Sen. Chris Dodd, fighting for his political life here in Connecticut, has announced a change of heart on same-sex marriage: He now supports it. Anti-SSM professional Peter Wolfgang of the Family Institute of Connecticut calls Dodd out for political expediency:

“He took a position against same-sex marriage when he was running for
president because that was the most politically palpable position,”
Wolfgang said. “Now suddenly he’s in favor of same-sex marriage because
he is in a very tight campaign for re-election. … He needs every
dollar he can get and he cannot afford to alienate the very well-heeled
cultural left.”

Political expediency there may be, but it doesn’t have to do with dollars. Dodd’s got plenty of them–over $5 million, as compared to less than $45,000 and $20 (!) for possible GOP challengers Sam Caliuguri and Rob Simmons respectively. He’s going where the voters are. Just after the Connecticut Supreme Court ordered the state to recognize SSM last October, Nutmeggers supported SSM by 53 percent to 42 percent; two months later, another poll showed 52 percent in favor and 39 percent opposed. With SSM having, in the intervening months, become the law of the land in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire, it’s likely that those numbers have bumped up.

Don’t look for Wolfgang to be charging Dodd with pandering to a pro-SSM electorate. But the five-term senator may well relish the opportunity to hold his Republican opponent’s feet to the fire on the issue.