Maybe this governor is ready for OS?

[EVERETT813 at aol.com]

Dear all,

Interesting story.   Maybe this governor is ready for OS?   Any OSers in New 
Mexico ready to drop and and tell him what they want?   He seems to forge 
ahead, damn the torpedoes on left, right or center.   At least he seems to know 
who he is and what he wants.   A refreshing change, for sure.   Be nice if he 
aces out Hilary who is busily moving to center from her left wing in order to 
run in 2008 for the presidency.   

Paul Everett


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A New New Democrat Looks West and Forward

By Mark Z. Barabak Times Staff WriterSun Aug 14, 7:55 AM ET

SANTA FE, N.M. — Bill Richardson is holding court, seated at the far end of a 
shiny table in his modest Albuquerque office. It is Thursday, and the 
governor is hosting one of his regular open-door sessions — a chance for citizens to 
walk off the street and avail themselves of an audience with New Mexico's 
chief executive.

Richardson values these meetings, he said, for the knowledge he takes away 
and the connection they give him to the far-flung people of his state. But 
Richardson is a man of constant, propulsive motion, and it obviously pains him to 
sit still for so long. Even more painful, it seems, is having to sit with his 
mouth shut.

In the course of one afternoon, Richardson will meet a candidate for state 
attorney general, agree to write the foreword of a nature book, grant $500,000 
to put a new roof on a local library, agree to a management study at the 
University of New Mexico hospital, and pardon three convicted felons. Each session 
goes something like this: a handshake, chitchat, goodnatured needling, a bit of 
listening. And then the governor abruptly cuts off each visitor. "OK," he 
demands. "What do you want from me?"

Richardson has long been the proverbial man in a hurry, starting with his 
first audacious run for office 25 years ago, when, transplanted from Washington, 
the Democrat nearly unseated the state's veteran GOP congressman. (Richardson 
won his own House seat in 1982.) Lately, Richardson's exertions have been 
aimed at resuscitating New Mexico, the sick man of the Southwest. His ultimate 
design, apparently, is a White House bid in 2008.

Sometimes it is hard to tell where the governor's ministrations end and 
self-promotion begins. Take, for instance, that Times Square billboard featuring a 
larger-than-life Richardson, promoting New Mexico for tourists. Or consider 
his frequent out-of-state travels and appearances on national television.

"You'll hear [Republican leaders] say that Bill is so personally ambitious he 
cares more for himself than the state of New Mexico," said Brian Sanderoff, 
an Albuquerque pollster who has been sampling state opinion for nearly 25 
years.

No matter. Richardson enjoys healthy voter approval ratings, with significant 
support even among rank-and-file Republicans.

In the last 2 1/2 years, he has slashed taxes and won the hearts of New 
Mexico's business leaders, shaken up the education establishment and steamrolled 
his critics on the left and right, all while fashioning the philosophy of what 
he calls "a new progressive Democrat."

"It's basically not center, not left, not right, but basically forward," 
Richardson explained one morning over coffee at the governor's mansion. "What 
works? What helps people? What solves problems?"

As the Democratic Party struggles to find its way nationally, Richardson said 
the answer lies out West and with the nation's governors, who "see the daily 
challenges that people confront in their families, in their business and their 
communities," as he told newspaper publishers in the spring in San Francisco. 
"I come face to face with these people that I serve, and they're not worried 
about reforming the tax code or Social Security or some nebulous issue like 
judicial appointments."

"We cannot be a Washington, D.C.-based party," he added. "We tried that and 
it failed."

Richardson has a point. Four of the last five presidents were once governors. 
The nation's population — and the weight of the electoral college — is 
shifting South and West. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has 
vowed to make the party more competitive in states that voted to reelect 
President Bush, where a handful of Democratic governors — among them Arizona's Janet 
Napolitano, Montana's Brian Schweitzer and Richardson — have become totemic 
figures in the party's search for salvation.

Richardson, blessed with the prospect of easy reelection in 2006, is the only 
one among them now running for president. (Officially, he is merely keeping 
his options open.)

Straddling dual roles is nothing new for the 57-year-old born in Pasadena. He 
grew up in the embrace of two cultures, speaking Spanish with his 
Mexican-born mother and English with his Boston-bred father. He refers to "us" and "our 
community" before Latino audiences, but he also jokes about his distinctly 
Anglo surname.

All of which raises this question: With Latino clout growing from Los Angeles 
to New Hampshire to Washington is America ready to elect a Latino president?

If so, could his name be Richardson?

If politics worked like the futures market, there would be no hotter 
commodity today than Latino voters.

For decades, they were written off as a sleeping giant — huge but politically 
inert — in a catchphrase as patronizing as it was cliched.

Then came Proposition 187.

