Senator Dodd of Connecticut – the scion of a political family, a career senator, and Washington insider who helped secure President Clinton’s 1996 re-election and who stepped aside so colleague Senator Lieberman could run in 2004 – says it’s his turn to seek the White House.

Despite a growing roster of qualified candidates and a race in which the main contender, Senator Clinton of New York, has raised a war chest of more than $20 million, Mr. Dodd told the Hartford Courant last week that, although an exploratory committee is not yet in the works, he has “decided to do all the things that are necessary to prepare to seek the presidency in 2008.”

He will not decide whether to run until early next year, when the presidential noise reaches fever pitch. But he will hire staff, attempt to fatten his paltry $2 million campaign funds, and take to traveling the nation.

“This is the right time for me,” he told the Courant. “This is the right thing to do.” In Connecticut this week for the Memorial Day recess, Mr. Dodd did not return repeated requests for an interview.

Those close to him, including former congressional colleagues and a former presidential contender, say that Mr. Dodd has the stuff to be commander in chief. An outspoken advocate of Democratic causes, the four-term senator can nonetheless broker backroom deals to push forward major legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, which requires employers to provide 12 weeks of medical leave for a worker who suffers a medical emergency. He has also never lost an election.

“The country needs someone who is ready, willing, and able to go. Not another governor. There’s not any time for on-the-job training,” said Ernest Hollings, the former Democratic senator of South Carolina who has urged Mr. Dodd to run in the past two elections. “Chris Dodd could take office tomorrow and start cleaning things up.”

But the list of prospective Democratic candidates keeps growing and already include, in addition to veterans John Kerry and John Edwards, Senators Bayh of Indiana, Biden of Delaware, and Feingold of Wisconsin. With Mrs. Clinton’s star power and another Northeasterner in the running, many ask what tricks he has up his sleeve to come up with $50 million he needs to enter the ring and how a very blue Mr. Dodd will mix in a sea of red states.

“That’s a short conversation,” the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, Larry Sabato, said. “My question is, where is his niche? Clinton is going to be the regional candidate as well as the national. I don’t know how he plans on distinguishing his record from hers.

“It is possible for him to raise the money to be taken seriously, I’m sure. But he would have to figure out a way to make his candidacy distinct. There’s only room for two or three anti-Hillarys,” he said.

Mr. Dodd doesn’t seem worried about the pundits. In a time when, as Mr. Sabato says, “every senator who believes he might be president is getting up in the morning and seeing himself in the mirror as president,” the senior senator believes his reflection never looked so good.

Mr. Dodd is highly regarded in the Capitol for his debating skills and his ability to bring both sides to the table. He argues that he stands apart from his competitors because in the politically divided country, voters have expressed a desire for a president who can bridge gaps and get something done.

“People are yearning for a sense of confidence in the country’s future,” he told the Courant. “Bringing people together is the way to do it.”

Though he considered a run in 2004, Mr. Dodd said weeks of conversation with friends and advisers, including Rep. Rosa DeLauro, his campaign manager for two Senate races, and a dinner with his wife Jackie Dodd, an international business consultant and a former executive at the Export-Import Bank, convinced him to investigate a run this time.

“He is someone who has traveled the length and breadth of the U.S., sat in living rooms to figure out what families care about, and addressed the issues that affect Americans,” Ms. DeLauro said. “I’m on board 100% and will work as hard as I can to see him be president.”

The son of a former senator, Thomas Dodd, who was censured by Senate in 1967, the younger Mr. Dodd, now 62, went to Washington as a congressman in 1974 after serving in the Peace Corps and managing his father’s unsuccessful re-election campaign in 1970. He was elected to the Senate himself in 1980.

Following a divorce shortly after, Mr. Dodd gained a reputation as a ladies man about Washington. He now has two daughters, Grace, 4, and Christina, 14 months, with his wife of several years. But the tabloid reputation, which would become press fodder in a presidential campaign, is not the only thing in his past that Mr. Dodd will have to overcome.

He will have to explain his liberal voting record to Middle America – Americans for Democratic Action gave Mr. Dodd a perfect score on liberalism last year, according to the Courant – and give them a reason to vote for a Northeasterner. He will also have to get past the Senate decorum that makes him so popular across party lines on Capitol Hill to fight a sometimes dirty fight.

“I can’t see him running without some understanding of what the race demands,” Mr. Hollings said. “I can tell you right now, he can run the country. He knows all the troubles and the advices. One thing he doesn’t need is more advice. He knows.”