Yesterday the Calitics staff sat down with Sen. Christopher Dodd, Senate Banking Committee chair and candidate for President in 2008, for about a 30-minute interview. Dodd impressed me as someone who thinks clearly about issues and the implications of them, who carefully ponders all of his decisions, and who always strives to do the right thing. In other words, a Democrat.
He’s also embraced new media, hiring Tim Tagaris, who should be familiar to the netroots as having worked on Ned Lamont’s campaign (here’s a bio). Dodd talked about the new media era and how it can impact a campaign like his that is looking to get their views out in the face of the media-hyped monster that his Hillack Clintobama.
The full interview (not transcribed, but paraphrased) on the flip:
We asked Dodd about the role that blogs and the Internet are playing in his campaign. During last week’s debate, they set up a live streaming “war room” where people could watch his staff react to portions of the debate (Dodd actually criticized the debate format in his convention speech, which I thought was accurate). He said that his campaign cannot “rely on what’s filtered through the traditional media.” He talked about how he can read articles on the Presidential race, and see where his portion of the story “died on the editor’s desk,” because you only have so many column inches and you have to talk about Hillary and you have to talk about Obama. The Tom Friedman quote that Brian Williams brought up in the debate (“nobody has come up with a specific energy and environmental policy”) really stung him, because Dodd HAS done just that, and he said that he sent it to Friedman to boot. We talk about the proposal later.
Now I’ll segue into a Q-and-A shorthand format.
Next question: When the media does stop at the Hillary-Obama phenomenon, how do you react to that?
A: “We’re building an operation solidly.” Dodd believes in an almost architectural way to build an organization, by making the underlying structure solid. Iowa and Nevada, he said, are all about organization; getting people to stay in caucuses for two hours and horse trade with their neighbors requires it. And in New Hampshire, he’s a fellow New Englander. His crowds are “decent-sized”. And people seem to have an “amnesia about the last election,” where Kerry’s organization in Iowa was solid enough to help him win that race.
Q: Talk about the corporate carbon tax.
A: Dodd believes he can generate 50-100 billion dollars annually through this tax, which can be put into alternative energy programs. This will have the effect of equalizing price for peopple. People want to go green, but if it’s cost-prohibitive and they’re struggling to get by, they may not make the sacrifice. It makes it easier to purchase things like wind and solar and ethanol, etc. Dodd said that he got a great response on the proposal, particularly from Al Gore. He also wants to mandate a 50mpg fuel economy standard by 2017. I’ll quote his Boston Globe op-ed for a more detailed description:
That’s why, in addition to whatever else we do, America must enact a corporate carbon tax. Used in conjunction with cap and trade systems that allow clean corporations to sell pollution credits to dirtier companies, a corporate carbon tax can be implemented quickly, affect every energy sector, and above all provide the strongest disincentive possible to polluting.
Some argue that corporations would simply pass on costs of a corporate carbon tax to consumers. But in an era where the price of gasoline already jumps 30 to 40 cents in only a few weeks’ time, such arguments ring decidedly hollow. You cannot be serious about acting on the urgent threat of global warming, about making us less captive to Middle East oil, or investing in renewable energy, unless you have a corporate carbon tax that eliminates the last incentive to pollute: that it’s cheaper. With all we are facing — from health and environmental concerns to war abroad — making dirty energy a less attractive option to consumers and business is nothing to be afraid of.
But it’s particularly attractive because the revenues of a corporate carbon tax can be used to bring the cost of clean energy down. Used to fast-track renewable energy research and development and deployment of clean energy and energy efficient technologies, a corporate carbon tax would generate more than $50 billion annually, helping us get technologies out of the laboratories and onto our roads and into our homes and businesses, jumpstarting America’s global competitiveness in the process.
Dodd also described it as a jobs program, and that the jobs of the 21st century can be alternative energy jobs.
Q: On Iraq, what are your thoughts on what to do after the expected veto of the funding bill with a withdrawal date?
A: “Any bill you send without definition is wrong.” Bush obviously wants to play out the string and hand this problem to the next President. This is the first Administration in his history in the Congress that treats diplomacy as a threat or a weakness. Dodd would ramp up diplomacy and political solutions to the problem of Iraq. He says that he gets people coming up to him all the time, Democrats and Republicans, who say “Don’t quit on this.” Dodd is also a co-sponsor of Feingold-Reid. I’m happy with his stance on Iraq.
Q: What is the status of your legislation restoring habeas corpus?
A: Not moving. But he’s committed to the issue. “When I first introduced it, I thought it would go over people’s heads,” would be too obscure. He didn’t realize how widely held this opinion was that we need to restore habeas corpus, that it speaks to who we are as Americans.
Dodd talked about how the best advocates of his bill were the senior officers of JAG. They understand that you cannot torture people or detain them indefinitely without telling them why they were charged. He talked about all the reasons why you have to change the law. And he said that if he were President, “I don’t know what I could fix by executive order.” I said, “If you’re like this President, everything.” Big laugh. I killed with Chris Dodd.
Q: Talk about Webb and Tester.
A: He has a lot of respect for them. Called Tester “a keeper” and great with his constituents.
Q: Talk about jobs and why so many people think they’re falling behind.
A: We need more union households. Ben Bernanke made a speech in Omaha where he admitted that less union households have increased inequality. Dodd has offered legislation to overturn the Kentucky River case, where people listed as supervisors cannot organize. He talked about rising costs in energy, education, health care. And he said that the GI bill was so successful in getting so many to college and into a good job.
He also mentioned that real unemployment is probably twice as much as reported, because it doesn’t count those who haven’t looked for work or have stopped looking. And he said that 10 million households in this country haven’t been to a bank. We need to get people out of the shadows and into that system.
Dodd finished by talking about trust. Elections are rarely about the candidate; people want to know if you’re listening to them (a primal reaction). He thinks America is not that divded and is just looking for leadership to get them from A to D and not A to Z.
Q: Talk about how you are interacting with Joe Lieberman now.
A: This was a great answer, and I encouraged Dodd to keep talking about it. He had a 40-year relationship with Lieberman. It was a tough choice for him to back Ned Lamont. And ultimately, he said, “I did the right thing” because he respected the wishes of the voters. He said Ned was a great candidate and would have made a great Senator.
OK, that was it.