Trips to NH (and Iowa) Doomed Dodd

As many on the right celebrate the political demise of Sen. Chris Dodd (although it comes a year too early; the GOP’s odds of winning this seat just went down now that the Dems can run someone else), it is worth thinking about how it was Dodd’s ill-fated run for president that sent his career into an irreversable tailspin.

Dodd had won nine consecutive elections over four decades. His constituents basically liked him and thought they knew him. But then, while Dodd was shaving, he started to see a president in the mirror. His constituents knew he wasn’t presidential timber. They started to doubt his basic judgment. Then he moved his family to Iowa. Now he started to look delusional. He dropped out days before the NH primary but it was too late: He was exposed as a fraud. And it all started to unravel.

Of course, Dodd added corruption as well: the sweetheart mortgage deal, the convenient cottage in Ireland, the condo in DC, his wife’s lucrative corporate board appointments for which she was professionally unqualified. But had he not run for president and given people a reason to doubt his basic judgment, he might be favored for re-election instead of what he is today: defeated before a vote was cast.