Facing a Long Shot Re-election Bid, Sen. Chris Dodd Folds His Cards

There are sad and humiliating ways to end a career in the United States Senate – and liberal Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd knows them too well through bitter family experience. As the white-thatched Dodd stood in front of his home in East Haddam, Conn., Wednesday afternoon to announce "I will not be a candidate for re-election," the five-term senator undoubtedly remembered his father's tarnished legacy.

Tom Dodd – who had been censured by the Senate in 1967 for personally dipping into campaign funds – was denied re-nomination by Connecticut Democrats to a third term in 1970. The elder Dodd, a former Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor, ran as an independent spoiler candidate that fall, handing his seat to the Republicans. In an introduction to a collection of his father's Nuremberg letters, Chris Dodd wrote in 2007, "We were all heartbroken by what happened to him in his last years in the Senate – it has been the family opinion that his censure was unjustified. That led to a bitter ending of public life and contributed to his early death."

That was not how the 65-year-old Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, wanted to leave the political stage. Struggling to get above 40 percent in the polls in a Democratic state, dragged down by the repercussions from receiving a low-rate home mortgage from a company that later came to symbolize the financial crisis, embarrassed by a microscopic showing as a long shot presidential contender in the 2008 Iowa caucuses, Dodd proved that he was one senator who knew how and when to fold his cards. As Dodd declared in an elegantly crafted statement, "None of us are irreplaceable. None of us are indispensable. Those who think otherwise are dangerous."

In the crassest political terms, Dodd's demurral may have saved the Democrats a Senate seat. (On the flip side, Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan's unexpected retirement has probably flipped North Dakota into the GOP column in November). "Dodd conceivably might have won," said Doug Schwartz, the director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "It would have been an uphill battle, but he had a shot. Not a very good shot, but a shot."

Waiting in the wings was the Prince Charles of Connecticut politics, popular long-serving Democratic state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who has been patiently dreaming of a Senate seat since the Continental Congress. By mid-afternoon, Blumenthal was the de facto Democratic Senate nominee and Republican hopes of victory in Connecticut were drifting over Long Island Sound on their way out to sea.

The Republicans have two intriguing Senate candidates: former congressman and CIA operative Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon, the free-spending and self-financing former CEO of the World Wrestling Federation. But it is difficult to beat the Democrats on national issues in Connecticut, a state which Barack Obama carried with 61 percent of the vote and a state which has elected exactly one Republican senator (liberal maverick Lowell Weicker) since the heyday of George W. Bush's grandfather.

But Dodd's decision – which was kept under wraps until late Tuesday night with close friends and loyal fundraisers only told at the last minute – is a reminder of how often in public life the personal trumps the political. With the Connecticut Senate primary not until Aug. 10, Dodd could have dithered for months. "There's a lot of relief today among Connecticut Democrats," said attorney Kevin Rennie, a former Republican state legislator turned political columnist. "They didn't know how to get to Dodd to convince him not to run."

Political reporters tend to view the men and women they cover as one-dimensional stick figures motivated only by ambition. Of course, political staffers tend to portray their bosses as one-dimensional stick figures motivated only by their love of America. The truth is always more supple and subtle. And, especially for political leaders of a certain age, career motivations cannot always be neatly separated from late-night ruminations about mortality.

Dodd was more candid than most as he spoke Wednesday about how he "lost a beloved sister in July and in August, Ted Kennedy; battled cancer over the summer." The words were clipped and pronouns were dropped, but the message was clear – two deaths and an operation for prostate cancer in a few short months are enough to give any man pause. In all likelihood, Dodd did not bow out because of fear of defeat or fall-on-his sword loyalty to the Democratic Party or the death of Ted Kennedy or the tamping down of the fires of ambition. But they all contributed to his belief that a noxious year-long campaign, filled with the 30-second character assassination TV ads that are the norm of contemporary politics, was too high a price to pay for the long-shot chance at six more years in the Senate.

The other side of Dodd's ordeal is the luck of (Joe) Lieberman – the charmed political life of Connecticut's independent senator, who still caucuses with the Democrats. During his abortive effort to win the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, Lieberman ballyhooed that he was so committed to winning the New Hampshire primary that he was moving into an apartment in Manchester. During his own ill-fated 2008 presidential campaign, Dodd trumpeted that he was moving his family to Des Moines (the epicenter of the Iowa caucuses) and enrolled his eldest daughter in school there. Lieberman's Manchester apartment was remembered by Connecticut voters as a political gimmick that failed. Dodd's relocation to Des Moines was viewed by the same home-state voters as a betrayal by their senator. Go figure.

By all accounts, Blumenthal had planned to run against Lieberman for the Senate in 2012 – and presumably would have been a far more skillful challenger than earnest antiwar 2006 Democratic rival Ned Lamont. Now without touching a switch, Lieberman sits back as his most popular potential opponent shifts tracks to try to replace Dodd in the Senate. While two-term Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy may take on Lieberman in 2012, he does not boast the statewide reputation of Blumenthal. For all the ire that Lieberman aroused among liberals by his unyielding opposition to a public insurance option in the Senate health care bill, the different-drummer Connecticut independent is probably in stronger political shape today than he was just a few weeks ago.

Anyone who actively follows politics – from the most self-important TV pundit to the most junior staffer on a state senate campaign – accepts the premise that elections reflect the mood of the nation. But in a body as small as the United States Senate, with only one third of the seats on the ballot every two-year cycle, the political fates are often shaped by human factors such as health, personal ambition and – in Chris Dodd's case – the grace to know when to quit.