Score one for democracy.  Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut, has announced that he will not run for reelection.  Dodd, 65, has been a fixture in the Senate for 30 years.  His decision was not made out of a sense that it was time to retire, but because it was clear that he could not win reelection.

Dodd’s fall from grace is too typical in of our elected officials.  First, politicians seek power and then that power corrupts.  In Dodd’s case, he received a sweetheart mortgage rate from Countrywide Financial, who we had power over as a member of the Senate Banking Committee.  Dodd became a member of the “Friends of Angelo” VIP program at Countrywide, named after Angelo Mozilo, its chief executive.  That program gave Dodd favorable mortgage terms from Countrywide, a company that played a major role in the subprime mortgage mess that did so much damage to the country’s economy.

Dodd ran into additional voter discontent for his role in legislation that helped clear the way for bonuses to be paid to American International Group (AIG) executives, a firm that received a huge American government bailout.

Dodd’s “forced” retirement is a victory for democracy and the American electorate.  It demonstrates that elected officials will be called to task by the electorate should they put their interests before that of the people.  Now it’s time for the people to rise up and fire others, both Democrats and Republicans, who have not performed for the jobs that the American people elected them for.  Throw the bums out, the first step required to fix our troubled economy and country!