Yesterday Chris Dodd gave a speech in New Hampshire outlining his plan for Americans to once again commit themselves to public service. Over at the official blog MBH has the key elements of Dodd’s plan as well as video of the speech.
- Promote the Corporation for National Service (CNS) to Cabinet Status. Through Executive Order, in a Dodd Administration, the Executive Director of the Corporation for National Service will be part of the Cabinet.
- Mandate School-Based Service as a Requirement for High School Graduation. Under the Dodd plan, every student in America will be required to perform 100 hours of community-based service prior to high school graduation.
- Double the Size of the Peace Corps by 2011 and Again by 2050. As President, Chris Dodd will double the number of Peace Corps volunteers, expand the number of countries in which volunteers are stationed and provide opportunities for Peace Corps volunteers to serve in their local communities when they return home.
- Dramatically increase the number of AmeriCorps Members to 1,000,000 and immediately raise the amount of the education award. The Dodd plan will significantly increase the number of AmeriCorps volunteers and will annually increase the education award to reflect the skyrocketing cost of tuition.
- Create a Rapid Response Reserve Corps. Dodd’s Rapid Response Reserve Corps will mobilize national service program alumni, as well as retired military and National Guard personnel, to respond to national disasters.
Out of all the Democratic canddiates, Dodd has offered the boldest initiatives. He gets kudos both online and off for things such as his campaign to restore Habeas and his carbon tax. Why don’t those ideas gain him any traction with voters?
21 responses so far ↓
He’s a victim of Schlesinger Syndrome. In 2006, Republicans thought Alan Schlesinger was great when they actually talked to him, or heard him speak. But they wouldn’t consider voting for him until his poll numbers picked up. And why didn’t they pick up? Because no one was going to pay attention until his poll numbers picked up. This is the Vicious Circle of Doom!
Dodd started out with low poll numbers, so he got ignored by the media and most Dem activists. He won’t be paid any attention until those numbers budge. But they won’t budge until he gets some attention. Which he won’t, because… well, you get the idea.
How does one break out of that kind of funk? It isn’t easy. Dodd is doing all the right things by coming out with bold(ish) proposals and trying to occupy the ground to the left of the main candidates. But he needs something he isn’t getting: national attention. To catch the attention of the media, he’ll basically have to get into a bar fight with Hillary.
He’s trending in that direction. I’m guessing he’ll start aggressively going after Hillary and Obama soon enough with a slew of negative ads. THAT always catches the media’s attention. It’s risky… but it may be all he has.
S-C-H-L-E-S-I-N-G-E-R
Most people aren’t tuned in so when asked they continue to say they like the top two or three whose names they recognize. Only political junkies and the Washington chattering class are paying attention to the 2008 Presidential race right now. Although the first voting is six to seven months from now, most people won’t pay attention until after November local elections, if then. The polls will probably be really shaken once votes are cast.
Hmmm… I do like the plan to expand the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps takes Americans that hate America… and sends them away from America
I don’t think Dodd is going to be taken seriously as a candidate unless and until Obama or Hillary make a fatal error, or at least one significant to damage their chances.
Dean was in a similar also-ran position 4 years ago (not the same, he had a little more support) and he broke out of it be outraising everyone.
So its simple! Dodd just has to outraise everyone!
Uh, GC….
What Republicans ever thought Schlesinger was great?
Now I’d have to dig it up, there was an article which backed this up… but a lot of Republicans that I knew, near the end especially, thought Schlesinger was much better than Lamont or Lieberman. In the end, they voted for Lieberman because they didn’t think Schlesinger could win and they really, really disliked Lamont… not because they didn’t like Schlesinger. I’m not saying all Republicans felt this way. But there were a lot who did.
[quote comment="14114"]Dean was in a similar also-ran position 4 years ago (not the same, he had a little more support) and he broke out of it be outraising everyone.
So its simple! Dodd just has to outraise everyone![/quote]
Maybe he can ask Mayor Bloomberg for a loan?
>>and they really, really disliked Lamont
Actually, it wasn’t so much Lamont himself, it was the caliber of his supporters that frightened many of us half to death.
Fear is a valid motivator.
ACR–
The Iraq Fiasco is that which has and will propel the Democratic gang to power and pre-eminence.
The CT GOP’s ready embrace of America’s biggest chicken-hawk, Revoltin’ Joe Lieberman, was a desperate attempt to stop the tide.
You’d have been much better served if you’d stood against the insanity of the Neo-Cons. Certainly Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons would still be members of Congress if they hadn’t joined with Joe to back up Bush’s lunatic foreign policy.
ps– Last cycle Shays joined Dems in calling for timelines. This cycle, (after his fundraising is done), I suspect he’ll begin calling for an immediate withdrawl….
[quote comment="14127"]ACR–
The Iraq Fiasco is that which has and will propel the Democratic gang to power and pre-eminence.
