Chris Dodd on Financial Crisis to ‘Average’ Voters: ‘You cannot explain this to them.’

While we’re discussing easily overlooked comments from prominent Democratic lawmakers in business magazines, I’ve been meaning to spotlight this recent lament from Connecticut senator Chris Dodd:

“When I go home,” Dodd says, crossing Constitution Avenue in the fading light, “people don’t ask me about the warrants, or the accountability standards, or how much transparency there is, or what am I doing about systemic risk. I mean, some do, obviously, like community bankers and businesspeople who are knowledgeable. The average person looks at me and says, ‘What are you doing? You’re writing a check [for bailouts]? And 700 people at Merrill Lynch on average got $5.1 million? What are you people thinking?’ You know? You cannot explain this to them.”

Poor guy, needing the votes from all of those “average people” to whom “you cannot explain” his record of oversight of the financial-services industry. If only the electorate was made up entirely of “community bankers and businesspeople who are knowledgeable.”

UPDATE: A sharp reader notes that according to Quinnipiac, 21 percent of Connecticut registered voters approve of the way Dodd is handling his job as Senate Banking Committee Chairman, 67 percent disapprove and quips, “I think Dodd’s problem is the average Connecticut voter understands what is going on way too well for his taste.”