After facing scandal after scandal for months, Washington Post analyst Chris Cillizza wrote tonight that Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd will not announce today that he will not run for re-election this year.  As we all know by now, Dodd’s problems started after he allegedly got a sweetheart deal on his mortgage from Countrywide before that firm’s downfall in 2008.  He was further pushed down in the polls for his improper handling of the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac meltdown, for misreporting the actual value of a vacation home by several hundred thousand dollars, and finally for his flip-flop on the insertion of a clause limiting executive pay into 2009′s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Basically, Dodd’s days have been numbered since early last year and, apparently until recently, everybody but Dodd was knew it.

Assuming Dodd does drop out, he will most likely be succeeded by state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, assuming the latter gives up a chance to challenge Joe Lieberman in 2012, and really does have Senatorial ambitions.  Now, I would not normally call an election so early, but I think it is hard to overstate Blumenthal’s popularity here in Connecticut.  The way he operates – he will go after any company he thinks is doing something wrong – has strong bi-partisan support.  It will be very hard for any Republican to successfully argue that what he’s done for the last twenty years makes him unfit for the Senate.  Even Rob Simmons, who was beating Dodd in the polls before this news, will have an uphill battle against a Blumenthal candidacy.

Of course, I don’t think it is quite time for the Dems to start planning the “we saved the seat” party just yet, but if I were a Dem, I’d have started jamming Blumenthal’s phone line and inbox with demands that he run the moment this news came out.