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Chasing Wisdom
Op-Ed · May 02, 2007
You’d better not pout: the 2008 race is coming to town (already)
With all the news in West Branch over the last week — a wind power company coming to town, a lock-down at the elementary, a police chase in the industrial park, pre-prom photos at a National Park — it might be easy to overlook Chris Dodd, the first 2008 presidential candidate planning to visit West Branch.
Don’t overlook Chris Dodd.
The 62-year-old five-term senator from Connecticut is one of the lesser-knowns in the Democratic field of eight. Everyone’s heard of Clinton, Obama and Edwards. Biden ran for president in 1988, so he’s been to Iowa plenty of times. Many in West Branch are wild about Kucinich — or at least they were in 2004, the first time he ran. (He’s still anti-war, in case you were wondering.)
That leaves former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson, who’s probably the most qualified; former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel, who’s the most fun to listen to because he has nothing to lose; and Dodd.
Some following the presidential race may be interested in getting to know the candidates and their positions on real issues, and not who has the most expensive haircut; whether a black man, a Hispanic man or a white woman can be president; or which Democrats will stick their foot in their mouth in a way that makes people believe they don’t support the troops. If you’re one of those people uninterested in the tabloid junk I’ve mentioned, Chris Dodd may be for you.
Dodd won’t win you over with a lanky, handsome body, a dynamic former president for a husband or a smile that makes you melt. But he just might win you over with a compelling personal history and his positions on the issues.
Dodd received a B.A. in English from Princeton and a J.D. from Louisville. He spent two years in the Peace Corps, helping to build schools and hospitals in the Dominican Republic, where he became fluent in Spanish. While in law school, he volunteered for the National Guard, and served six years. His father, Thomas Dodd, was a lead prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials after World War II.
Chris Dodd was elected to the House in 1974, serving three terms before his election to the U.S. Senate in 1980. He has proposed pay-as-you-go legislation to balance the federal budget, campaign finance reform and the patient’s bill of rights. He is passionate about autism research and protecting mentally ill patients from abuse at mental hospitals.
While in West Branch on Saturday, Dodd will talk about what everyone here is already talking about: renewable energy. Acciona Energía’s promise to invest $23 million in a wind turbine assembly plant in the industrial park has some of us believing that a new-age renewable niche has been born in West Branch.
Dodd’s staff is quick to point out that he is the only presidential candidate (if we’re not counting Al Gore) who’s proposing a tax on carbon, the stuff that causes global warming. The carbon tax, combined with a cap-and-trade system for polluters, Dodd says, would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
Not many presidential candidates will begin their stump speeches by telling you how they’re going to raise taxes. Perhaps that’s because Dodd believes — unlike the current president — that expanding the government without raising taxes is irresponsible. Dodd believes that unless we raise revenues by taxing polluters, there will be no way to fund necessary research and development for renewable energy.
In other words, Dodd wants to do for renewable energy companies what Bush and Cheney’s Energy Policy Act of 2005 did for the oil companies: give them the full support of the government to be America’s primary source of energy.
If you believe that the production of renewable energy will play a key role in America’s future — and West Branch’s, for that matter — go to the Hoover House this Saturday at 1 p.m. And don’t overlook Chris Dodd.
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