Ex-Rep. Simmons taking on Conn. Sen. Dodd

updated 12:49 p.m. ET April 5, 2009

WASHINGTON - The staid Capitol Hill Club dining room was quiet. Except for Rob Simmons.

Perched at a table at the popular Republican hangout blocks from the Capitol, Simmons waved a sheaf of newspaper clippings about Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and his cozy Wall Street fundraising ties, his role in the economic crisis and the billions of taxpayer dollars spent to bail out banks.

"That's why the people are out with the pitchforks," Simmons said loudly, jabbing the air with a finger. "People are upset."

When his raised voice turned a few heads at nearby tables, Simmons caught himself and shrugged apologetically.

"I get a little excited," Simmons said, chuckling.

"What I see is a sweetheart deal, a sweetheart relationship between the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and the people he oversees."

Lost his House seat by just 83 votes
Two years after losing his House seat by just 83 votes, a feisty Simmons is back in Washington and taking aim at Dodd amid the financial tumult. Dodd's re-election promises to be a marquee race next year, and taking down a major Democrat like Dodd could be a coup for the Republicans.

Dodd, a five-term incumbent, has soured many voters and found himself vulnerable for several reasons: his role in writing a bill that protected bonuses for executives at bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc; his initial refusal to release documents about his two controversial mortgages with Countrywide Financial Corp.; and his financing of a vacation cottage in Ireland.

"I'm going to do my job," Dodd has said. "Politics will take care of itself, one way or the other in the final analysis. And I'll either once again earn the respect and confidence of the people of this state, or I won't."

Simmons bucks the trend in a congressional climate flush with lawyers and other buttoned-down business types. The lanky former three-term GOP congressman is an ex-spy with a quirky, self-effacing side. As a photographer in the club clicks away, Simmons jokingly asks if there's a way to add "a little more hair" and make his ears look thinner in the pictures.

An uphill battle against Dodd
Simmons, 66, pounced when polls showed Dodd, 64, could be vulnerable. Simmons believes he faces an uphill fight against Dodd, despite a recent Quinnipiac University poll that showed the senator's popularity at 33 percent, a career low. Simmons is bracing for a primary fight as well against state Sen. Sam Caligiuri.

"Simmons is a goofy, awkward guy who comes across as being affable enough," said Roy Occhiogrosso, a veteran Democratic strategist and Dodd supporter. But, Occhiogrosso said, Simmons' aw-shucks personality belies the hardball campaigning that tended to surface in the closing days of his congressional races.

Occhiogrosso noted there were mailings and recorded telephone messages to voters making "ridiculous" charges against Simmons' foes, but Simmons "would disavow any knowledge of it or refuse to talk about it."

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