Two stories in a row from New Mexico, where I used to live.
Today Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill ending the death penalty in that state. And here is a shocker-- the Governor's office over the past two days received over 8,000 contacts urging him to sign the bill and fewer than 3,000 telling him to keep the death penatly.
Other states that have no death penalty include Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The Supreme Court found that New York's death penalty statute was unconstitutional in 2004 and since then several attempts to put a new law on the books have been unsuccessful.
Providing security is a proper role of the state (and prisons help to do that) but I applaud this law because what we've seen is over 100 people who spent time on death row exonerated, often due to DNA testing or other technology that wasn't available at the time (or in some cases just by old fashioned gumshoe detective work; in Illinois Anthony Porter, who once came within two hours of execution was cleared after a class of Northwestern University Law Students tracked down the real murderer and proved that he, not Porter, was guilty.)
Given this number of flaws in the system, we have to ask ourselves very bluntly whether we want state governments that have already made scores of mistakes in capital murder cases to be in the business of killing people at all.
When the government has the authority to kill anybody, there is a chance that they will botch the job and not kill the right people.
And simple ineptitude is the benign scenario when this happens....
Showing posts with label Bill Richardson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill Richardson. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Saturday, November 29, 2008
I don't get why some Latinos are upset about Richardson cabinet appointment
I read an article today where some Hispanic leaders are upset that Governor Bill Richardson, who endorsed Obama (though late in the campaign, when it was clear which way the tide was moving) and dearly wanted the Secretary of State's job, will instead be getting a less prestigious and less influential cabinet post, that of Secretary of Commerce. Hillary Clinton will be the next Secretary of State.
Now I will give one point that the dissapointed Hispanic leaders are making. There is no question that Richardson is more qualified in terms of his foreign policy experience, having actually sat across the table from some pretty tough characters and hammered out real agreements with them. Clinton has never done that. But that isn't the same as saying that she can't, she is certainly smart and capable enough to do it (and she will of course have the advice of her husband, who has done plenty of direct negotiating.)
However, when I was working with the Richardson campaign (yes some longtime readers of this blog may recall that I was a former Richardson supporter,) I remember that polling never showed that he was getting near the support that Clinton was getting among Hispanics in states like California, even before he dropped out. His support among Hispanic voters rarely polled above 10%.
So my question is a simple one: How can a group of voters be upset that a candidate doesn't get a position, when they themselves never really got behind him (and the person they did support gets the position instead?)
There is no question that Bill Richardson broke new ground by becoming the first Hispanic to run for President in a major party primary. But I don't see how Obama is somehow obligated to choose him for Secretary of State based on some combination of his resume, his demographic and his endorsement that came so late it seemed opportunistic (Joe Biden, who at one time was also talked about as a potential Secretary of State did far better by not endorsing either Obama or Clinton at all.)
Now I will give one point that the dissapointed Hispanic leaders are making. There is no question that Richardson is more qualified in terms of his foreign policy experience, having actually sat across the table from some pretty tough characters and hammered out real agreements with them. Clinton has never done that. But that isn't the same as saying that she can't, she is certainly smart and capable enough to do it (and she will of course have the advice of her husband, who has done plenty of direct negotiating.)
However, when I was working with the Richardson campaign (yes some longtime readers of this blog may recall that I was a former Richardson supporter,) I remember that polling never showed that he was getting near the support that Clinton was getting among Hispanics in states like California, even before he dropped out. His support among Hispanic voters rarely polled above 10%.
So my question is a simple one: How can a group of voters be upset that a candidate doesn't get a position, when they themselves never really got behind him (and the person they did support gets the position instead?)
There is no question that Bill Richardson broke new ground by becoming the first Hispanic to run for President in a major party primary. But I don't see how Obama is somehow obligated to choose him for Secretary of State based on some combination of his resume, his demographic and his endorsement that came so late it seemed opportunistic (Joe Biden, who at one time was also talked about as a potential Secretary of State did far better by not endorsing either Obama or Clinton at all.)
Friday, April 04, 2008
Clinton campaign's obsession with Bill Richardson is not helping them.
A couple of weeks ago I put up a post on Bill Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama in which I described some of the angry reactions that came from Clinton supporters, especially James Carville's comment comparing Richardson to Judas Iscariot.
