MANCHESTER, N.H. (Jan. 4) — The door was locked. The office was deserted. The lights were out.
Welcome to the headquarters of the now-abandoned presidential campaign of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. He dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination after winning one delegate and placing fifth in the Iowa Democratic caucuses on Thursday.
“Our campaign has been about results,” Dodd said in his speech withdrawing Thursday night in Iowa. He had won 0.02 percent of the Iowa Democratic caucus votes. “And even though we didn’t get the result we all were hoping for, this experience has been one of the most rewarding in my life of public service.”
Dodd has served as a Connecticut senator for 26 years and is the head of the Senate Banking Committee. During his brief presidential campaign, Dodd has pitched to voters his deep experience in national politics. But that experience did not translate into votes.
In Manchester, N.H., Dodd’s campaign headquarters was vacant. Over the office’s glass front, a giant banner proclaimed the ambition: “New Hampshire for Chris Dodd: President 2008.” But Dodd himself never made it to New Hampshire for the final primary campaign effort.
Bryan Deangelis, the communications director at the New Hampshire headquarters, expressed disappointment at Dodd’s fate in Iowa. “If it had turned out differently last night, we were ready to bring him to New Hampshire and hit the campaign trail running for the next five days to do well in the primary,” said Deangelis over a phone interview.
“It’s been an uphill battle from the beginning,” said Deangelis. “We knew it would be a challenge, but everyone went out and worked their hardest.”
Meanwhile, the streets of Manchester were abuzz with other campaigns’ supporters, excited from the Thursday night’s Iowa caucus results. At snow-coated intersections, enthusiastic Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul supporters cheered at passing cars. The Dodd campaign office’s emptiness was not a big change, some said. They’d seen little hustle and bustle around it in the days leading up to the New Hampshire primary, they said.
Angela Smith, the Manchester office manager for the headquarters of Ohio Democratic contender Dennis Kucinich recalled seeing only one man walking around Manchester, N.H., holding Dodd signs and handing out literature. “He was very dedicated,” Smith said.
On Thursday morning, the day of the Iowa caucuses, another Kucinich supporter, Walter Luc, stopped in the Dodd headquarters. “The mood was definitely melancholy,” said Luc. “There wasn’t an optimistic atmosphere in there.”
Dodd is expected to return to his Connecticut home on Friday with his family.
(Bryan Young, a sophomore magazine major, covered the brief Dodd campaign in New Hampshire for the Norwich Bulletin of Connecticut.)
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