California's 1994 initiative targeting illegal immigration prompted a swift 
backlash, awakening politicians nationwide to the growing importance of the 
Latino vote. Congressional efforts to deny benefits to legal immigrants further 
energized the community, to the point that by 2000, candidates were spending 
unprecedented time and money courting Latino support.

Among those candidates was Texas Gov. George W. Bush. During the 2000 
presidential race he distanced himself from immigrant bashers and reached out to the 
parents of black and brown children by decrying "the soft bigotry of low 
expectations." His reward was 35% of the Latino vote, much better than the roughly 
20% that Republican Bob Dole got four years earlier.

But as they looked ahead, Bush strategists fretted that simply matching that 
performance would be insufficient to ensure reelection, given the growing 
Latino population. So the campaign set out to capture 38% to 40% of the Latino 
vote, which Bush, with his flag-and-family appeals, not only managed but possibly 
exceeded. (His actual percentage in 2004 is a source of considerable debate, 
based on different analyses.)

Democrats, who had enjoyed strong Latino support since the days of the New 
Deal, were stunned — and frightened.

Although voter turnout lags, the Latino community is a young one, with half 
the population younger than 27. Just as advertisers covet the youth market — 
figuring brand loyalty lasts a lifetime — political strategists believe that 
winning the support of young Latinos can ensure their backing for decades to 
come. "The first vote is always the hardest," said Matthew Dowd, who helped run 
Bush's reelection effort.

In New Mexico, Richardson thinks he can show Democrats the way not only to 
win back Latinos — "we've got to talk to them about education and homeownership 
and … economic growth" — but the way to revive the party nationally.

Thirty years ago, Richardson had an international studies degree from Tufts 
University and a staff job on Capitol Hill. But he dreaded the life of a 
Washington drone. So he set out to build a political career in the Southwest, a 
region he knew from family visits.

Growing up, Richardson split his time between Mexico City and New England; 
even now, certain words betray the inflections of a prep-schooled Yankee. As a 
high school pitcher, he was good enough to draw big-league interest. But a 
frowning father and a wrecked arm from too many curveballs denied him a shot at 
pro baseball. He discovered politics in college, when he was elected fraternity 
president. Along the way, he wed his high school sweetheart, Barbara; the two 
have been married for 32 years.

Richardson's arrival in New Mexico in 1978 was hardly auspicious. A month 
into his job with the state Democratic Party, he was fired in a feud between 
political rivals. But he soon landed a job as Democratic chief in Albuquerque, 
heading the state's biggest party organization.

In 1982, a new congressional district was carved out of northern New Mexico, 
and Richardson easily won the seat. Over the next 14 years, he built a 
relatively moderate voting record, supporting legal abortion, gays in the military 
and the death penalty while opposing most gun control and the 1991 Persian Gulf 
War.

But his greatest renown came as a self-selected international troubleshooter 
("undersecretary for thugs," in his words). He met with Cuban President Fidel 
Castro and then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, winning the release of 
political prisoners and two captive U.S. businessmen. He secured freedom for a downed 
U.S. pilot in North Korea and bartered a few tons of rice, four jeeps and 
nine radios for three Red Cross workers held by Sudanese rebels.

In 1997, Richardson joined the Clinton administration as U.N. ambassador. 
Many said he was the most laid-back diplomat they could recall; he worked the 
cafeteria like a political picnic and ambled into Security Council sessions in 
khakis and a blazer.

After a year and a half, Richardson left the U.N. to head the Energy 
Department. He kept his high profile in that bureaucratic backwater, though not all 
attention was favorable; Richardson was soon embroiled in a scandal over 
security lapses at the nation's nuclear facilities. Though he inherited many of the 
problems, Richardson was embarrassed when two computer hard drives with nuclear 
secrets went missing at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2000. The drives 
were found behind a copy machine, but not before Richardson had received an 
angry dressing-down on Capitol Hill.

Returning home when the Clinton administration ended, Richardson ran for 
governor in 2002, promising to use his national reputation and global ties to 
promote New Mexico and attract badly needed business to the state. He won the 
election in a romp, and Republicans are now struggling to find a serious candidate 
to face him in 2006.

New Mexico has long been one of the nation's poorest states, plagued by low 
wages and by high rates of alcoholism, violent crime and other ills. The 1990s 
boom that lifted its neighbors largely bypassed New Mexico, which combines a 
wild beauty with vast stretches of desolation. "It was a state that was 
relatively content with inaction," Richardson said, describing a welfare mentality 
that relied on federal spending.

Although the state remains troubled — "You don't turn around the Titanic in a 
day," said gubernatorial Chief of Staff David Contarino — things have 
definitely improved. Tourist revenue and movie production have soared, jobs have 
increased, the manufacturing base is growing, and entrepreneurs no longer have to 
leave New Mexico for start-up capital.

