Report from NALEO
Yesterday’s National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) Presidential Forum was a pretty remarkable event. THe format was set to have only one candidate on stage at a time; they were asked four questions and given two minutes to respond to each one, before having two minutes to issue a closing statement. The Q&A was predominantly in English, though most of Senator Dodd’s interlocutors started their questions in Spanish and the Senator impressed the audience with his fluency in his answers.
Though Senator Dodd addressed a crowd of over 1,000 Latino elected officials, the conversation during the forum felt much more like the countless events I’ve seen him do in backyards and kitchens of New Hampshire and Iowa. It was a relaxed, personal discussion without any pretension that might normally exist at an event of that size, particularly one that feature six other Democratic presidential candidates. The intimacy of discussion spoke to the connection Senator Dodd made to this association of his colleagues; after all, the attendees were elected officials and perhaps the association between Dodd and the audience allowed for a closer, more intimate discussion than the size suggested.
I emphasize this simply because it was remarkable to watch someone reach out from the rostrum and really speak personally with his audience as if the gathering was only 10% its actual size.
The response was incredibly positive. It’s yet another reminder to me that the more people get to know and meet Senator Dodd, the more they like him.