(Update: As if on cue, the Dodd campaign just released the above web video. The Dodd-as-populist fire is something the campaign obviously wants to - and should want to - keep stoking.)
It can't be a bad sign that Chris Dodd's work chairing two critical committees in the Senate is leading both financial services lobbyists and health insurance industry insiders continue to feed anonymous attacks on Dodd to Capitol Hill reporters.
Just yesterday alone, the voluminous and growing chorus of anger from lobbyists that Dodd isn't giving them the time of day were enough to fill two separate articles in Roll Call. In the first one, nameless financial industry lobbyists complain (and not for the first time) that Dodd isn't giving them the time of day:
"He always had a pro-consumer bent, but you felt like you got a fair hearing with him privately," said one financial industry lobbyist, who would only speak about the Senator on the condition of anonymity. "This year, you get the sense that there's not even that opportunity."
But a Dodd spokeswoman said the Senator has not changed his positions.
"Dodd's background is as a consumer advocate," said Kirstin Brost, spokeswoman for the Banking Committee.
And in the second article, nameless insurance industry lobbyists cry a Potomac River of crocodile tears over Dodd's performance sitting in for the absent Ted Kennedy in the health care fight:
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has emerged as acting chairman of the committee and has tried to corral the process, but the bill that has emerged is more of a goal post and not close to what is likely to be the final legislative product, health care lobbyists say....
Lobbyists say the HELP panel's bill is more liberal than one the Senate Finance Committee is putting together.
"He is taking positions to prove that he's not bought and paid for, almost to prove to voters in Connecticut that he has not lost his way," said another financial industry lobbyist...
Why are health insurance industry lobbyists running to the press to attack Dodd's leadership on HELP? Might it have something to do with the anti-industry positions he is taking, like an amendment Dodd proposed today that would fine insurance companies who don't explain their policies accurately and clearly to consumers?
"It's hard enough to make complex decisions about health insurance without having to decipher a lot of industry jargon," said Dodd. "A key goal of our health care bill is to protect and promote consumer choice, and my amendment will help to make that choice easier for people trying to make the right decisions for their families."
As Mother Jones also noted yesterday, continuing to "bite the hands that fund him" may be just as good for Dodd's political future as it is for the legislation we start to see emerging out of the two committees he is now chairing.
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