Why not Bill Richardson for POTUS?

Great Debates
1

Not long after Bill Richardson announced he was running for President, I was watching, um, This Week I think, & was struck by the blasé disregard one of the talking heads (Sam Donaldson, maybe?) had for his candidacy. The comment was something like, “Surely he doesn’t really think he’ll win, he’s going for VP.”

This just sounds unfairly dismissive to me. This guy’s resumé is a lot better than Clinton’s (no, her husband’s doesn’t count), Obama’s, or John Edwards’s. Why are they being touted as frontrunners while he’s being treated in some quarters as an also-ran?

Let me back up in a slightly different direction here:

For some time, I’ve thought that the Dems have a potential “dream team” of potential candidates who could work together & build a cabinet if they didn’t let egos get in the way. Rather than offer just John Kerry, just Joe Biden, just John Edwards, or just Al Gore, a smart group of them should campaign as a group. Let Gore run Interior or Energy, let Edwards run HHS, Biden could do State, etc. Is that realistic? I don’t know.

But the flip side is that some of these guys may make OK Senators & decent cabinet heads, but aren’t great candidates for the Presidency. I think Kerry would have been OK, & Dean seems sharp enough to manage it (of course, neither is running this time out). But I was never too sure about Gore’s diplomatic chops, & Edwards, frankly, just doesn’t have the depth of experience. Actually, Edwards & Obama have the same problem; they’re trying to take on the most powerful, important, & difficult executive position in the country with no experience as government executive officers & little background in American foreign policy either. (And I make no secret of the fact that while Hillary Clinton may be smart enough to do the job, I disapprove of her campaigning to sneak Bubba back into the White House through the back door. Term limits exist for a reason, people!)

So I hit the point that I didn’t have a great idea who should be the guy at the top. Then I saw Bill Richardson interviewed by Stephanopoulos, & I thought, I could see this guy at the top. I’m not sure he’s the best qualified to do the job, but he at least has some relevant experience. But more so, I thought, this guy can win the campaign. American voters can be very superficial; they want a candidate that seems like a good guy to have a relaxing beverage with. For me, Richardson passes this likeability test. He has a sort of sense of humor about himself & a self-presentation that I think will play well in the mountain west, & which reminds me of Reagan. Admittedly, I may just be weird.

I’ve seen some allusions to Richardson’s womanizing. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but didn’t FDR, GHWB, & WJC all have accusations of adultery & get through it?

2

That would create an awful lot of targets at which to shoot. Even if you could assemble an excellent cabinet out of that bunch, to “announce” it during the campaign would invite Republicans to harp on the weaknesses of each. It’s hard enough to keep two candidates relatively untarnished. I don’t think the bulk of Americans care about Cabinetry anyway. Maybe Defense, maybe State, but that’s about it.

I think there is a general feeling that there is a lot of crap inside Richardson’s closets. Not just an incident of adultery – more like years and years of general debauchery. But I’m sure others will chime in with actual information that casts light on, or dismantles, my lazy “impression.”

3

:dubious: How debauched are we talking? Can he be bought with whores? Alternativley, is it weird debauchery? Were barnyard animals involved?

On a scale of 0 to 100, how bad is it? Let’s say Jimmy Carter is a 1 (hey, he lusted in his heart!), Warren Harding a 10 (one major affair), Hugh Hefner an 85, & de Sade 100.

4

If it were Donaldson, that would be interesting. He and Richardson have hobnobbed with one another quite a bit at their respective ranches in New Mexico. He may just know something.

5

Richardson should be a strong candidate, as he’s one of the few Democratic candidates who has crossover appeal with moderate Republicans - something absolutely necessary to win the general election. He’s very smart, has executive experience, and generally leaves a strong impression of competance in whatever role he’s taken on in the past. And, not being a Senator, he doesn’t have a troubling voting record that he has to explain away.

Unfortunately, the Democrats have a habit of choosing the worst candidate of the bunch, and so even though the voters are clearly ready for a change, if the Democrats put up someone too far out of the mainstream, the voters will wind up holding their noses and voting Republican again.

6

On the front page of http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/ there’s a little blurb saying Bill “recently traveled to Darfur where he negotiated a fragile cease-fire between the Sudanese government and rebel militias.”

OK, it did say “fragile,” but that one word sort of slipped by me the first time. It sounded–grandiose might be the right word. On the other hand, if true, I really don’t care how many women (or goats) there are in his closet. Unless, you know, he can be unduly influenced by procurers or something, as I mentioned above.

The actual post is more modest: http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/issues/darfur

7

Still daydreaming of vindication, Sammy?

Since you’re obviously unaware of it: There are more independents than members of either party down here. It is not at all necessary, much less “absolutely”, to appeal to more than your own party and a plurality of the independents to win.

And, as it once again appears necessary to say, you can’t beat somebody with nobody. Which Republican is going to beat Richardson, in the alternate universe of which you speak?

