Strafford Dems Event: Chris Dodd in Dover

Written by: Barbara Hilton on Jan 21, 2007 10:40 PM EST

The somewhat small room was packed.  There were many fewer cameras and newspeople than were found at the John Edwards or Barack Obama events in Portsmouth. Joan Ashwell welcomed everyone and introduced Carol Shea-Porter.  Carol, after several rounds of applause in response to her pronouncements about the new Congress'  first 100 hours achievements,  introduced Chris Dodd.  For those unfamiliar with Chris Dodd, he has served five terms in the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Connecticut.  He began his public service career in the Peace Corp in 1966, then enlisted in the Army and served in the Reserves,  becoming a Senator in 1981.   Dodd started by apologizing for his lateness, acknowledging Carol's recent achievements in the Congress and discussing his disappointment with what has happened to the United States in the past six years since Bush's Inauguration.  This, he said,  is why he is now running for President.  He proceeded to tell us a bit about himself and his achievements in the U.S. Senate. According to the literature handed out at the event,  he spent almost a decade working to enact the Family and Medical Leave Act.  He talked about his Child Care Legislation saying that there was still more to do, that he formed the first Children's Caucus in the Senate, recently authored legislation on Autism, and HAVA, the Help America Vote Act. This last item sent quite a few negative vibes throughout the room.  More on that later.  He related an anecdote about a reporter at Roosevelt's funeral procession going up to a man who was clearly distraught  and asking him if he had known Roosevelt well?  The man answered: "I didn't know him, but he knew me!"  This, said Dodd, was the question we all had: "Do you know who I am as a voter?" He was fairly brief in his remarks and went briskly to questions.

The first was a two part question about Iraq and whether Dodd would support HR 508, Rep. Lynn Woolsey's Bill introduced to the Congress on January 18, 2007, to require United States military disengagement from Iraq, to provide United States assistance for reconstruction and reconciliation in Iraq, and for other purposes, and whether, since money was already in the pipeline for the next six months, he would support an end to funding of the Iraq War.  He said that he would introduce a bill to put a cap on troops; that the "surge" was a major mistake and that we need a political resolution.  He said that a reduction in the number of troops in Iraq should happen immediately; that we need an escalation of troops in Afghanistan; we need to support our troops with anything they might need, such as body armor; military recruitment officers ought to be on campuses;  he had concerns about our combat readiness since Donald Rumsfeld's tenure; but primarily he advocated diplomacy.  He talked about his father who was one of the Executive Counsel at the Nuremberg Trials.  He felt strongly about the rule of law and civility in the conduct of global affairs; he was happy to have helped defeat John Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations.  He recently scheduled a trip to the Middle East and before going notified the State Department of his plans.  Their response was "Don't go to Syria, we're not talking to them. " He equated this with a High School mentality. "Diplomacy," he said,  "needs to be robust.  The U.S. needs to reach out so that Iraq has a chance to be stable." 

 The next questioner wondered whether Dodd, whom he had seen three times already and knew to be intelligent, affable, experienced, honest, and decent might find it hard-going as a Presidential candidate because he was a New England Liberal, a breed that the questioner thought had clearly worn out their welcome in the Democratic Party.  Dodd responded by saying that he was proud to be from New England and a political progressive.  He said that this was not about geography but about the future.  He went on to talk about his five-year-old daughter, Grace, who asked him one morning recently, "Daddy, what sort of day am I going to have?"  He responded by giving her a good description of what he thought her day would be like.  She then asked, "Daddy, what kind of life am I going to have?"  He said he has asked himself that question a million times since she was born in September of 2001.  "The thing that is important," Dodd said, "is where you stand, not where you are from."

The next question was about 911.  The questioner said that since the events of 911 were the cause for war with Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans still had a lot of questions about the events of that day. Dodd was asked if he would support an independent investigation of what happened?  His response: "I would be glad to take a look at this again."  To the question of why did Building 7 at the World Trade Center collapse, Dodd said, "I don't know the answer."

