In what seems like an obvious attempt to remake his image, news that US Sen. Chris Dodd was planning to write a book chronicling the financial meltdown may have been premature.
“Crown Publishers would like to clarify that in fact, Senator Dodd and Crown do not yet have a signed agreement, and that the actual content of the proposed book will chronicle how Congress and the Bush Administration responded to the financial meltdown,” Katie Wainwright, vice president of the executive director of publicity, said in an emailed statement Friday afternoon.
According to Publishers Weekly, a trade magazine for the book industry, the book was to be published in June and would be titled: “Thirteen Days: How the Financial Crisis Changed the Politics of Washington.”
The book would be authored by Dodd and Lary Bloom, former editor of the Hartford Courant’s Sunday magazine, Publishers Weekly reported.
“If Crown and Senator Dodd reach agreement, Senator Dodd plans to donate his proceeds from this forthcoming book to charity,” Wainwright clarified in the email.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Brian Walsh said in a press release that “You have to wonder who advised Senator Dodd that striking a book deal on a crisis that he was at least partially responsible for was a good idea. A more apt title would be ‘13 Weeks: The Senate Banking Committee Chairman’s Time in Iowa While the Housing Market Collapsed.’”
Wainwright also pointed out that “Crown previously published Letters From Nuremberg, which Senator Dodd co-wrote with Lary Bloom in 2007, and looks forward to continuing its relationship with both authors.”
The premature news of the book deal couldn’t have come at a worse time for Dodd, whose recent approval ratings in his home state have sunk to a new low. Only 41 percent of voters in the recent Quinnipiac University poll approve of the job Dodd is doing, while 48 percent disapprove.
A whopping 51 percent say they “probably won’t” or “definitely won’t” vote for him in 2010. But Dodd’s office isn’t worried.
“When the time comes, Senator Dodd will be ready with a vigorous, well funded re-election campaign. Now is the time for leadership and that is why Senator Dodd is focused on helping Connecticut families get out of this economic crisis and hardship,” Bryan DeAngelis, Dodd’s spokesman, said Tuesday in response to the poll.
