Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd says the “melodrama” surrounding rival Hillary Clinton highlights one of the main drawbacks to her candidacy.
“I think the questions are legitimate…I think people want to move on…the melodrama and all we need to get behind us,” Dodd says. “…I’m not saying anything that people aren’t aware of.”
Dodd embraces the term “Clinton fatigue” to describe an American public weary of hearing about the political battles involving both Hillary and Bill Clinton.
“Frankly, the country’s tired of fighting. We want to know about people (who are) about succeeding, putting behind the bickering. Everyone’s going to fight hard, but isn’t it time the country came together and we started solving some of these problems?” Dodd asks. “If it’s just about a fight — a never-ending fight — the country’s so turned off to that.”
Despite Democratic victories in 2006, Dodd is warning Democrats there’ll be no “cake walk” to the White House in 2008.
“I remember Republicans gleefully after the ’94 election rubbing their hands together having taken back both houses of congress and a president that was seriously wounded as a result of those events, assuming they were going to have an easy year in 1996 and we proved otherwise,” Dodd says.
Bill Clinton easily won reelection in 1996.
Polls consistently show Dodd lagging toward the rear of the group of Democrats seeking their party’s presidential nomination, but Dodd suggests Iowans are “slow to decide” which candidate they’ll back.
“Also the question is why aren’t these so-called front-runners doing better as well after a year of unprecedented publicity, almost incumbency status?” Dodd asks. “We’ve now made contacts with some 65,000 to 70,000 likely caucus attendees in the state over the last five or six weeks and over 80 percent of those respondents tell us they’re undecided. They’re still looking.”
Dodd, a U.S. Senator from Connecticut, made his comments Friday afternoon during taping of the program “Iowa Press” which airs tonight on Iowa Public Television. At least once during the nearly hour-long program Dodd referred to his rival as “Mrs. Clinton.” Dodd said later he was not trying to highlight the fact she was married to Bill Clinton.