New Haven Independent

“He really struck a hard blow at me now,” said Elmer Thompson, a WWII veteran, impressed by the candidate’s speech at the smoky VFW club in Ottumwa.

The warm reception came as the Connecticut U.S. senator scrambled through Iowa for one last day to find voters willing to back his longshot presidential bid at Thursday’s critical Democratic presidential caucuses, where pollsters say Dodd is doomed to get only 1 or 2 percent support. While many voters had already picked other candidates, they took a moment to hear Dodd’s take on the issues they care about.

Taking the stage after a BINGO game, in a room next to a smoky bar with slot machines, Dodd spoke of how he’ll defend the Constitution, how “the idea that we only become more secure when we give up our rights is false.” The Constitution, which Dodd carries in his pocket, is a central theme in his stump speeches. Dodd cites his victory on the Senate floor a couple weeks ago, where he stood for 11 hours to filibuster a bill that would have granted retroactive immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. Dodd won a temporary victory and promised to return when the bill is reconsidered in January.

At the VFW, the message connected with Thompson: “He’ll protect the constitution. That’s something Bush never would do.” He and his wife, Joan said they were impressed — though they had already committed to support John Edwards.

“Moral Authority”

At each whistle stop Wednesday, Dodd brings up the Nuremberg trials as evidence of how the U.S. has fallen from the “moral authority” of the past. Before other crowds, he mentions it in passing. At the VFW, where the Greatest Generation sat rapt, he indulged in telling the full story, a topic close to his heart and featured in his most recent book.

Dodd’s father Thomas J. Dodd was a prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials. His dad taught him how, instead of executing all the Nazis or holding a trial for show, the U.S. “stayed the hand of vengeance” and took the moral high ground by giving them a fair trial.

Dodd contrasts this to the Bush administration, where he says the pride of Nuremberg has been replaced by the shame of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, renditions and waterboarding. (Click on the play arrow to watch).

“That was beautiful,” said Bruce Pilcher (pictured) of Dodd’s Nuremberg speech. Pilcher’s own father had died in WWII. Pilcher said he was “really, really worried about the way we’ve violated the constitution” in the past eight years, and the U.S.’s “forceful diplomacy.”

How To Measure Sheep, Hogs And Kids

At a meet-and-greet at Pizza Ranch Wednesday in Fairfield, Iowa, , a teacher asked Dodd about President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, which she sees as all paperwork and punishment.

. “Every good New Zealand farmer knows he can’t raise better sheep by weighing them,” argued Barbara Meyer, who teaches high school. Dodd said he’d heard that saying with Iowan hogs, too. He said he wouldn’t get rid of NCLB all together, because schools need to be held accountable in some way, but NCLB needs to be reformed. (Click on the play arrow to watch their exchange).

Dodd’s plan to reform NCLB would invest in low-performing schools instead of penalizing them. He would also “provide states with the flexibility to use multiple measures to demonstrate student learning— measures like student improvement over time.”

The College Question

Indianola, Iowa - Towering over a crowd packed into a neighborhood bar and grill in Indianola, Tucker Priebe (pictured) leaned down to Dodd’s level to ask the senator about his pet issue: How are you going to relieve college students of the burden of rising tuition costs?

Dodd would expand the Pell Grant by $100 per year and use public pressure to spotlight schools “whose tuition unreasonably outpaces inflation.” He would seek to drive down student loan costs by requiring banks to compete in a federally run auction in order to offer federal loans. “Go to my Web site,” Dodd told the student.

“I liked his response — it’s probably one of the better ones I’ve heard,” said Preibe as he made for the door. The student, a junior at Simpson College, said he’s been taking the same question to all the Democratic candidates. He said he found Dodd to be well-qualified. But he plans to caucus for Bill Richardson, whom he found more “approachable.”

Previous Iowa Dodd coverage:
Can Firefights Rescue Dodd?
Dodd, Ignored, Picks A Happy Place

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