Chris Dodd looks so much like a president he ought to be one.

The five-term senator from Connecticut just took the best action of any of the candidates in the course of the campaign. While others were merely “presenting” programs, Dodd stood up in the senate itself and blocked Bush’s Military Commissions Act, which gives “retroactive immunity” to all the telecom companies that participated in Bush’s illegal spying on and wiretapping ordinary American citizens.

The legislation was supported by a bunch of spineless Democrats headed by Jay Rockefeller and apparently Majority Leader Harry Reid. But senate tradition permits any single senator to take a bill off the table until his or her questions are resolved. Dodd did.

His official statement summed it up telegraphically: “Warrantless wiretapping. Shredding of Habeas Corpus. Torture. Extraordinary Rendition. Secret Prisons. No more.”

He actually pledged personally to filibuster against this trashing of the Constitution.

Next, he jumped out as the first senator to oppose confirming Michael Mukasey for attorney general, condemning his “I dunno” stance on whether waterboarding is torture and for opening the door to more expansion of presidential powers.

Perhaps this might help put Dodd into the spotlight, which has been evading him in the course of this attenuating campaign season, but he’s likely to be the first Dem dropout.

He’s long been one of the most solid members of the senate—a progressive workhorse involved in lots of substantial legislation in the areas of children, education and crime prevention. He speaks more plainly than John Kerry and less babblingly than Joe Biden.

He’s a Peace Corps veteran, fluent in Spanish, with lots of knowledge and experience in Latin America.

Yes, he voted for the Iraq war, but was among the first to admit error and apologize.

A former head of the Democratic National Committee, he is the son of the late Sen. Thomas J. Dodd, who was once censured by the senate for using campaign funds for personal purposes. Chris recently wrote a biography of his otherwise eminent father, hoping to help clear his reputation.

Over all, Dodd is one of the really good guys out there and would make a fine president. He is unfortunately in a badly losing battle against some superstars—though he would make an interesting vice presidential choice for Obama.

What a great slogan for the Obama campaign: Dodd is my co-pilot.

***

Before ending my profiles of the Democratic candidates and starting in on the Repubs, I must make mention of poor beleagured Mike Gravel, the former senator from Alaska—and the last Democrat to represent that state.

He’s tossing out some interesting , but they are as likely to win as he is. Nevertheless it would be good to have them included in the national dialog.

His biggest issue is “direct democracy,” or citizen-initiated legislation voted on by citizens. He seems a man after the heart of Patrick Quinn, the lieutenant governor of Illinois.

Gravel, like his fellow progressive Dennis Kucinich (and me) is for a single-payer health-care system and instant withdrawal from Iraq.

Like most of the other Dems he’s against tax loopholes for the rich, but he proposes abolition of the Internal Revenue Service and establishment of a progressive national sales tax. Take away the adjective “progressive” and that almost makes him a Wall Street Journal Democrat.

As a senator back in the 1970s, he performed one of the great public services of the Vietnam Era by putting the Pentagon Papers into the public record. For that he deserves our thanks. It’s a pity that he, like Kucinich, is dismissed as comic relief.