Former Gore Aide Challenging Dodd

The increasingly unpopular Connecticut Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd now has a primary challenger to worry about.

Mystic businessman Merrick Alpert will challenge Sen. Chris Dodd for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2010, the most direct internal threat yet to the struggling incumbent senator.

Alpert, who founded a medical software company called E-Ceptionist, announced his intention to challenge Dodd on his campaign Web site, merrickforachange.com.

”Like many of you, I've lost faith in Senator Dodd,” Alpert says in a video posted on his Web site. “While he served the state well in the past, that's not so lately. He's become part of a culture of corruption in Washington. He's beholden to the very special interests that we sent him there to protect us from.”

The video includes a number of jabs seemingly aimed at Dodd's recent political woes, including references to campaign contributions Dodd has received from individuals connected to the financial services industry.

Dodd has “gotten a lot of favors from them,” Alpert says, referring to unnamed special interests, later adding that his election would represent “a fundamental change from the culture of corruption in Connecticut.”

You know you've got a serious problem on your hands when someone in your own party is talking about the culture of corruption.

Alpert, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force who served in Bosnia in 1998 and 1999, has held numerous jobs in Democratic politics, including as an aide to former Vice President Al Gore - the candidate's Web site features a photo of Gore and Alpert synchronizing their watches - and on Clinton-era health care reform efforts in the early 1990s, from which Alpert moved on to work for David Walters, then governor of Oklahoma.

The desperate Dodd is trying to latch on to Barack Obama.

”Chris Dodd is focused on his job, working with President Obama to usher through historic change and fighting every step of the way for Connecticut families,” campaign manager Jay Howser said in an e-mail message. “This week he's working to pass an historic crackdown on the credit card industry, protecting Connecticut consumers who've been ripped off and taken advantage of. This is something he's been fighting to pass for years, and now with seniority in the Senate and Barack Obama in the White House, Chris Dodd will win this important fight for Connecticut families.”

If Dodd, thinks latching on to the credit card issue is going to save him, well, let him remain delusional.