Essential Estrogen

The senior Senator from Connecticut, Christopher Dodd, scored an upset this past weekend during the York County, S.C. straw poll.

• Sen. Chris Dodd - 28%
• Sen. Barack Obama - 24%
• Sen. Hillary Clinton - 18%
• former Sen. John Edwards - 11%
• former VP Al Gore (write-in) - 8%
• Sen. Joseph Biden - 5.5%

It should come as no surprise to Iowans that Dodd is running an old-fashioned get-out-and-meet-the-people-in-small-groups campaign. After all, he's hired to long-time Iowa operatives to head up his effort:

Marc Beltrame, longtime senior staffer to Rep. Leonard Boswell, will run Dodd's South Carolina effort. Taylor West, press secretary for Gov. Chet Culver's 2006 campaign, was tapped to be Dodd's South Carolina spokesman. Dodd also picked up a couple from Sen. John Kerry's 2004 Iowa campaign.

Hey... maybe Iowa finally found something valuable we can export to the rest of the U.S.: campaign staffers.

If you're a stickler and still reading, looking for the estrogen in this story, you need to visit with Sen. Dodd and ask him to show you the pictures in his pocket.