Things haven't died down either. This week it was reported that Bill Clinton, while meeting with a group of Super Delegates in California and being asked about Carville's comments, blew up, got red in the face and according to one participant 'went off like a grenade.' He was quoted as getting red in the face, shaking his finger and saying about Richardson, "He promised me five times to my face he wouldn't do that." Richardson has since denied that he ever promised Bill Clinton (or anyone else) that he wouldn't endorse Obama.
Well, in this game of he said/he said, one thing is clear-- at least one part of what Bill Clinton said is demonstrably false. While running for President himself, Richardson was clear that he was running to try and win the nomination on his own. He withdrew on January 10. CNN reported Tuesday that they had compared the two men's schedules since that time and found that the two men were in the same place only once since then-- on February 3 when they watched the Super Bowl together. So at most, Richardson COULD have only made such a promise one time, not five (since Bill Clinton clearly said "to my face," which to me pretty clearly indicates in person, not by phone, email or other messaging device.) Whether he made the promise on that occasion is an unprovable, but given that at least one part of Clinton's statement has already been shown to be less than truthful by the CNN sleuths, all other things being equal Richardson has more credibility on this than the former President.
More to the point though, the longer this goes on the worse it hurts Hillary Clinton. She is running against Barack Obama right now, not Bill Richardson. So no matter how bad her campaign and supporters make him look, they are taking their eye off the ball. Maybe it's little wonder that her lead in Pennsylvania, which just a week or two ago was polling as high as twenty points, is now less than half that much. Yeah, keep on campaigning against Bill Richardson. I can see the Obama campaign thinking, 'heh-heh-heh,' the longer this goes on.
It is true that the Richardson endorsement broke through a couple of weeks of static and has since led to a steady trickle of other super-delegates and influential party leaders endorsing Obama (including Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Minnesota Senator Amy Kobluchar, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal and former Indiana Congressman and 9/11 commission co-chair Lee Hamilton, in addition to a comment not quite rising to the level of an official endorsement by former President Jimmy Carter who strongly hinted that he will vote for Obama at the party convention.) But beating up on Richardson some more still won't turn off the tap on superdelegates declaring their intention to vote for Obama giving him some substitute for momentum during a six week stretch between primaries. So it's hard to see what the Clinton campaign has to gain from this.
Things haven't died down either. This week it was reported that Bill Clinton, while meeting with a group of Super Delegates in California and being asked about Carville's comments, blew up, got red in the face and according to one participant 'went off like a grenade.' He was quoted as getting red in the face, shaking his finger and saying about Richardson, "He promised me five times to my face he wouldn't do that." Richardson has since denied that he ever promised Bill Clinton (or anyone else) that he wouldn't endorse Obama.
Well, in this game of he said/he said, one thing is clear-- at least one part of what Bill Clinton said is demonstrably false. While running for President himself, Richardson was clear that he was running to try and win the nomination on his own. He withdrew on January 10. CNN reported Tuesday that they had compared the two men's schedules since that time and found that the two men were in the same place only once since then-- on February 3 when they watched the Super Bowl together. So at most, Richardson COULD have only made such a promise one time, not five (since Bill Clinton clearly said "to my face," which to me pretty clearly indicates in person, not by phone, email or other messaging device.) Whether he made the promise on that occasion is an unprovable, but given that at least one part of Clinton's statement has already been shown to be less than truthful by the CNN sleuths, all other things being equal Richardson has more credibility on this than the former President.
More to the point though, the longer this goes on the worse it hurts Hillary Clinton. She is running against Barack Obama right now, not Bill Richardson. So no matter how bad her campaign and supporters make him look, they are taking their eye off the ball. Maybe it's little wonder that her lead in Pennsylvania, which just a week or two ago was polling as high as twenty points, is now less than half that much. Yeah, keep on campaigning against Bill Richardson. I can see the Obama campaign thinking, 'heh-heh-heh,' the longer this goes on.
It is true that the Richardson endorsement broke through a couple of weeks of static and has since led to a steady trickle of other super-delegates and influential party leaders endorsing Obama (including Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Minnesota Senator Amy Kobluchar, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal and former Indiana Congressman and 9/11 commission co-chair Lee Hamilton, in addition to a comment not quite rising to the level of an official endorsement by former President Jimmy Carter who strongly hinted that he will vote for Obama at the party convention.) But beating up on Richardson some more still won't turn off the tap on superdelegates declaring their intention to vote for Obama giving him some substitute for momentum during a six week stretch between primaries. So it's hard to see what the Clinton campaign has to gain from this.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Richardson endorses Obama.
