Sen. Dodd Aspires To Reach Top Tier

The contortions may have fallen shy of one of the signature moments of Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, a fateful flip-flop also related to Iraq spending, but Dodd said the distinction still matters. "I voted for it before I voted against it" became one of the memorable lines of his losing 2004 presidential campaign.

"Being for it, being not quite for it -- that's when people get into some difficulty," Dodd observed of the fracas. "Because that's when the clarity is missing."

Dodd is hardly a darling of the antiwar left. On April 10, the progressive group MoveOn.org held a "virtual town hall" on Iraq, featuring remarks from seven Democratic presidential candidates beamed to more than 1,000 gatherings of MoveOn supporters. Dodd advocated the funding deadline and said, "I believe that we ought to begin redeploying our troops this evening."

He ranked last in a subsequent poll of participants.

Eli Pariser, MoveOn's executive director, acknowledged that Dodd "certainly has a strong position against the war." But he said the significant development last week was the unanimity among the four Democratic candidates for a funding deadline.

"Some of them are kind of more comfortable with the vote than others, but that's a big step forwards," Pariser said.

Both the Republican and Democratic fields this year are crowded with experienced politicians with long public records and no shortage of ambitious ideas for fighting terrorism, ending poverty and fixing health care. The list includes former governors, veteran House members, and two Senate committee chairmen, Dodd (Banking) and Biden (Foreign Affairs), whose combined service in the chamber totals 61 years.

Dodd was urged by some of his colleagues to seek the 2004 nomination, but took a pass. But when he surveyed the more grave 2008 environment, he saw an opening for a candidate like himself: experienced and tough, but with an easygoing, conciliatory style.

So far, there aren't too many takers. Dodd is languishing at the bottom of the most polls, although his advisers are optimistic that a breakthrough is both imminent and inevitable. "Democratic voters are just exhausted by the timidity, the dodges and the poll-tested weasel words," said senior Dodd strategist Jim Jordan.

Like Clinton and Biden, Dodd voted to authorize the war in 2002. He opposed setting a withdrawal date when the issue came before the Senate in June 2006. About a month ago, he said, his thinking on the war shifted abruptly.

"You look at all the formulations, and I came to the conclusion that the only hope that the Iraqis would decide for themselves to reconcile their differences, was to say, 'This is the year. This is it. We're moving on,' " Dodd said. "I think they've decided we're not going anywhere so they don't have to worry about it."

Such are the perils of a second-tier candidacy. Even the riskiest maneuvers and the most serious proposals draw relatively little notice.

During last month's Democratic debate in South Carolina, moderator Brian Williams of NBC News observed that none of the candidates had offered tough solutions on climate change. Dodd, who supports a carbon tax to reduce foreign oil dependency, fumed off camera as Biden touted a tamer proposal to expand ethanol capacity at gas stations.

"I felt like I was back in parochial school, yelling 'Sir! Sir! Over here!' " Dodd said afterward.