Next up was Paul O'Connor, President of the Metal Trades Union at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. His question was about the defueling and decommissioning of submarines that is now going on at a rapid clip with the justification being that we can't afford them, yet the military is spending billions on stuff that isn't needed.  He asked Dodd how he could ensure that military spending was being wisely done.  Dodd spoke briefly about the pentagon mistakenly stepping away from what he considered critical technology such as submarines, citing the growing submarine fleets of other, not necessarily friendly, countries.  He spoke of Rumsfeld's one-man show and that people who spoke out under him were fired or demoted.  He said that we need to encourage people to speak out.  He was concerned about the vote dismissing the right of Habeas Corpus.  He, as well as many military leaders, is worried about the consequences of this action. He said he was concerned about the loss of international cooperation and that we need greater accountability.

The next questioner referred back to Dodd's concern about his children's future and asked what his approach would be about climate change and global warming.  Dodd said that the science was in and no longer needed to be debated.  He said that the U.S. should never have walked away from the Kyoto talks and he wanted us to go back to those negotiations.  He said we needed to start talking about energy; he wants to see a removal of our dependence on foreign oil within ten years.  He said we could save one million barrels of oil a day through conservation, such as driving hybrid cars.  We need to develop major sources of alternative energy.  He spoke of Brian Schweitzer, Governor of Montana, and made reference to his plan  to convert billions of tons of coal under the plains of Montana into a synthetic liquid fuel, or synfuel. He also said if he became President he would appoint Al Gore to be his Global Representative on Global Warming.

Next was a question about the priorities in our federal budget. Military experts say $60 billion a year is wasted on obsolete Cold War weapons and excess nuclear weapons. Would Dodd shift some of that spending to needed human services? Dodd said that we needed to reduce nuclear (yes, he pronounced it correctly) weapons; that their presence in the world was extremely dangerous and that this issue needed more effort.  He spoke of Senator Nunn's and Senator Lugar's earlier legislation to purchase and remove weapons, which was stopped by the Bush adminstration.  He said the U.S. should be leading on this issue.  Dodd spoke of hearings he had in the past about eliminating the National Debt.  He believes in a pay-as-you-go budget.  He was concerned about U.S. paper being held by countries who don't necessarily have our best interests at heart. He wanted us to be on sounder footing.  He also said that he wanted to see more investment in human potential.  He talked of being heavily lobbied by teachers, his sister, a Montessori teacher, being one who was often at him on this issue.  He said that we need to pay attention to early childhood education; that we will be competing in the global marketplace; that being ignorant and free was not possible; that education needs to be fair; we currently spend less than 5% of our federal budget on elementary/secondary education; teachers need decent salaries; we can't support two education systems, both a public and a private one; the President must be the one to move this and we don't have a lot of time; the country needs to get public education right.

 The next question involved a statement about several different events that happened on 911 including early reports of bombs and controlled demolitions from the firefighters first on the scene and the suspect coincidence of World Trade Center insurance contracts expiring on that day.  The questioner stated that perhaps he missed the earlier answer, but would Dodd support a new investigation with subpoenas?  Dodd responded "I'd take a look at it."

State Rep. Marcia Moody took up the issue of HAVA. She said that a paper trail was the only legitimate way to hold democratic elections.  Dodd responded by talking about the disenfranchised in 2000.  He said that this may not be the perfect bill but there were no federal standards at that time and standards needed to be set. He then went on to talk rather passionately and somewhat agressively, I thought, about his sister who was legally blind not being able to vote privately until this legislation (HAVA) was passed.  He continued by saying that he "had no objection to a paper trail if it can't be tampered with."  They started with this, wanting to make the system better and although the issue needs to be looked at he was proud to have improved the system.  Marcia remarked that 18,000 votes were lost in the last Florida election.  I would add that my understanding of this issue also pits me against HAVA. 

As an ASIDE I offer a recent email I received from Nancy Tobi, Chair of Democracy for NH, who has worked tirelessly on this issue.  The italics and boldface are my responsibility.

  The area of election integrity and reform is complex. Everyone in Washington is married to the idea that technology MUST be in our elections and they are enamoured of the challenge of finding more and more whiz bang to inject into the system. Every piece of legislation currently proposed is techno-election legislation. The legislation with the most traction and support is called the Holt Bill. It has many dangerous things inside it. It is a Trojan Horse.

There is a concerted, high level, powerful, far reaching constituency successfully promoting the complexification of our election systems to the point where we will no longer have any idea what is going on. They are also consolidating Executive power (the Oval office) to hand it control of our nation's elections. This is all true. You need to know this.

 And we will have lost our democracy. We are close to this.

I am not kidding.

It is important that we all know what we are up against . This is not small stuff. It is huge, complex, multifaceted, and nefarious.

