On a beautiful spring day in North Western Connecticut something like 150 people have come out to hear Rep. Chris Murphy and Senator Chris Dodd address issues that our country faces. Outside, two old white men have homemade signs, one saying something like ‘Dump Dodd’, and another making a comment about sweetheart mortgage deals.

Approaching the building, people are handing out NotMyPriorities.orgcards illustrating the $542 Billion Pentagon budget, the $196 Billion Iraq budget and how it dwarfs all other budgets. Another group hands out a piece of paper highlighting Irag Moratorium.

Around one hundred and fifty people are gathered inside. As the forum starts off, a moderator announces that Sen. Dodd is ‘slightly lost’, which gets some chuckles. However, within a few minutes, Sen. Dodd comes striding in.

Rep. Murphy is the first to speak. He talks about the stimulus package and its role in decelerating the pace of the inherited recession. As an example of the difficulties that the credit crunch has caused, Rep. Murphy told the story of Risdon Corporation in Watertown. Risdon had a long back log of orders, no problems with inventory, their lenders cut credit and they had to close down, furloughing over two hundred employees, including sixty in Connecticut.

Update 1:
Sen. Dodd starts off talking about his passion being children’s issues and talks about his efforts on the Family Medical Leave Act. He talked about serving with the Peace Corp and his interest in foreign relations. He notes that with Sen. Biden becoming Vice President, he could have taken on the leadership of the foreign relations committee, but he stayed with his role in charge of the banking committee because it is so important.

In terms of mortgages, he notes that according to the Wall Street Journal, 60% of subprime mortgages went to people that would have qualified for conventional mortgages.

He spends time talking about problems with the credit card industry noting that they have enacted $10 billion in new fees, much of it for no real reason. He noted that many students come out of college with $4,000 to $7,000 in credit card debt. He said that we now have predatory lending in the credit card industry.

Sen. Dodd talks about the importance of addressing health care issues, spoke with the person who created the “Harry and Louise” ads that many say killed health care in Clinton’s era, and that person is now supporting healthcare reform.

Sen. Dodd talks about having a seven year old and a four year old. He spoke about the importance of education reform. He commented about the reason he lost twenty pounds was by chasing around his four year old.

He ended off his initial comments noting that in a recent survey of Republican’s who noted that he came in third both as most partisan and the third most bipartisan. He explained it as being a person who will fight fiercely for his fundamental beliefs, but that he recognizes that he needs to work across the aisle to get the things he feels most strongly about passed.

Update 2:
I'm back home, and getting a chance to decompress and catch up. In response to Christine's question:

Sen. Dodd was very well received by the crowd. I believe that folks from the Rep-Am and some of the weeklies were in attendance. The event in West Cornwall was the second event of the day in NW Connecticut that Sen. Dodd was at that I attended. There were folks from the Rep-Am and I believe one of the weeklies at the first event, which was in Torrington.

Both events were organized by Democratic activists, so the crowd seemed skeptical but receptive as Dodd entered, but quite supportive after listening to him speak.

At the first event, the questions were open to anyone who wanted to ask them, and there was some interesting discussion about AIG. I hope to write about that question in more detail later.

At the second event, the questions where written on cards and handed in, so if there were any really difficult questions, they didn't end up getting asked.

There were many questions that there weren't time for at the second event, and I'm told that many of them were about foreign relations, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sen. Dodd made some great comments about Afghanistan that I hope to also write about in more detail later.