Welcome home Chris

Chris Dodd may have failed in his bid for the presidency, but he scored several points for integrity during the campaign. He stood head and shoulders above his colleagues for leaving the campaign trail to fight for the Constitution in his leadership role in derailing the FISA bill. We need that integrity in Congress representing Connecticut and all Americans. Now it's time to get rid of whimpering Harry Reid and replace him with Chris Dodd.

Here's the text of his speech after the results of the caucus.

Dodd: second choice integrity in Iowa

Chris Dodd has shown an enormous amount of integrity throughout his uphill campaign in Iowa. Many, including me, have said that he's tilting at windmills.

In Iowa, where the second tier candidates have begun to strike deals on the second choice votes in the caucus, idealogues like Dennis Kuchinich, have succumbed to dealing. In the caucuses, if your candidate does not reach the 15% threshold of caucus voters, those votes are able to migrate to other candidates. Some of these below-threshold candidates have begun to encourage their supporters to vote for specific candidates. For example, Kuchinich has thrown his second choice votes to Barack Obama.

Here's what Chris Dodd had to say yesterday.

We sing of Iowa

How did I ever get to 55 without understanding what the Iowa caucuses are, and how they work, and then to realize, that I'm not exactly sure, at this moment still, how they work.

I owe it (homonym not intended) to the 24/7 media for hammering away at Iowa for the past three months to make me even wonder what the hell a caucus (Iowa style) is. First of all the Democratic and Republican caucuses are different. The Republicans use a confidential vote. The Democrats, well, here's an explanation.

Some would, and have, called the disdain for the Iowa process, "East coast intellectual media bashing,"

Until this point, I just accepted the Iowa results on faith. Just the same kind of faith I show each time I walk into an elevator and expect it to work without fail. Now, I find myself thinking of Iowa a little too often, and while I would hope my point of reference for those thoughts would be Greg Brown, Dave Moore or the Creative Writing Program at UI, it's more about Hillary and Obama, as I hum:

Dodd delivers the punchline

Chris Dodd is rolling around Iowa to tiny receptions, giving stump speeches, and firing some amazing rejoinders that, unfortunately, only these guys are reporting.

There's a lot being said about Dodd's temporary residence in Iowa (the same conservative crybabies who are making these claims, had nary a word to say when Creepy Joe Lieberman made his run for the presidency, and the Veep), and his quixotic tilt at the presidential windmill, but as these columnists say, Iowa holds surprises.

Of the longshot candidates, I'd truly rather see Dennis Kucinich pull off the surprise. But give me Dodd any day over any of the rest.