Never too soon to start obsessing on the next election, right?

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., has had an iron grip on his Senate seat. First elected in 1980, when he was just 36, he's now coming to the end of his fifth term and currently chairs the Sen. Banking Committee. But while that post brings many benefits, it has brought him a lot of recent controversy and has Republicans dreaming of taking him out in 2010.

Banks, some of them with now tarnished reputations or worse, gave him special breaks on his own mortgages. He received thousands in campaign donations from disgraced billionaire and accused swindler Allen Stanford. He received more campaign contributions from AIG officials than any other senator. Now, although he said otherwise when first asked about it, it turns out that he (he says his staff made the change without his knowledge) helped change the bailout legislation so that companies like AIG could pay bonuses (maybe you've heard something about how that turned out). Dodd says he was against the bonus language in the bill, but that it was requested by Treas. Secretary Geithner.

Dodd, who has been immensely popular and politically secure in his very blue state, regularly winning reelection by 20-30 percentage points, finds his approval ratings at alarming levels that scream out "vulnerable incumbent." Defeated former Repub Congressman Rob Simmons seized the moment to announce he will challenge Dodd, and a trial heat poll showed them running even. Simmons is not viewed as a big political talent, and a stronger challenger may emerge, but Repubs are hard-up for pickup opportunities heading in 2010, and they will try to turn Dodd's seat into one.

Historically, the party controlling the White House almost always loses seats in the midterm election. But from where we are now, the climate and the lineup heading into 2010 looks very bad for Repubs. They have several incumbents retiring (so far, the Dems have none), and several more viewed as vulnerable. The current Cook Political Report rankings of 2010 Sen races showed six toss-ups, and five of them are seats currently held by Repubs. That ranking has Dodd seat as "likely Dem," which is just one step down from "safe." But it was last updated March 5 and will change. (If you're wondering, the only Dem-held seat currently rated as a tossup is the Roland Burris seat in Illinois. Obviously, that one is very caught up in what becomes of Burris, but I don't expect him to be the Dem nominee.)

The "Repubs smell blood" language in the headline of this post is lifted from a Connecticut political analyst quoted in this more thorough CQ piece on Dodd's problems.