Dems Line Up Behind Dodd

Last week, during his speech in Woodbury, Ned Lamont made it very clear that he had no intention to challenge Sen. Chris Dodd in a Democratic primary. The knocks on Dodd are plentiful: moving his family to Iowa for his pointless presidential campaign, allowing the financial system to collapse when he was supposed to be overseeing it, doing nothing to stop the AIG bonuses. But Lamont still says Dodd is a good Senator.

Then, on Friday, President Obama personally takes the time to type out an email on his BlackBerry to his Connecticut supporters in which he canonizes Sen. Dodd:

Today -- thanks to the extraordinary efforts of your senator, Chris Dodd -- I signed a bill that restores a sense of fairness and transparency to the credit card industry.

As Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Dodd was the driving force behind this bill. He's the one who built the bipartisan coalition that passed this crucial reform by a huge margin -- 90 to 5.

Will you take a moment and join me in thanking Senator Dodd for his outstanding work on behalf of families in Connecticut and across the country?

This certainly sends a clear message that Obama likes Dodd and doesn't want anyone to oppose him.

If this isn't enough to get the point across, the Obama administration seems ready to send White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel over to break a few kneecaps. Just look what happened to NY Rep. Steve Israel when there were rumors that Israel might challenge Sen. Gillibrand in a primary.

So Israel was given an ultimatum [by Emanuel]: if he proceeded with the Senate race, the White House would go to great pains to shut off every dollar in the state. With Schumer’s help, the administration would make sure all the big Democratic donors and institutional players kept their distance. They would show no restraint, even campaigning against him and raising money in Israel’s own home turf. Obama himself would come out to campaign in New York City, cutting off at the knees the downstate, Manhattan-focused appeal Israel would have needed to run to Gillibrand’s left. And perhaps most damning of all, given whom the math dictated Israel would have needed in his column, Emanuel indicated that the nation’s first black president was prepared to barnstorm through New York’s black neighborhoods hand-in-hand with the junior senator, employing his appeal to African-Americans to a political degree he usually avoids.

Sheesh. Israel is denying that these threats occurred, but it's clear that Obama doesn't want people messing around with Democratic Senators.

At this point, Dodd's only challenger is someone no one has heard of:

Merrick Alpert, a businessman who served as an Air Force officer in Bosnia, pledged on his Web site Monday to formally file paperwork with the Federal Elections Committee to challenge Dodd for the Demcoratic Party's nomination.

Still, the Obama administration might be hurting itself by trying to scare away primary challengers for Dodd and Gillibrand. Dodd is very unpopular these days and could feasibly lose the general election and give the GOP a Senate seat in deep-blue Connecticut. A Democratic primary election (or Dodd's retirement) would pave the way for a stronger Democratic candidate to carry the party's flag in the general election, hopefully keeping the seat in Democratic hands.

Unfortunately, if Obama wants Dodd, then it looks like we're stuck with him.