[/quote]
I think you’re being a little superficial in your analysis. If opposition to the Iraq War is the key to electoral victory, we would have a Senator Lamont.
If opposition to the war is such a political golden grail, why is the Democratic Congress enjoying approval numbers lower than the president’s?
[quote post="669"]I think you’re being a little superficial in your analysis. If opposition to the Iraq War is the key to electoral victory, we would have a Senator Lamont.[/quote]
You’re forgetting that during the general election no one wanted to bring the troops home more than Joe Lieberman (and Chris Shays).
[quote post="669"]If opposition to the war is such a political golden grail, why is the Democratic Congress enjoying approval numbers lower than the president’s?[/quote]
Possibly because they aren’t putting an end to it, which is what they were elected to do.
[quote comment="14130"]You’re forgetting that during the general election no one wanted to bring the troops home more than Joe Lieberman (and Chris Shays).[/quote]
Reminds me of 2002, when people couldn’t rush to back Bush soon or often enough. Opposing the war was the right thing to do, politically, in 2006.
We absolutely can’t make the assumption that that’ll work in 2008.
[quote comment="14130"][quote post="669"]I think you’re being a little superficial in your analysis. If opposition to the Iraq War is the key to electoral victory, we would have a Senator Lamont.[/quote]
You’re forgetting that during the general election no one wanted to bring the troops home more than Joe Lieberman (and Chris Shays).
[quote post="669"]If opposition to the war is such a political golden grail, why is the Democratic Congress enjoying approval numbers lower than the president’s?[/quote]
Possibly because they aren’t putting an end to it, which is what they were elected to do.[/quote]
ehhh… I don’t know. I think Lamont made the point that he would bring them home quicker. Didn’t work for him.
I think Congress’s approval ratings are low because they haven’t done ANYTHING apart from take symbolic votes. It’s a do-nothing Congress.
Of course, I would be thrilled to see Democrats just take it for granted that they have it all locked up in ‘08. I would enjoy their laziness on the hustings.
Mandate School-Based Service as a Requirement for High School Graduation. Under the Dodd plan, every student in America will be required to perform 100 hours of community-based service prior to high school graduation
Heaven forbid we teach our young of the endorphin high one receives after working for others or the common good, it might become (gasp) addictive and then where would we be?
Every civic, fraternal, youth, and religious organization would be better served for an entire generation.
Since such behavior tends to led to self-reliance as opposed to waiting around for some government program to take care of every little problem; it’s surprising to hear it from a liberal US Senator.
A splendid idea regardless of where it’s coming from or who is promoting it.
[quote post="669"]A splendid idea regardless of where it’s coming from or who is promoting it.[/quote]
Agreed, ACR. I like this plan.
>>takes Americans that hate America… and sends them away from America
For that we need to implement our illegal – liberal exchange program.
Face it, immigrants want to work and want to be Americans; while neither tends to be true of the American Liberal.
So we trade `em!
Couple of a hard working fellows show up from Central America, we send a couple of liberals back – why deport perfectly nice hard working people when we can instead deport some annoying liberals?
Think of it, we round up 12 million liberals and ship them out (we can tell them they’ve won exciting free trips to exotic locations) and in no time at all we’ll have a Birkenstock-free nation!
True Blue
>>The Iraq Fiasco is that which has and will propel the Democratic gang to power and pre-eminence
Not if those in opposition come across like the Lamontistas did.
I know plenty of people who are in total opposition, can’t stand Bush, etc. that are no where nearly as obnoxious as that crowd was.
The mob scene outside the New London debate last summer was more than enough to illustrate that for me.
Joe’s people were polite to a fault, and no one from Schlesinger’s contingent was even dressed poorly and we certainly didn’t make spectacles of ourselves, as was the apparent goal of Lamont’s very negative crowd.
Let’s see. A government program, a government program, a government program, a government program and, finally, another government program. Nothing illustrates the fundamental difference between big government Democrats/Republicans and conservative Americans than Dodd’s proposals. These proposals come out at the same time that the national media is trumpeting the fact that Americans broke an all time record in 2006 by contributing more than $300 billion to charitable causes. And that doesn’t even count the countless hours that many contribute without compensation. Of course, the big gov types are uncomfortable about this because many of the contributions of money and time are to “faith based” organizations – anathema to the big government types whose religion is big government. If Senator gets his wishes, we’ll create five more government bureaucracies staffed with a cadre of people with BA’s in political science who can’t get a job anywhere else, rent pricey space for them in DC or the burbs, give them a huge budget so that they can hire someone from Booz Allen or SAIC to administer the program at $250,000 per year, and before you know it, they will be multi-billion dollar programs forever a part of greater Washington. No thanks. Just give some more money to organizations like Americares and the CCF and you’ll accomplish a lot more.
You must log in to post a comment.