After poor showings, Biden, Dodd quit race

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democrats Joe Biden and Chris Dodd abandoned their bids for the presidential nomination after poor showings in the state’s caucuses.

Biden, a Delaware senator, was expected to announce his decision to withdraw from the contest at his campaign caucus rally in Des Moines, according to advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The veteran lawmaker and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee received less than 1 percent of the vote in Iowa’s caucuses despite a spirited campaign in which he emphasized his international policy credentials and long career in public service.

Dodd, a senator from Connecticut, informed his supporters of his plans.

“Tonight I am withdrawing from the presidential race but let me assure you, we are not ending this race with our heads hanging but with our heads held high,” Dodd told about 100 supporters here.

“I am not going anywhere,” he added, to loud cheers. “I will be fighting for the United States.”

Some of Dodd’s supporters wiped away tears as he spoke.

“I am very, very disappointed,” said Eva Bunnell, from East Haddam, Conn., who came to Iowa to volunteer for Dodd. “If the people had the opportunity to get to know him and look at his record more closely, they would see he’s a great man.”

John Feller, from Des Moines said: “I am sad. Very sad.”

Dodd was never able to break from the pack of Democratic contenders despite his long and distinguished Senate career. He won just 0.02 percent of the state’s caucus-goers.

At 63, Christopher John Dodd is at an age that’s considered prime for both presidential candidates and U.S. senators. And yet, Dodd’s true-blue liberalism, his thick white-mane and his background as the scion of a politically-prominent, Irish-American family from New England conjures images of a bygone political era.

Dodd is the son of Thomas J. Dodd, a lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War II and a U.S. senator from Connecticut for 12 years.