Odds and Ends 1

OK, now that the debate is over, I'll round up some other things that were blogworthy today. We'll lead off with Barack Obama's latest endorsement.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Christopher Dodd appeared at a news conference in Cleveland this morning to deliver his support to Obama. Dodd's speech was relatively decent, if self-aggrandizing (but we forgive him; he is, after all, a U.S. senator). As reported by the Boston Globe, Dodd called Obama's appeal "unprecedented, really, in almost a generation, maybe longer." Regarding Obama's crossover appeal, Dodd said yesterday's so-called "Reagan Democrats" are akin to today's "Obama Republicans."

Dodd, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, beat back mentions of his previous critiques of Obama's "relatively thin resume" by saying that experience, while valuable, isn't the only important quality that matters in a presidential candidate. "It's maturity, it's judgment, it's balance, it's the ability to speak in a way that touches people that I think people are looking for in the national leadership this time around," he said.

Dodd also discussed the public service plank of Obama's platform. Dodd also noted his own Peace Corps service in a village in the Dominican Republican and said that when asked by villagers why he had come to help, Dodd said he told them, "Because someone asked me to," referring to President John F. Kennedy's call to service of young Americans during the early 1960s. Dodd said that Obama is calling a new generation of Americans to service above themselves, and they are responding.