Is Chris Dodd 2008's John Kerry?

CNN: August 30, 2007
Is Chris Dodd 2008's John Kerry?


Will an endorsement from a firefighters union help Chris Dodd like it helped John Kerry?

....The senator from Connecticut stood on stage for what could eventually prove to be a helpful photo op. Holding his hand under the lights was the man often credited with lifting John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid to a new level. That man is Harold Schaitberger. Schaitberger is the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, a union representing 281,000 full-time professional fire fighters. Wednesday he announced the IAFF is throwing all of its support behind long-shot candidate Chris Dodd....

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...according to today's polls, Dodd certainly isn't winning. But even though he argued that "poll numbers in August mean nothing," you can't ignore the fact that he's consistently coming in at around 1 percent. Now the question is, could this endorsement change anything? Let's rewind four years. Sen. John Kerry, then seen as a long-shot for the Democratic presidential nominee, was given this very same endorsement.

"I talked with Sen. Kerry this morning," Dodd told a group of reporters. "People had written John off–they said his numbers were too low. Harold Schaitberger and fire fighters said 'We don't care about numbers. We think John Kerry will be the best candidate for this party and make the best president.'"...

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But is it at all accurate to say that Chris Dodd is 2008's John Kerry? That depends. The political landscape was quite different. For one, Kerry's poll numbers four years ago were higher than Dodd's are today, both surveys taken prior to the IAFF endorsement. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll from August 4-6, 2003 showed Kerry at 12 percent–fourth place among the Democratic field at the time. That's about 11 points more than Dodd's now.

"Kerry was also helped by the sense of 'Where else are we going to go?'" said Dennis Goldford, a professor of Politics at Drake University in Des Moines. "Edwards seems too young, and Dean imploded…So in a way Kerry was helped by the process of elimination. I don't know if Dodd has that advantage in this particular year."...

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/08/30/is-chris-dodd-2008s-john-kerry/

and stood out well compared to others he ran against.

Dodd while a nice guy doesn't seem to have what it would take to stand out of the pack.

altho I am hoping someone else is.

Dodd would be a great President, he would be great for
the middle class of our country.

And as someone who is home taking care of a sick family member, I thank Dodd everyday for the FMLA.

As others have indicated and I have suggested, the IAFF was not that much of an integral part with Kerry getting the nomination or even winning in 2004 primaries. They helped, but they were not some kind of miracle-forming powerhouse.

The IAFF are great people, but they are not magicians.