The presidential primary is a long way away, yet here is the latest Quinnipiac poll, which according to the Courant places Dodd a distanced fourth in a name recognition survey. The Courant reports:

A Quinnipiac University poll of 1,087 state voters, conducted Feb. 9 to 12, placed Dodd fourth among White House contenders, behind New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, at 33 percent; Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, at 21 percent and former Vice President Al Gore at 9 percent.

Gore has not said he’s running. Dodd has.

Well should this be all that surprising considering that Connecticut’s media has done such a poor job of covering the presidential campaign for Dodd. It’s not hard to see that Dodd isn’t getting news coverage, searching for Dodd presidential news in Google News doesn’t turn up much. And at MyDD the presidential campaign alerts often show Dodd’s news items as Clinton’s. Dodd wasn’t kidding when he said he was running a stealth campaign.

The home state favoritism is not an issue for Bill Richardson, who does not appear on the Quinnipiac poll, but whose media coverage of the campaign by his home state media is extensive. It maybe helps that he’s also the governor there. But since Governor Rell doesn’t generate much in the way of press here, you’d think Dodd would get more frequent coverage. The Connecticut bloggers do a better job of covering Dodd, but even then they spend more time on the other candidates than Dodd.

If California moves it primary up to February, as the LaTimes recently indicated would happen based on the California legislature approving a bill, the stealthiness of presidential campaigning will be quickly replaced by the media circus of the major money. In that measure, Dodd can hang with the big names. For now. But the gentle genuine trail he’s blazing now might need a spark or two.