{news} "Nader has best hope to unseat senator" Manchester JI

[timmckee at mail.com]

Keith C. Burris: Nader has best hope to unseat senator










By Keith C. Burris


For The Norwich Bulletin


Posted Apr 17, 2009 @ 11:54 PM





Ashford, Conn. — 




A lot of Connecticut is angry at, and about, Chris Dodd. Suddenly everyone 
has discovered Dodd hasn’t really done that much and he’s a corporate Democrat. 
For years he has gotten a free pass. No more.


Maybe.


If former U.S. Reps. Chris Shays or Nancy Johnson had been as tight with the 
interests they were supposed to regulate in Congress, it would have been a minor 
scandal. But Dodd was the friend of Wall Street and of banks when he was he was 
supposed to be a major watchdog of same in the Senate. And no one minded — until 
now.


The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separated commercial and investment banking. 
Guess who engineered its repeal? Dodd’s explanation for that foul deed, now that 
the entire banking system has collapsed, is that he didn’t mean to.


Officially, Dodd blames the regulators. But they did not repeal the 
regulation. He did.


Dodd’s poll numbers reflect not only the financial crisis, but his own bad 
faith. Dodd always has said what he says now. He believes in regulation. But he 
did the opposite of what he said he believed. His bipolarity has caught up with 
him. People will stomach a zealot or a fool. But not a phony.


Will this be enough to unseat Dodd after all these years?


Who can do it


At least three Republicans, so far, think so. But for a Republican to beat 
Dodd in 2010 in this state is an uphill slog, even if Dodd gets another pal to 
buy him another house in another foreign land. (There is none lovelier than 
Ireland.)


How about a fellow Democrat? Dodd would seem ripe for a Democratic primary 
challenge. 


The problem: There’s the lack of Democrats in this state with a certain kind 
of fortitude.


But there is one once and perhaps future Democrat who has the knowledge and 
the courage, and could give this state a hell of a race in 2010. His name is 
Ralph Nader.


There is no one in this nation who is more anti-corporate, who knows more 
about antitrust and regulatory dismantling, and surer of his own mind and 
quicker on his feet. And he is a Connecticut voter; has been all his life.


So come back to Connecticut, Ralph. Be the Upton Sinclair of our day. Put the 
premier issue of the day before the state and the nation. Who owns the country? 
Who makes the rules? What is the public’s money for?


Nader can run against the two parties acting as mere shills for special 
interests. And he might awaken some critical thought and conscience in the 
Democratic Party.


Run, Ralph, run. Run on the issue of economic power. Create a genuine 
debate.


Keith C. Burris is editorial page editor of the Journal Inquirer in 
Manchester.






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