WASHINGTON — Christopher Dodd, then a rookie U.S. senator, eagerly opposed Dr. C. Everett Koop's nomination to be surgeon general in 1981, arguing that "his personal beliefs would keep him from impartial judgments."

Koop, whom the media described as "a noted anti-abortionist," won confirmation and turned out to be a popular, articulate healthcare spokesman. A few months later, Dodd sent him a note, apologizing.

"I voted against him, and I regret it," Dodd would say, "because he turned out to be one fine surgeon general."

The story is vintage Dodd. "He sees the big picture, and he works on a very human scale," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a longtime friend.

But the Koop story also illustrates what skeptics say is Dodd's biggest weakness: He's too much a creature of Washington.

"All he has is Washington experience, and that's an enormous burden," said Steffan Schmidt, a professor of political science at Iowa State University. "His image outside Washington is that he's a tax-and-spend liberal."

Dodd says that's too simplistic, but Washington unquestionably has shaped him.

Dodd's political roots stretch back to his father, Sen. Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut, who served from 1959 to 1971. His career was broken in 1967, when the Senate censured him for using campaign money for personal purposes.

Tom Dodd never recovered: He lost his 1970 re-election bid and died at age 64, five months after he left office.

His son made it his mission to restore honor to his father and their name.

"Sometimes, I think almost everything Chris Dodd does down here is meant to vindicate his father," said Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai'i, who served with both men.

When Dodd was 30 in 1974, he triumphed in a tough primary and won an eastern Connecticut seat in the House of Representatives. Six years later, Dodd was elected to the Senate.

His father's Senate friends counseled him, and Dodd built a reputation and seniority on the Banking, Labor and Foreign Relations committees, hoping someday to emulate mentors such as Tennessee's Jim Sasser and Maryland's Paul Sarbanes, who quietly crafted sweeping consensus legislation.

Dodd became a highly popular insider, so much so that when Sasser, in line to be the next Democratic Senate leader, was upset in his 1994 re-election bid, veteran senators urged Dodd to jump into the race. He wound up losing his last-minute effort to Tom Daschle by one vote, but President Clinton noticed.

Clinton offered him the general chairmanship of the Democratic Party. Dodd took the job, but it came at a price. He was the chairman in 1995 and 1996, a time when Clinton was letting big donors sleep in the Lincoln bedroom or have coffee with White House big shots.

A Senate committee investigated. While it found that Dodd had done nothing wrong, the controversy kept him from seeking the vice presidential nomination in 2000 when Al Gore's representatives asked whether he wanted to be considered.

Instead, the nod went to Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman. That blocked Dodd from the White House not only in 2000 but also in 2004, when Dodd deferred to his more prominent home-state colleague.

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