New Mexico Politics
Richardson Grok
Laughs and Points for RichardsonThe latest CNN poll, released late Monday night, showed Bill Richardson has gained significant points since the June 3 debate in New Hampshire. According to CNN, the poll involved telephone interviews with 309 New Hampshire adults who plan to vote in the Democratic primary January 22, 2008. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 6 percentage points. While Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama also gained points, John Edwards has lost support. He's now at 12 percent, with Richardson close behind at 10 percent. CNN notes that Richardson may have gained support during the debate because voters perceived him as decisive. CNN also wrote that 57 percent of New Hampshire Democrats noted the war in Iraq as a key deciding point.
If that's the case, then Richardson's his strong statement on Iraq Sunday night could have won over more voters. The El Paso Times, among other newspapers, picked up the Associated Press report of Richardson's statement: "I would leave no troops in Iraq whatsoever. The difference between me and the other candidates is, they would leave troops there indefinitely, and I would not," Richardson told the report on Late Edition on CNN.
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Richardson Grok
Richardson Meets the Press, AgainNew Mexico Bill Richardson is big as life, and we're not talking about his weight (which appears to be a fascination with the New Mexico, national press and blogger corps). We're talking about his stories. You know, those little yarns he tells over and over that somehow become perceived as truth? First there was the baseball tale: Last November he admitted that the claim that he was a pick of the Kansas City A's in 1966 was untrue. Now he's decided that he's no longer going to tell the story about Lance Corporal Aaron Austin, who was killed in action in 2004. When Richardson told the tale, he added that he met Austin's mother and had a conversation with her about her son's $11,000 death benefit, which spurred him to go to the legislature, where he lobbied for a much more generous one. But lately Richardson's decided to stop using Austin's name after Austin's mother noted she remembers no such conversation. [more]
Richardson Grok
Richardson Clambakes in New HampshireBill Richardson seems to really love New Hampshire. He's been traipsing here and there visiting with locals, touting renewable energy power plants, and charming newspaper reporters and bloggers in the Live Free or Die state. Richardson visited a renewable energy plant in Portsmouth. He told seacoastonline.com that if elected, he'd want out of Iraq, and fast, and he'd work on getting all Americans health insurance. He stopped by a local house party down in Salem, Mass., where he apparently faced some tough questions from the crowd of about 50 people gathered in the home. The participants included teachers, doctors and the elderly, who peppered the presidential candidate with questions about health care policy, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the future of social security.
Richardson also appeared at the Rockingham County Clambake, where the topic was science and technology. One of his goals for the Democrats is to become the party of science and technology. Not sure what that means, exactly, but it sounds suspiciously like his entire gubernatorial tenure in New Mexico (including that little 'ol stip-o-asphalt, the New Mexico Spaceport.)
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Richardson Grok
Richardson’s Sowing Seeds of Grassroots CampaignNew Mexico Governor Bill Richardson seems to be making good on his promise to run a very grassroots campaign. After the recent debate, Richardson was hanging out with bloggers in California. The California Majority Report writes about the western shift from red to, well, purple in its politics, and Richardson's explanation of that shift: Richardson said Western "leave me alone" libertarians feel out of place in today's Republican party. And rising support for alternative energy and the environment have given rise to new grassroots activity.. The blog also noted Richardson's unpolished speaking style and, on a positive note, his focus on ideals rather than talking points, left a favorable impression on the ten or so young people in the meeting.
On a more mainstream note, Richardson still dreams of baseball, according to Fox News, reporting on an Associated Press interview which asked 14 presidential candidates from both parties to describe their alternate lives. Richardson hearkened back to his days as a right handed pitcher for Tufts University, where he was not recruited by the Kansas City A's in 1966. He did, however, play for the Cape Cod League's Cotuit (Mass.) Kettleers in the summer of 1967.
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Richardson Grok
Richardson’s Stock is on the RiseBill Richardson's stock is going up, according to Cokie Roberts and Stephen Roberts, writing in the Billings Gazette. The two noted that, from a fund raising perspective, both Arizona's John McCain and New Mexico's Richardson were neck and neck. But in a "glass-half-full" or "glass-half-empty" analysis, Richardson's $5 million was seen as a positive surprise, while McCain's fund raising was seen as a disappointment. The Roberts' also note that the straw poll conducted by grassroots organization moveon.org showed Richardson in second place behind John Edwards (don't forget, however, that Moveon.org was strongly supportive of Howard Dean, as well).
Or maybe Richardson's stock is going down...Leave it to small town vitriol to cast doubt on the candidate, as if everyone out there is reading the Alamogordo News. In it, Harold Teeter waxes about the current democratic candidate list, and how unfit Richardson is to run the country.
Either way, he's getting play in New Hampshire and Iowa. Richardson is the first democratic candidate to begin his/her television advertising campaign. The 30- and 60-second spots were produced by Murphy Putnam Media writes the Washington Post. They launch this week in the two states.
