Dodd and Reid might be ex-Senators in 2010

Two Senate leaders trying to steer a pair of President Barack Obama's high-stakes initiatives through Congress are being dogged by re-election worries, and it's not clear whether their legislative prominence will help or hurt them.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., are trailing in early polls, and Republicans are eager to topple them in next year's elections.

They also are central players in two of the most ambitious and hotly contested agenda items in decades. Reid is scratching and clawing to find enough Senate votes to overhaul the nation's health care system. And Dodd, as chairman of the banking committee, is pushing a massive bill to re-regulate the nation's financial institutions following the mortgage meltdown and economic crisis.

Policy-making in Congress has long mixed with rawboned politics. But seldom does the focus fall so clearly on two powerful lawmakers who, despite their seniority and influence, are in real danger of being voted out of office.

Obama is well aware that two of his top priorities are being shepherded by Democratic senators who badly need to have home-state voters view them more favorably. Administration aides say the president is responding in two ways: Helping Reid and Dodd raise early campaign money; and, especially with Dodd, giving them leeway to deviate from administration proposals for now, knowing there is time to bend the bills more to Obama's liking before final votes occur.

Obama adviser David Axelrod said the president strongly admires Reid and Dodd, and believes they best serve their home-state constituents by being national leaders on big issues such as health care and financial oversight.

Democrats are doing their best to help Dodd, a senator's son who joined the Senate himself in 1981. They let him preside over the chamber when a crucial health care vote was taken Saturday night, and they've given him other chances to go before TV cameras during recent events related to health care and finances.

Advocacy groups are carefully watching Reid and Dodd for signs of shaping the bills to help their re-election campaigns. Some claim to see such evidence, while others say it would be difficult for either senator to manipulate the massive, complex legislation in ways to appeal to ordinary voters.

In Dodd's case, business groups say his financial regulation bill has more populist features than do Obama's proposals and a House version. For example, Dodd would strip the Federal Reserve of its power to regulate banks, and consolidate banking oversight under one regulatory agency rather than several. Some have accused him of "Fed-bashing."

Dodd called the comments mystifying, saying he has been consistent on consumer issues for years.

A recent Quinnipiac poll in Connecticut found Dodd trailing potential GOP challenger Rob Simmons, a former House member, 49 percent to 38 percent. A lesser-known Republican also led Dodd in a hypothetical matchup.

Quinnipiac poll director Doug Schwartz said Dodd hurt himself with state voters by moving to Iowa during his unsuccessful bid for the 2008 presidential nomination, and by receiving preferential treatment in obtaining mortgage loans. Worst of all, Schwartz said, was Dodd's involvement in a bill that protected bonuses for executives at insurance giant AIG, which proved deeply unpopular.

In a similar vein, many Nevada voters seem to have grown tired of Reid after 23 years in the Senate. A poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal found him 10 percentage points behind Nevada GOP chairwoman Sue Lowden, one of several Republicans vying to oppose him next year. Half of Nevada's voters had an unfavorable view of Reid.

Reid's friends fear echoes of Tom Daschle, the Senate Democratic leader who lost a 2004 re-election bid in South Dakota amid claims that he showed more allegiance to a national, liberal-leaning agenda than to his conservative state.



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