Thursday, Bill Richardson, who I supported for President until he dropped out, endorsed Barack Obama, who I switched to and who I actually voted for.
You'd think this post would therefore be completely laudatory. But it's not. In good faith I can't just jump up and down and yell about how happy I am about it. I'd love to but I have just a few nagging reservations, and they are best addressed by looking at some of the political angles.
It is true that I am very happy to see Richardson, who was criticized during the campaign for being indecisive (i.e. 'Yankees or Red Sox?') firmly committing himself to endorsing a candidate. It is true that I still respect Richardson (who I first met over twenty years ago when he was my congressman) and believe that he would do a fine job in any cabinet position, especially any that involved diplomacy, at which he has excelled. And it is true that I am glad that when he finally made a decision about choosing a candidate he chose Obama. That isn't easy to do. Bill Clinton reportedly got in his face and berated Richardson earlier in the campaign (not sure if it is the day the two of them pointedly watched the Super Bowl together) for not endorsing his wife then (asking whether two cabinet positions Richardson was appointed to during the Clinton administration was not enough to warrant an endorsement,) and the conversation that Richardson had with Hillary Clinton before he endorsed Obama was (according to Richardson, but reflecting what others have said about similar phone conversations), 'painful' and difficult. The sense of anger, frustration and resentment from the Clinton campaign is palpable, with Clinton friend and confidante James Carville noting that it happened just before Easter and comparing Richardson to Judas Iscariot and claiming that his 'betrayal' was for 'thirty pieces of silver.' It is clear that if Hillary beats the odds and ends up as President, Richardson won't be nominated for dogcatcher.
However I have to say that the quote by Richardson that he made his decision after hearing Obama's speech on race last week just doesn't feel right. It may well be that Richardson, after doing the delegate math and figuring out that Obama will most likely win, may have used the speech on race as the first major event that came along that he could reasonably cite as a reason to endorse Obama and hitch his wagon to the winning train. However, Richardson has always struck me as a good hard calculator and not one to get carried away with the emotion of the moment (one of the characteristics which has made him a good diplomat,) and as such I would much rather see him just go ahead and say so. Say he believes that Obama is going to be the nominee and that he is supporting him.
Richardson is rumored to want to be the Vice Presidential nominee, or if not that then Secretary of State.
He won't be the Vice Presidential nominee. Obama, assuming he wins the nomination, will need to unify the party. As such there will be a lot of pressure for him to accept Hillary Clinton as number two. If that doesn't happen (either because he resists the pressure or she refuses the job) then there are two somewhat contradictory schools of thought on how he could unify the party. One is to choose a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton if she doesn't want it herself, especially one who would help with the electoral math. Two men who are known to be on her short list, Senator (and former Governor) Evan Bayh of Indiana and Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio-- both of whom also have the executive experience that Obama lacks, would likely be at the top of that list. The other train of thought in terms of getting Hillary supporters to accept Obama is that many women have waited for a long time to have a female President. To obviously reach and choose a woman (as Walter Mondale did when he chose congresswoman-- yes, Geraldine Ferraro-- in 1984) would seem to be a pander and would likely turn off a lot of voters who see Obama as being above that kind of thing. However he could without reaching look for and choose a highly qualified female candidate, especially a Governor who has proven she can do the job as an executive and would therefore make a good running mate for Obama. That may be easier said than done though. Three of the four Democratic Governors whose names come up first, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Christine Gregoire of Washington and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, endorsed Obama much earlier in the campaign, and might not help with hard-core Clinton supporters who support Clinton for her positions rather than her gender (and there are many of them, in fact.) The fourth, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is a strong supporter of Clinton but runs afoul of the Constitutional requirement that if she became President she would have to be native-born (Granholm was born in Canada.) Uniting the party in the event that Hillary Clinton refuses to join the ticket or Obama feels that he can't accept her would be a problem for Obama, but it's not a problem the solution to which puts Bill Richardson on the radar screen in any way. For that matter, if Clinton-- after finishing a very strong second, were passed over in favor of the candidate who finished a very distant fourth and withdrew the day after the New Hampshire primary, that would probably be seen by Hillary and her supporters as the equivalent of a slap in the face, and with some justification. So the bottom line is that Richardson certainly won't be nominated to run for Vice President.
