immunity has earned itself a spot on Wired Threat Level blog's year in review list of key stories of 2007.

The only senator to stand tall against telco immunity was Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd, whose threatened Mr. Smith-style filibuster forced fellow Dems this month to meekly slide their Get Out Of Jail Free card back into the Community Chest. That's good news for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, bad news for the 9th Circuit, which stays stuck at Bush administration's mad tea party with AT&T lawyers wearing the big hat.

Dodd's leadership against retroactive immunity was surely one of the most talked about stories online and offline this year. Why? Because at a crucial juncture where a huge swath of Bush administration law breaking and violations of American's civil liberties were about to be swept up under the rug, one man stood up and said "No." And sometimes, one person standing up can change the shape of the debate in our country. Now, retroactive immunity is no longer assured and if it ever does become reality, it will only be over the actions of Chris Dodd doing everything he can.

But for now, Dodd lead and it became an issue that permeated into the presidential campaign and throughout national discourse. It's something Americans know and care deeply about.

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, how positive the crowds response, because frankly, I've tried to let 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.

In his weekly post at MyDD on the Dodd campaign, Jason Rosenbaum talks about expectations for Senator Dodd in Iowa and how recent events, notably the FISA fight and a surge in online contributions, have positioned Dodd to exceed them on caucus night and beyond.

Athenae at First Draft posts a picture of Senator Dodd packing up gifts for the troops, as well as some coverage of Mike Caulfield's endorsement of Senator Dodd.

techPresident says Senator Dodd's showdown with Bill O'Reilly this past August was the #8 video in presidential politics this year.

David Dayen, who's also posting at Digby's Hullabaloo these days, has a long string of posts analyzing the political situation in Pakistan following Benazir Bhutto's assassination earlier today.

One of our Iowa volunteers, Anne-Marie Medonis of Wethersfield, CT talks about why she supports Chris Dodd for President.

I hope everyone had a great Holiday. We came back from a short break to find another great letter to the editor about Senator Dodd's FISA fight. This one comes from Andrea Calandrella of Lebanon. It ran in today's Valley News.

There was a showdown on the floor of the US Senate on Dec. 17. The debate was over the proposed renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). At stake was nothing less than the US Constitution and the preservation of our civil liberties.

The specific issue was a provision to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally disclosed millions of private records, including yours and mine. These disclosures were made in response to warrantless requests from the Bush administration beginning in February 2001, months before 9/11.

FISA as it exists provides reasonable means to conduct surveillance legally and with proper oversight. To date, only 5 of 18,000 requests under FISA have ever been rejected. If the telecom companies acted in a legal manner, there is no need for immunity. If they acted illegally, the proper place to address this is in a court.

Chris Dodd left the presidential campaign trail to fight this granting of retroactive immunity. With passion and eloquence, he held the floor for over 8 hours on Monday until the majority leader, Harry Reid, postponed action on the bill until January 2008. Without Chris Dodd’s leadership and political backbone, there is no doubt that the bill would have passed with the inclusion of retroactive immunity. Watching him on C-SPAN was seeing democracy and statesmanship in action.