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SENATOR SERIOUS ABOUT REPEALING RAT
Baucus Berates Recreation Fee Policy
U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) is no fan of recreation fees. Or the Federal Lands Recreation Act (FLREA), often called the Recreation Access Tax or RAT by fee opponents.
FLREA or RAT, depending on whether you collect or pay the fees, was tacked on a must-pass spending bill in December 2004, creating the authority agencies now use to aggressively increase the number of fee-based recreation sites and to substantially increase in existing fees.
But unlike many other politicians who oppose the recreation fees as a method for funding federal agencies, Baucus is seriously considering doing something about it. Something like, repealing it.
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Richardson Grok
Richardson’s Savvy Moves Keeping Him Out of the CourthouseOkay, so Bill Richardson may have convinced the North Koreans to shutter their nuke operations but one of Richardson's biggest political accomplishment to date could be the off-loading of former state senator Manny Aragon from state government. Aragon, who is under investigation for allegedly getting kickbacks in the building of the Metropolitan Court building in Downtown Albuquerque, lorded over the Legislature for three decades (many of which he served as Senate President Pro Tem) before Richardson placed some friends on the board of regents for New Mexico Highlands University; the regents selected Aragon as president of the beleaguered and broke school in the north, despite the faculty senate's recommendation of another candidate. Could Richardson know he needed Aragon out of the way to accomplish his ambitious agenda for the state, which he could then tout to the nation as campaign fodder? As president of NMHU, Aragon began a slow political implosion, when the school fired and/or denied tenure to several white faculty members, Aragon was ousted (the school settled the discrimination lawsuit for $250,000) and now he's allegedly deep in the Metro Court corruption case. Writes the Albuquerque Tribune in a recent story about the governor returning campaign contributions from the indictees:
The governor did sign legislation into law in 2003 to allocate $3.9 million to help pay for cost overruns on the [Metro Court] building and he signed a measure in 2004 that extended the time previously appropriated money could be spent on the project.The 2003 bill was sponsored by then-Senate Majority Leader Manny Aragon, who authorities say received $700,000 in payoffs as part of a conspiracy with others to inflate construction contracts on the courthouse. Aragon was charged with 14 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering. He has not publicly commented since the indictment was announced Thursday and has yet to make an initial appearance in federal court.
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Politics & Prose
Ex-Denver Mayor Webb Endorses Richardson, Obama, AND Clinton
About eight people waited at the Boulder Book Store Tuesday night for former Denver mayor Wellington Webb to arrive and discuss his recently-released autobiography, Wellington Webb: The Man, The Mayor And The Making of Modern Denver. I’ve met people in Boulder who actually boast of never venturing into Denver, and the sparseness of the crowd for one of the most influential living figures in Denver history reinforced the impression that most Boulderites wouldn’t notice if a huge crevasse opened under that city to the southeast. A bookstore employee announced that Webb was running late, and one woman thought a different author was to appear. “It’s not Tim Hillman speaking?” she asked, holding up a paperback. “No, it’s the mayor tonight,” the bookstore employee explained. “I wonder where we’re supposed to be,” the woman pondered.
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Richardson Grok
Richardson Shows his Personable SideAnyone who's seen New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson give a chamber of commerce speech might have noticed his disjointed oratory tendencies. While an "everyman" -type speechmaker, staying away from big words and concepts, Richardson will often veer off course, following either a joke or a thought that appears to have just occurred to him. It makes him appear ... what, unpolished or something, especially when compared to his presidential campaign opponents, the eloquent Obama, the well practiced Hillary, and smooth-southern John. Well, Ari Richter of the Concord, NH Monitor has outed Richardson's speech making deficit in a column. Although Richter did say that Richardson "wins, hands down, the who-would-you-most-like-to-go-have-a-beer-with primary," Richter also notes that Richardson's unpracticed style could cost him in the long run. Where other candidates would have responded to a woman in the audience who volunteers in New Orleans with a back thumping statement of patriotism, Richardson seemed unsure how to react, Richter says. It is, as New Mexicans know, part of Richardson's personality to be bigger than life but hard to pin down.
Are we still talking about Wen Ho Lee? Recall Lee was the fired Los Alamos scientist whose career was ruined by defamatory statements issued by an unknown source. Richardson was Secretary of Energy at the time and is rumored to have been the source of the statements. Governor Richardson has requested a visit with New American Media, which publishes the venerable Asia Week. According to one columnist, an apology from Richardson on the Wen Ho Lee affair would be both appreciated and expected. But wouldn't that be an admission of guilt?
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Richardson Grok
Bill Richardson’s First Days as President, as Told by Bill RichardsonWhat Bill Richardson says he would do if elected President:
"On my first day in office, I'd end the war in Iraq.
On my second day, I'd announce a plan for achieving national energy independence."
Richardson made these remarks during a Q-and-A after a speech he gave at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. During the speech, Richardson said the administration, consumed by the Iraq war, had lost focus of the real threat of a “nuclear 9-11.” “It took a Manhattan project to create the bomb," Richardson said. "We need a new Manhattan project to stop the bomb — a comprehensive program to secure all nuclear weapons and all weapons-usable material, worldwide."
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