A much stronger likelihood is that Richardson is angling for the position of Secretary of State. He'd likely be very good at it too, based on his numerous diplomatic successes in all kinds of negotiations in the past. Richardson, in his position as a freelancing diplomat as well as U.N. ambassador during the Clinton administration, has successfully negotiated treaties with everyone from the dictatorship of North Korea to bands of thugs who have taken American hostages in remote and war-torn regions. Last year he negotiated a cease-fire in Darfur. Frankly, even if he had not endorsed Obama, Obama would be foolish not to pick Richardson for Secretary of State. Politically, Richardson may have the inside track on that job, especially if the other top contender is another former Presidential candidate, Joe Biden. Biden has been even more cautious about issuing an endorsement than Richardson, and while he has been the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, he has never personally gotten his hands dirty with the business of negotiating tough treaties in tough circumstances as Richardson has. Given Obama's inexperience in foreign policy, he needs the best Secretary of State he can get and that would be Bill Richardson.
So it's clear that Obama can give Richardson the position he wants. What Richardson brings is an appeal to Hispanic voters, a group that Obama has underperformed with. Further, by the timing of his annoucement, coming on virtually the same day as the 'passportgate' scandal which cast Obama in a role in which he was both the victimized party and able to forcefully but calmly demand an investigation, Richardson was able to give Obama two major news stories favorable to Obama within the same news cycle and blow Jeremiah Wright's sermons off the front page despite the best efforts of the right-wing media to keep them there. And in the news business, once news is old and replaced by new news, it doesn't tend to return unless there is something new to pull it back to top billing.
Clinton campaign manager Mark Penn said that Richardson's endorsement comes too late to really help Obama with Hispanic voters. Rarely do I agree with Mark Penn, but I think he has a point there. Nevada, New Mexico, California, Arizona and Texas have already voted (and all for Clinton). There is a small but possibly significant Hispanic concentration, oddly enough, in North Carolina (a state Obama is expected to win anyway) and some in Oregon, and then there is Puerto Rico's last-in-the-nation primary, but the truth is that the vast majority of Hispanic voters have already voted. Very likely, given the small margins by which Clinton won in both states, a Richardson endorsement and campaign on behalf of Obama in New Mexico and Texas would have swung both states to Obama but Richardson was too cautious and did not issue an endorsement in time for either state. However, Richardson could be a strong help to Obama if he does campaign in Puerto Rico, and in a general election may be just the antidote that Obama needs if he is willing to barnstorm for Obama, especially in his own state but also in other swing states.
But Richardson, in taking as long as he did to make the bold move, and appearing to worry too much about trying to please both sides (or perhaps it might be better said, trying to displease neither) until so late in the campaign, brought into sharp focus some of the weaknesses he had that probably hurt him during his own Presidential run.
You'd think this post would therefore be completely laudatory. But it's not. In good faith I can't just jump up and down and yell about how happy I am about it. I'd love to but I have just a few nagging reservations, and they are best addressed by looking at some of the political angles.
It is true that I am very happy to see Richardson, who was criticized during the campaign for being indecisive (i.e. 'Yankees or Red Sox?') firmly committing himself to endorsing a candidate. It is true that I still respect Richardson (who I first met over twenty years ago when he was my congressman) and believe that he would do a fine job in any cabinet position, especially any that involved diplomacy, at which he has excelled. And it is true that I am glad that when he finally made a decision about choosing a candidate he chose Obama. That isn't easy to do. Bill Clinton reportedly got in his face and berated Richardson earlier in the campaign (not sure if it is the day the two of them pointedly watched the Super Bowl together) for not endorsing his wife then (asking whether two cabinet positions Richardson was appointed to during the Clinton administration was not enough to warrant an endorsement,) and the conversation that Richardson had with Hillary Clinton before he endorsed Obama was (according to Richardson, but reflecting what others have said about similar phone conversations), 'painful' and difficult. The sense of anger, frustration and resentment from the Clinton campaign is palpable, with Clinton friend and confidante James Carville noting that it happened just before Easter and comparing Richardson to Judas Iscariot and claiming that his 'betrayal' was for 'thirty pieces of silver.' It is clear that if Hillary beats the odds and ends up as President, Richardson won't be nominated for dogcatcher.
