I’m very pleased that New Mexico governor Bill Richardson has entered the Democratic race to seek the party’s candidacy for president in 2008:
The field for the Democratic presidential nomination got still more crowded this morning, with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announcing he will take the first step in a run for the White House by forming a presidential exploratory committee. Richardson followed the announcement with an exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.”
Richardson enters a contest already dominated by Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who announced this week that he is forming a presidential exploratory committee of his own, and Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who made a statement about her presidential ambitions just yesterday.
Still, while much media attention has been focused on the frontrunners, Richardson told Stephanopoulos he believes there is room in the field for a Hispanic governor from a western state. And Richardson, in his second term as governor of New Mexico, has one of the longest resumes of anyone vying for the Democratic nomination, having served as secretary of the Department of Energy, ambassador to the United Nations, and more recently as an envoy to North Korea and Sudan.
In his interview with Stephanopoulos, Richardson made it clear that he will try to leverage this background by drawing a contrast between the extent of his experiences and those of his likely competitors for the nomination.
“The next president must be able to make us energy independent, must be able to make schools better, create jobs, give the American people, every American, a fair shot,” said Richardson. “To get that done, you need real-life experience. All I’m saying is, a lot of these folks can make speeches about all these things. I’ve actually done it.”
Richardson brings significant experience in foreign policy, energy, and actual administrative experience to his candidacy. The leading Democratic candidates have aptitude; Richardson has a resume.
He’d probably be my first choice. I think maybe this time we should avoid going for the guy we’d most like to have a beer with and pick someone who might actually be qualified to do the job. Just a thought.
He’s certainly my first choice among the declared Democrats.
The perception that a particular candidate can, in fact, win is one of if not the most important factor these days. As I pointed out in a post not long ago historically senators have not fared particularly well in running for the presidency. If memory serves the last sitting senator elected to the presidency was JFK, coincidentally, the son of the richest man in the world. Prior to the it was Harding (don’t ask).
If both major political parties nominate senators then, regardless of history, it’s pretty likely a senator will be elected.
Richardson has many advantages as a candidate. He has actual credentials of the sort only possessed by someone who’s been thinking about running for the presidency for a long time. He’s got gravitas. He’s politically pretty moderate. He doesn’t have senatorial baggage. He’s not an idiot. His life story will enable some of the Green segment of the party to vote for him with a clear conscience. And he’s not Hillary.
He also presents a consistently upbeat, optimistic view of America. That’s another historic must. We tend to elect the more optimistic major political party candidate (another reason why IMO Hillary can’t win).
I haven’t paid close attention to him in NM, but one incident grabbed my attention. When Richardson discovered the shockingly low death benefit of soldiers and guardsmen a couple of years ago he took the initiative of raising it for NM guardsmen, and financed it with a voluntary check-off on tax forms.
Good policy, clever move making it voluntary, good politics.
I probably like Richardson the best of the democratic candidates, but I doubt he will get nominated. First off, he’s too moderate for the rabid liberal base who have undue influence during the primary process. His prescription for Iraq is pretty naive and at the same time probably not sufficiently anti-war, but at least he isn’t burdened by having voted for the war, unlike the other candidates. Of course, he wasn’t in office then. The whole Wen Ho Lee case will undoubtedly come back to haunt him and his stint at DoE under Clinton is a mixed bag. Then there’s the baseball kerfluffle.
I need to do more research, but overall I like the guy. I just think he’ll have a hard time getting the nomination.
I don’t see how Richardson can get past the Los Alamos scandal. Maybe in a different election cycle, but I believe the Democrats are going to want to emphasize a strong defense as the prime ingredient of national security and here you have a story about nuke secrets getting leaked on his watch and criticism from Democratic Senators on the oversight committee.
From what I’ve seen so far, he’s way ahead of any other Democrat, or even the Republican early front-runners, on gun rights. This is very important to me, but not likely to help him get the nomination.