Luck helps. Oil and gas revenue has been gushing, filling the state's coffers 
and allowing Richardson to cut taxes, raise teacher salaries, boost education 
funding and still end the last fiscal year with a surplus.

Critics said he had built a structural deficit for future governors. And they 
accuse Richardson of sacrificing the needy to his ambitions.

"We all understand what's really going on here. Politics," New Mexico Voices 
for Children, a liberal advocacy group, charged in its spring newsletter. "The 
governor wants to be able to make certain claims that enhance his state and 
national profile." Richardson rejects that assertion.

The group isn't his only critic on the left.

Christine Trujillo, state AFL-CIO president, describes a "push-tug, 
love-hate" relationship with Richardson — "like a marriage." Though pleased with rising 
teacher salaries, she said that others who keep schools running, such as 
janitors and bus drivers, have not done nearly as well. State workers also had a 
rough time in contract talks. "People were disappointed," Trujillo said. "They 
thought we'd have a state of nirvana" with a Democratic governor.

Of course, hugging the middle is not a bad move for any Democrat with 
national ambitions. More serious doubts about Richardson center on his style, 
including the carefree — some say careless — attitude he sometimes has in public. 
(In political circles, it is usually phrased as doubts that Richardson has the 
"discipline" to run for president; he was famous in Washington for his ribald 
sense of humor and penchant for late-night, cigar-smoking conviviality.)

"He's a likable guy, a personable guy" who has "obviously been in a lot of 
roles," said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan campaign handicapper. The 
question, Rothenberg said, is: "Does he have the stature of a future president? Does 
he behave the way presidents ought to?"

Here in New Mexico, the loudest complaints are not about Richardson's 
freewheeling style, but his sometimes highhanded manner.

Police have learned not to mess with the governor when he barrels past in his 
luxury SUV at 100 mph. Republicans point to Richardson's extensive travels, 
expansive entourage and purchase of a $5.5-million state jet, and accuse him of 
running an imperial governorship, footed by taxpayers. The governor's 
spokesmen dismiss the charges.

Richardson's approach — essentially that he is boss and everyone should act 
accordingly — is typical of Washington. But it has been an unhappy revelation 
to many New Mexicans used to less confrontation and more collegiality. (The 
governor is no easier on staff; he frowns on time off and monitors the news 
releases issued by 20 state agencies.)

When members of a state board quarreled with Richardson, they found their 
budget slashed and operations exiled to a run-down building in Albuquerque. The 
governor made headlines by hollering at lobbyists who opposed his healthcare 
proposals. He generated additional negative press when he took a meat ax to 
projects sought by legislative critics.

"He does wield a pretty heavy stick," said Dan Foley, a Republican lawmaker 
from Roswell and one of the governor's leading nemeses. "Gov. Richardson wants 
you to be with him 100% of the time. If you're with him 99% of the time, 
you're his enemy."

But if the governor has run a bit roughshod, he won't apologize.

"Do I play hardball? I believe that if you're going to get something done, 
you have to be aggressive," he said. "I think some people resent the fact that 
we've had such unprecedented success. But am I vindictive personally? No."

Richardson has a prescription for Democrats.

"I think we should become the party of charter schools," he said. "I think we 
should be the party of higher teacher salaries, of narrowing the achievement 
gap, of basically saying we spend too much on administration and bureaucracy 
in our schools."

The talk of accountability, of a smaller, smarter government, sounds a lot 
like the last Democrat to win the White House — which is no coincidence. 
Richardson said he learned much from Clinton and owed him a debt of loyalty for 
putting Richardson in his Cabinet. (Not enough, though, to defer if Clinton's wife, 
New York's Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, runs for president. "I think it's 
wide open," Richardson said of the Democratic race. "There should be no stepping 
aside.")

Is the country ready for a Latino president? "I think America's a very 
tolerant nation," the governor replied. "I think Americans will embrace somebody 
that has values, wants to make a difference, they can connect with. Cares. Race 
and ethnicity are perhaps factors in some regions. But overall, I doubt that 
would be an issue."

Many agree — to a point.

Michael Madrid, a former California Republican Party strategist, believes 
Americans could embrace a Latino presidential candidate — so long as being Latino 
is just a part of his identity. "America's not ready for a Latino president; 
it's ready for a president who happens to be Latino," he said.

David Niven, an Ohio University expert on voting and ethnicity, said much the 
same thing, suggesting that voters could respond to a Latino candidate who 
came across in a reassuring, "ethnically neutral" way.

Which brings to mind a line that New Mexico's governor uses at his many 
out-of-state appearances — a joshing reference to his ambitions and the prospect of 
making history as the first Latino president: What else would you expect, he 
quips, from a guy named Richardson?

He may be on to something.

Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Times
  

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