If newspapers were musical compositions, Chris Powell of the Journal Inquirer, a publication that for years has been following U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd’s entangling alliances with Big Business, might very well be Bach.
Consider the lede line on Powell’s most recent column, “Anyone can beat Dodd – why not Blumenthal":
Powell points to a story in The Washington Times in which a top executive from AIG “whose derivative instruments ruined the company and the world financial system, Joseph Cassano, conducted a political fund raising operation at the company for Dodd just after the 2006 election, as Dodd ascended to the chairman of the senate Banking Committee, whereupon Dodd continued to help insure that Cassano’s deadly inventions escaped government regulation.”
Some Democrats, frightened that Dodd might lose his seat to Republicans when the senator will be up for re-election in 2010, are casting about wildly for a suitable replacement, and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, whose popularity ratings rival those of popular Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell, has been mentioned in this connection.
Powell acknowledges that Blumenthal’s “insufferable” yearning for “contrived pretexts for publicity” may present a problem. But then white horses are very visible, and the Democrat Party may just need a rider on a white horse to save Dodd’s seat for Democrats, a posture that for Blumenthal appears to be effortless.
Consider the lede line on Powell’s most recent column, “Anyone can beat Dodd – why not Blumenthal":
“Now that the latest Quinnipiac Universality poll has found that any Republican who has not worked for AIG could defeat U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd by a mile…”
Powell points to a story in The Washington Times in which a top executive from AIG “whose derivative instruments ruined the company and the world financial system, Joseph Cassano, conducted a political fund raising operation at the company for Dodd just after the 2006 election, as Dodd ascended to the chairman of the senate Banking Committee, whereupon Dodd continued to help insure that Cassano’s deadly inventions escaped government regulation.”
Some Democrats, frightened that Dodd might lose his seat to Republicans when the senator will be up for re-election in 2010, are casting about wildly for a suitable replacement, and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, whose popularity ratings rival those of popular Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell, has been mentioned in this connection.
“Even if the party lacks the leadership and principle to solve the Dodd problem,” Powell writes, it might still have the ambition – that is, the longsuffering ambition of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. 63, who for 15 of his nearly 20 years as attorney general has been waiting patiently for a Democratic Senate nomination to open up. While such a nomination may open up in 2012, upon the expiration of the term of rogue Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, who seems to have alienated most Democrats, that is 3 ½ years away, when Blumenthal will be 66 and looking even less like the representative of the next generation.”
Powell acknowledges that Blumenthal’s “insufferable” yearning for “contrived pretexts for publicity” may present a problem. But then white horses are very visible, and the Democrat Party may just need a rider on a white horse to save Dodd’s seat for Democrats, a posture that for Blumenthal appears to be effortless.
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