Richardson Grok

Bill Who? Richardson Overshadowed at Home

By Emily Esterson, 11-15-07

Bill who? At least that’s what New Mexicans are wondering these past few weeks, as the presidential candidate’s home state has become obsessed with congressional and senate candidates. The state is getting unusual national political attention, as bloggers comment on who’s likely to run for all the open seats in New Mexico.  The local paper wrote only this little blurb about the fact that it’s Bill Richardson’s birthday today (he’s 60) oh, and by the way, he was nominated for a fifth time for the Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination doesn’t mean much, writes the Associated Press—after all, two previous nominees include Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini.

The presidential candidates gather in Las Vegas (Nevada, not New Mexico) today for a debate. There was barely a mention of him, however, in the Washington Post’s roundup, which focused instead on the aggressive attacks by Obama and Edwards, and how Hillary is going to redeem her poor performance in the last debate. Barely a mention of Bill, who has already spent a lot of time in Nevada campaigning.  And since we’re in Nevada, we might as well talk about Yucca Mountain.

The controversial nuclear waste dump has become a thorny issue for Richardson, who allowed the project to proceed when he was Secretary of Energy; now, however, he opposes it, writes Boston.com. And just as Richardson is about to show up in Nevada, he stopped at home briefly to issue an executive order to cut state government energy use by 20 percent. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, The Western Governors’ Association has adopted a goal of increasing energy efficiency in the West by 20 percent by 2020. Richardson said New Mexico “is doing its part to achieve that goal” through the targets established by his executive order.

But is Richardson all talk? Although he’s said the state is one of the few complying with the Kyoto Treaty, the Washington Post blog takes the governor, and the state, to task on whether New Mexico is the “greenest of them all.”

And the Washington Post’s Fact Checker gave Richardson a low score (two Pinocchios to be exact, which equals significant omissions and/or exaggerations), on how he has oversimplified the stances his opponents have taken on Iraq. Although Obama, Clinton and Edwards have all refused to commit to a complete pullout, none said they would “keep” troops in Iraq, as Richardson claims they have. Richardson’s “pullout” would involved moving troops out of Iraq to nearby based in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan. The blog also notes that Richardson has been very vague about how he would enforce security in the country after the pullout. 

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