8

Uh, my point was that Richardson was electable. THat means I don’t know if there’s a Republican who can beat him. On the other hand, if the Democrats put up someone like John Edwards, you’re going to see a lot of mderates sigh and pull the lever for the Republican.

In any event, there’s not a lot of polling that shows how Richardson would do, for the simple reason that he’s been on the margins with not a lot of attention paid to him. However, if you look at front-runners like Obama and Hillary, polls show that Guliani would beat them. But of course that’s pretty meaningless right now - you don’t really know who will have more appeal until the electorate really starts paying attention next year. Right now, the polls mostly reflect name recognition and Guliani probably gets a big lift from the residual memory of his performance immediately after the WTC attacks…

Don’t get me wrong - the Republicans seem equally willing to shoot themselves in the foot this year. I’m totally unimpressed with the current field. Guliani and McCain are just the best of a weak bunch.

Personally, I’m hoping the ‘draft Fred Thompson’ campaign works and he jumps in the race.

9

I think Giuliani is going to get badly hurt when they start doing serious polls in NY, and his numbers plummet, because as somebody here said, New Yorkers don’t like Giuliani. He was an asshole mayor, and tried to get his term extended because of 9/11, threatening to have another term (although I believe he was term-limited by law) if they didn’t let him stay in office. He got slapped down.

I don’t think he’ll last, and when people start hearing about how ‘maverick’ McCain isn’t, I think many will drop him like a hot potato. I also feel that Romney’s Mormonism is going to be a serious problem, and he’ll be lucky to get Veep.

10

:confused: The Dems haven’t put up a candidate “out of the mainstream” since 1972.

11

These allegations of debauchery remind me of Alan Clark: when allegedly asked at a constituency meeting whether he had any more ‘skeletons in the closet’, he is said to have replied, “Lots.”

12

Care to give relatively recent examples? Whatever you think of Kerry, it’s hard to see how any of his rivals for the nomination were any stronger. I suppose you could argue Bradley was better than Gore, but that’s debatable. And before that, the Dems ran and won with Clinton twice. Some habit.

13

Richardson may have this possible millstone to overcome.

14

I think he’s very electable. He could put the mountain states in play and reduce the GOP to the old Confederacy minus Florida. His biggest problem is going to be raising money, if he can keep it going until Iowa and do some good retail politicing there, he just might survive the first cut. The man seems to ooze gravitas that someone like Edwards seems to lack. I wouldn’t mind at all if he won. If he did, it could lead to a career comeback for Jerry Mathers as a Richardson impersonator.

15

The hatchet job that Richardson did on Dr. Wen Ho Lee was atrocious. Lee did nothing wrong (except bring home some classified documents). Richardson needed a fall guy, so he tried to pin everything on this poor man. And the investigation wound up costing the government several million dollars. Richardson is as slimey as they come. :dubious:

16

Which you’re kind of, you know, not allowed to do. At all. Ever.

By ‘pin everything on’ you mean ‘leak his name to the press’? Which I admit is still a scuzzy thing to do, but they’re not the same.

17

OK, that’s a problem.

Then again, I saw an example of what passes for anti-eminent domain legislation when a group was petitioning to get it on the ballot in Missouri. I told the guy I couldn’t sign his petition, because it didn’t just stop forced sales of real property, but undercut necessary regulatory authority. (And in fact, I think that initiative never made it to ballot. I guess people like me made the difference.)

So, without reading the actual bill, I sort of suspect Richardson was justified.

18

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/09/13/lee/index.html

Hmm. Well, a lot of swing voters like recklessness, & grandstanding. And he’s not afraid to be politically incorrect, & fire somebody quickly where there’s a perceived security breach.

While this can be spun against him, I’m not sure how big a liability it is.

19

I like what I’ve read about Richardson, and I like what I’ve heard from his mouth. He does have a sense of, I don’t know, adulthood or something about him that is refreshing after Bush.

Great name, great heritage, lots of experience in various aspects of government, sense of humor, possibly some skeletons, and not really dynamic. At this point, I’m rooting for him to make an impact in some way, either as the candidate or as the VP candidate.

20

Hmmm. I dunno. The Wen Ho Lee thing is a problem, as are various other security breakdowns at Alamagordo/Dept. of Energy while he was in charge. He was on the fringes of the Lewinsky Affair (Monica interviewed with him for a UN job, IIRC), although I don’t see that hurting him much. He apparently overstated his youthful pro baseball recruitment, FWIW. He’s been touted for his appeal to Latinos, but doesn’t have a Latino name. His dealings with North Korea will surely be spun by the GOP to his political detriment. And, to be completely superficial about it - as some/many voters will be - he’s pretty overweight. Chubbier than Bill Clinton at his chubbiest.

That said, he’s gotten good reviews as NM governor, from all I’ve read. I guess I need to learn more, but right now Richardson’s not blowing my skirt up.