However I have to say that the quote by Richardson that he made his decision after hearing Obama's speech on race last week just doesn't feel right. It may well be that Richardson, after doing the delegate math and figuring out that Obama will most likely win, may have used the speech on race as the first major event that came along that he could reasonably cite as a reason to endorse Obama and hitch his wagon to the winning train. However, Richardson has always struck me as a good hard calculator and not one to get carried away with the emotion of the moment (one of the characteristics which has made him a good diplomat,) and as such I would much rather see him just go ahead and say so. Say he believes that Obama is going to be the nominee and that he is supporting him.
Richardson is rumored to want to be the Vice Presidential nominee, or if not that then Secretary of State.
He won't be the Vice Presidential nominee. Obama, assuming he wins the nomination, will need to unify the party. As such there will be a lot of pressure for him to accept Hillary Clinton as number two. If that doesn't happen (either because he resists the pressure or she refuses the job) then there are two somewhat contradictory schools of thought on how he could unify the party. One is to choose a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton if she doesn't want it herself, especially one who would help with the electoral math. Two men who are known to be on her short list, Senator (and former Governor) Evan Bayh of Indiana and Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio-- both of whom also have the executive experience that Obama lacks, would likely be at the top of that list. The other train of thought in terms of getting Hillary supporters to accept Obama is that many women have waited for a long time to have a female President. To obviously reach and choose a woman (as Walter Mondale did when he chose congresswoman-- yes, Geraldine Ferraro-- in 1984) would seem to be a pander and would likely turn off a lot of voters who see Obama as being above that kind of thing. However he could without reaching look for and choose a highly qualified female candidate, especially a Governor who has proven she can do the job as an executive and would therefore make a good running mate for Obama. That may be easier said than done though. Three of the four Democratic Governors whose names come up first, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Christine Gregoire of Washington and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, endorsed Obama much earlier in the campaign, and might not help with hard-core Clinton supporters who support Clinton for her positions rather than her gender (and there are many of them, in fact.) The fourth, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is a strong supporter of Clinton but runs afoul of the Constitutional requirement that if she became President she would have to be native-born (Granholm was born in Canada.) Uniting the party in the event that Hillary Clinton refuses to join the ticket or Obama feels that he can't accept her would be a problem for Obama, but it's not a problem the solution to which puts Bill Richardson on the radar screen in any way. For that matter, if Clinton-- after finishing a very strong second, were passed over in favor of the candidate who finished a very distant fourth and withdrew the day after the New Hampshire primary, that would probably be seen by Hillary and her supporters as the equivalent of a slap in the face, and with some justification. So the bottom line is that Richardson certainly won't be nominated to run for Vice President.
A much stronger likelihood is that Richardson is angling for the position of Secretary of State. He'd likely be very good at it too, based on his numerous diplomatic successes in all kinds of negotiations in the past. Richardson, in his position as a freelancing diplomat as well as U.N. ambassador during the Clinton administration, has successfully negotiated treaties with everyone from the dictatorship of North Korea to bands of thugs who have taken American hostages in remote and war-torn regions. Last year he negotiated a cease-fire in Darfur. Frankly, even if he had not endorsed Obama, Obama would be foolish not to pick Richardson for Secretary of State. Politically, Richardson may have the inside track on that job, especially if the other top contender is another former Presidential candidate, Joe Biden. Biden has been even more cautious about issuing an endorsement than Richardson, and while he has been the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, he has never personally gotten his hands dirty with the business of negotiating tough treaties in tough circumstances as Richardson has. Given Obama's inexperience in foreign policy, he needs the best Secretary of State he can get and that would be Bill Richardson.
So it's clear that Obama can give Richardson the position he wants. What Richardson brings is an appeal to Hispanic voters, a group that Obama has underperformed with. Further, by the timing of his annoucement, coming on virtually the same day as the 'passportgate' scandal which cast Obama in a role in which he was both the victimized party and able to forcefully but calmly demand an investigation, Richardson was able to give Obama two major news stories favorable to Obama within the same news cycle and blow Jeremiah Wright's sermons off the front page despite the best efforts of the right-wing media to keep them there. And in the news business, once news is old and replaced by new news, it doesn't tend to return unless there is something new to pull it back to top billing.