This is the fight for our democracy.

The alliance of techno-election proponents is strong and powerful. Their legal claims on the basis of the Voting Rights Act have already been staked out carefully and methodically.

The technologization of our elections is being promoted by all of the large civil rights groups who claim that only technology can allow the disabled, the language-challenged, the illiterate, etc. etc. to vote privately and independently.

Against this claim we say: touch screens and high-tech election systems disenfranchise voters by causing long lines as people need to wait their turn to vote on a machine. Paper and pen never cause long lines. Additionally, there are more accessible, low tech solutions for these groups of people. We have been in compliance with the Voting Rights Act without techno wizardry for many years now.

At its most basic, I think what candidates need to hear is that we believe in  democratic elections that allow for transparency and citizen oversight of the entire election system and voting process

Any legislation being considered should meet these criteria for democratic elections.

This is the language that Washington needs to hear: transparency and citizen oversight. These are the two questions you must ask:
Are you sponsoring legislation that removes transparency and citizen oversight of our elections or not? Are you sponsoring legislation that consolidates Executive power over our elections in place of the checks and balances envisioned in the Constitution, which endowed the States with the responsibility to run elections?

If they are supporting the Holt Bill their answer to both questions has to be YES.

High tech, proprietary vote counting machines do NOT meet these criteria, for instance.
Touch screen devices that print out a paper record for the voter to review do NOT meet these criteria, because we still do not see what the electronic record is, and it can easily be programmed to record something different from what is printed on the paper record.

Use these criteria as your standards and benchmarks and all else falls into place.

I am attaching for your review documents called "Techno-Election Timeline" and "Activist Camps" as a primer for how we got where we are today.

I am also attaching a two-page synopsis of the Request By Voters to Congress (which I hope you will all sign), and the rationale thereof.

PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO PHONE ME WITH ANY QUESTIONS. I would rather spend 100 hours talking to you than have you feel shy, unprepared, or convey erroneous messages to our presidential aspirants at this critical time in our nation's history. I will also be happy to convene a training. Let me know if you are interested.

Nancy Tobi, Chair
Democracy for New Hampshire
DFNH Fair Elections Committee
PO Box 717 | Concord, NH 03301
<http://www.DemocracyForNewHampshire.com>www.DemocracyForNewHampshire.com

BACK TO SENATOR DODD

The next questioner asked Senator Dodd to help him talk to Republicans and Independents who say if we get out of Iraq it will become a launching ground for terrorists.  The Senator answered that if we stay it is a launching ground for terrorists. He went on to say that there are hardly any Doctors anymore to treat people; there are millions of refugees in Jordan and Syria; the premise of the "surge" is false, more troops do not get you more security; it's about politics and diplomacy; it's not good to divide Iraq up into three parts.

The next question was about a possible war with Iran. What can the Senate do? Dodd said that he voted for the Iraqi War Resolution and that he had made a mistake; that the rationale was false on the initial authorization for war and that he will offer to require a new authorization; he was worried about Bush's rhetoric; he believed that the military option was the last arrow you draw out of your quiver; he spoke to the difference between the Iranian leadership and the Iranian people saying that the people of Iran like America. He spoke about a meeting he had with the people from two Peace Corp projects in the Middle East, all Arabic speakers.  He asked them what the people of this region think.  The answer was that "the villagers want to see us lead again."  Dodd finished by saying "what has been done in six years is horrible.  We need to get our position in the world back again."

 The question/answer session ended.  He invited everyone in the room to come to the White House in two years and stay in the Lincoln bedroom.  I particularly appreciated this.  I've never been invited to the White House before and I got into this event for free.

Senator Dodd was then surrounded by people wanting pictures, to shake his hand, to tell or ask him something.  He stayed on for a while.  At a quiet point, I went up to him and following up on  his ending about the greatness of the U.S. in the past, asked him about the covert foreign  policies of the previous decades in which the U.S. government advanced corporate agendas that were, at the least, disrespectful of other peoples around the world. I asked him what he would do to change this.  He said that as President he would make changes in our trade agreements.  I asked him if he had voted for NAFTA and CAFTA.   He said he had voted for NAFTA but not  CAFTA.  I asked him if this was because he had learned something from his first vote.  He was being pressured to leave and our exchange came to an end.

 It was quite an afternoon.   

Tags:
Location: Dover, NH 03801