Imus Makes Suggestion for Chris Dodd's Post-Senate Career

Senator Chris Dodd went out of his way last Friday to call the I-Man and wish him a happy birthday. Yet Imus had reacted to news of Dodd’s message with skepticism.

“I was wondering what you wanted,” Imus confessed.

With just over five months until he completes his fifth and final term as a Democratic Senator from Connecticut, Dodd still isn’t sure what he’s going to do when his time is up, or whether he’ll stay in Washington or move back to Connecticut.

“Maybe you could go back to Iowa,” suggested Imus, referencing Dodd’s decision during the 2008 Presidential campaign to move his family to Iowa, an important primary state.

As for what the President can do to BP if it doesn’t pay the $20 billion it pledged to victims of the oil spill disaster along the Gulf Coast, Dodd predicted very little.

“If they leave town because they do declare bankruptcy and move on, you’re stuck with the federal government holding the bill, or the local government paying the costs,” said Dodd.

He likened BP’s situation to that of the asbestos companies when people sued after developing mesothelioma and other cancers. “You had one company after another declaring bankruptcy, so it became so there was no one left to go after financially to pay for the costs of those illnesses,” said Dodd.

The current administration has done a better job handling this oil spill, in his view, than the previous administration did with Hurricane Katrina, thought Dodd stipulated the two catastrophes were very different.

“You had this thing going on for 80 days, just spilling out oil into the Gulf nonstop,” said Dodd, who has not been asked to campaign for any of his fellow Democrats.

“I’m just sort of hanging back, doing my work,” he told Imus. Much of that work has included the financial regulatory reform bill, which Obama signed into law last week.

Dodd applauded Obama for passing that bill, and for pushing health care reform through Congress as well. “Pat Moynihan used to say the President gets about 20 months, 24 months to be President,” said Dodd. “Whether you serve one or two terms, that’s the window you get on any big idea. After that, it’s hard—you’re in the reelection cycle yourself, and if you get reelected you’re a lame duck President.”

He lamented that Obama did not get a chance to address energy reform, which Senator John Kerry has been working on for quite a while. “I kind of wish we had started with that one initially,” said Dodd.

He also kind of wishes Obama was not going to appear on “The View” tomorrow. “Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think you’ve got to leave them wanting something,” Dodd said. “If you show up everyday on everything everyone asks you to, you’re minimized.”

-Julie Kanfer