The Crossed Pond

It’s a shame that some very good Democratic candidates—Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Bill Richardson specifically—aren’t getting the attention they deserve.

Bill Richardson is arguably the most impressive candidate running of either party, on paper, but his problems in this campaign have tended to be of his own making. And as Tommy Thompson showed quite well, there is a pretty huge gulf between “should be a great candidate”, and “is a great candidate”.

Joe Biden is the Democrat that conservatives like me love to love, and liberal progressive love to hate. And, it’s hard to blame them. Despite the fact that he’s been a leader in every sense of the word in the Senate on stuff like torture, despite his best (and worst) quality that he’s relatively unafraid to be a bull in the china shop, and despite the fact that, in my estimation, he tends to whallop everybody in these debates, Democratic voters just don’t seem to want to have anything to do with him, and voices of leadership in the progressive community, well, hate his friggin’ guts (I’m thinking of kos here, but he’s not alone). I think what kills him is when he’s out in front on an issue the liberal progressives HATE (say, the Bankruptcy Bill), he’s WAY out in front.

But Dodd in particular is a guy I’ve barely paid attention to in my years covering politics—a reliable if unremarkable New England liberal—and yet the more I cover this Democratic primary, the more he impresses me. And lately it seems like every time I write about him, I cover this same ground. Namely, to Democrats: why not give him a serious look? Every time I turn around, on issues that most politicians are ducking and weaving their way around, Dodd is right there, expressing clear thinking, sane perspectives, courageous (but not lunatic) idealism, and….well, leadership.

Exhibit whatever in my continued impressment, an exchange Dodd had in Democratic debate the other night in which he expressed his support for the decriminalization of marijuana. Hat tip to Freedom Democrats for highlighting it.

Russert: Senator Dodd, you went on the Bill Maher show last month and said that you were for decriminalizing marijuana.

Is there anyone here who disagrees with Senator Dodd in decriminalizing marijuana?

Senator Biden, Senator…

(Laughter)

Senator Edwards, why?

Edwards: Because I think it sends the wrong signal to young people. And I think the president of the United States has a responsibility to ensure that we’re sending the right signals to young people.

Dodd: Can I respond just why I think it ought to be?

We’re locking up too many people in our system here today. We’ve got mandatory minimum sentences, they are filling our jails with people that don’t belong there.

My idea is to decriminalize this, reduce that problem here. We’ve gone from 800,000 to 2 million people, in our penal institutions in this country. We’ve got to get a lot smarter about this issue than we are. And as president, I’d try and achieve that.

Of course, he’s not the only one currently making the case in the race for President. Which brings up another strange parallel.

Rojas openly foretold, after the third quarter fundraising numbers came through, that candidates, sooner or later, would start shyly moving towards Ron Paul positions, co-opting them, in an attempt to harness some of the relatively incredible volunteer and financial power he’s managed to almost effortlessly engage. In saying that, Rojas, I imagine, was thinking mostly of Ron’s fellow Republican candidates, and we’ve indeed already seen some whiffs of it (1, 2, 3).

But I suppose it should come as no surprise that maybe the candidate that’s begun paralleling Paulian rhetoric the most is a Democrat second-tier guy lagging behind. Obama supposedly has the youth vote locked down on that side, but a lot of shine has come off him lately, and he’s not just been playing it safe, he’s almost been openly snubbing the liberal base for the sake of high-mindedness. There does, it seems to me, exist some vacuum in the Democratic race for a true insurgent candidate. It ain’t gonna be Biden or Richardson—too centrist. It doesn’t look like it’ll be Kucinich or Gravel—too not taken seriously, too apt to out-crazy themselves. So why not Dodd?

Regardless: a good idea is a good idea. Once again, I find myself thinking that were I voting in the Democratic primary, Dodd would more and more be looking like my guy.