Chris Dodd's Political Quandary

Still mourning the loss of close friend Ted Kennedy, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) must now face a critical decision: Take over the chairmanship of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee—inserting himself into the eye of the health-care maelstrom at crunch time—or hold on to his Banking Committee chairmanship and move forward with a significant overhaul of financial regulations that could help him shed his reputation of being tight with Wall Street. His decision could not only affect his political future, including his reelection prospects for 2010, but lead to a domino effect in the Senate among committee chairmanships. Early on Wednesday, a somber Dodd said he hadn’t given the HELP chairmanship a “second’s worth of thought,” Politico reports, and that he'd speak with Democratic leaders about his quandary in the coming days.