New School Politics

The Wooing of Bill Richardson

Ryan | 25 02 2008

If you're a first time visitor, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed, which will keep you up to date with all the latest New School Politics posts. Thanks for visiting!

While defeated GOP candidates, such as Giuliani, Romney, and Tancredo, have been perfectly willing to endorse another candidate following their withdrawal, deposed Democrats have in no notable way gone out on a limb to endorse. Still much speculation remains as to who an Edwards or Richardson (or Biden or Dodd) might support, if they chose to do so at all. The two are in constant contact with both campaigns, and whereas Edwards managed a far larger portion of voters, the qualified Richardson appears to be an especially hot commodity of late.

Listening to the New Mexico Governor on Wolf Blitzer a few days ago, the hispanic pol said, not only that he was “genuinely torn” between Hillary and Barack, but also that he expects to make an endorsement some time in the next week. Moreover, Richardson may become even more important with the upcoming March 4th primaries ,which include Texas, where about one in every two Democratic voters may be hispanic.

Here is a very illuminating story from the NYT on Richardson and each campaigns’ effort to earn his endorsement:

Barack Obama calls every three days or so. He called on Friday of last week, but Mr. Richardson was tied up with the Legislature, so he tried again on Monday and left a message on voice mail (“following up from Friday”) before finally connecting with his defeated presidential rival late Tuesday, and then again two days later.

Mr. Richardson took a half-hour call from Bill Clinton on Tuesday and received about 10 others — a typical day — from people calling “on behalf of Hillary”: former cabinet secretaries, mutual friends, elected officials. “Heavyweight types,” Mr. Richardson calls them.

“Barack is very precise,” the governor observed, sitting in his office at the New Mexico Capitol. The Obama campaign rarely pesters him with surrogates. Mr. Obama’s approach is like “a surgical bomb,” he said, while “the Clintons are more like a carpet bomb.”

While Richardson is notable for his ties to Bill Clinton and his administration (both as Energy Secretary and Ambassador to the UN), he does not seem to have developed as much of a liking for Hillary as he has for, not only her husband, but Barack Obama as well.

But, just as with John Edwards, it is very possible that we are beating a dead horse, and that all of the major ex-candidates remain neutral as the race is neck and neck.