Clinton campaign manager Mark Penn said that Richardson's endorsement comes too late to really help Obama with Hispanic voters. Rarely do I agree with Mark Penn, but I think he has a point there. Nevada, New Mexico, California, Arizona and Texas have already voted (and all for Clinton). There is a small but possibly significant Hispanic concentration, oddly enough, in North Carolina (a state Obama is expected to win anyway) and some in Oregon, and then there is Puerto Rico's last-in-the-nation primary, but the truth is that the vast majority of Hispanic voters have already voted. Very likely, given the small margins by which Clinton won in both states, a Richardson endorsement and campaign on behalf of Obama in New Mexico and Texas would have swung both states to Obama but Richardson was too cautious and did not issue an endorsement in time for either state. However, Richardson could be a strong help to Obama if he does campaign in Puerto Rico, and in a general election may be just the antidote that Obama needs if he is willing to barnstorm for Obama, especially in his own state but also in other swing states.
But Richardson, in taking as long as he did to make the bold move, and appearing to worry too much about trying to please both sides (or perhaps it might be better said, trying to displease neither) until so late in the campaign, brought into sharp focus some of the weaknesses he had that probably hurt him during his own Presidential run.
Monday, January 07, 2008
The reason why I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton in the primary.
Let me quote from a comment I just put up on a post on Althouse in response to a post she put up in which Bill Clinton is bemoaning the fact perception that people are voting for Obama because he is younger than Hillary Clinton.
I wrote,
She doesn't get it. Doesn't get it at all. Neither does he.
Age has nothing to do with why so many Democratic primary voters don't want her. Neither does gender.
As a typical Democratic primary voter, let me spell it out:
Seven years ago, I was excited that Hillary Clinton became a Senator. I'd read some of her books, and I felt that she would be a progressive voice for moving things forward in the United States Senate.
Then came her voting record. She voted a lot like Joe Lieberman. NCLB, Patriot I and Patriot II, the Bankruptcy bill, and most importantly the Iraq war resolution. Then this year, she had a chance she'd learned her lesson about voting for the Iraq war when a resolution came up that appears to grease the skids for a war with Iran. She also voted for that.
Now, I am left with two possibilities.
1. She believes in this stuff. In that case, she is too conservative for me, and maybe she should move to the Republican party (since she's voted with them when it mattered.)
2. She voted that way because she a) was looking at how to run to the center, thinking about the general election of 2008 all along, b) took primary voters like me for granted, thinking we'd all just vote for her automatically, and c) we can assume more of the same when she takes office, that she will keep placating the right so she can appear centrist for the election of 2012.
Either way, I want someone who will stand up and fight for the things I believe in. Now granted, Obama isn't perfectm for example Clinton is right when she attacks him for having shifted to supporting the Patriot II Act (for the record I started out supporting Bill Richardson, and having endorsed him will still vote and work for him unless he drops out before my state votes on Feb. 5) but I feel that Obama much more reflects my passionately felt positions that does Hillary Clinton.
Isn't that what a Democratic primary is for anyway? I assume that the Republicans will pick someone who reflects what they want, not just someone who some pollster or focus group tells them might pick off a few votes from indecisive Democrats.
In other words, my vote was Hillary's to lose. Seven years ago she's had it. But during the past seven years, she's lost it.
I wrote,
She doesn't get it. Doesn't get it at all. Neither does he.
Age has nothing to do with why so many Democratic primary voters don't want her. Neither does gender.
As a typical Democratic primary voter, let me spell it out:
Seven years ago, I was excited that Hillary Clinton became a Senator. I'd read some of her books, and I felt that she would be a progressive voice for moving things forward in the United States Senate.
Then came her voting record. She voted a lot like Joe Lieberman. NCLB, Patriot I and Patriot II, the Bankruptcy bill, and most importantly the Iraq war resolution. Then this year, she had a chance she'd learned her lesson about voting for the Iraq war when a resolution came up that appears to grease the skids for a war with Iran. She also voted for that.
Now, I am left with two possibilities.
1. She believes in this stuff. In that case, she is too conservative for me, and maybe she should move to the Republican party (since she's voted with them when it mattered.)
2. She voted that way because she a) was looking at how to run to the center, thinking about the general election of 2008 all along, b) took primary voters like me for granted, thinking we'd all just vote for her automatically, and c) we can assume more of the same when she takes office, that she will keep placating the right so she can appear centrist for the election of 2012.
Either way, I want someone who will stand up and fight for the things I believe in. Now granted, Obama isn't perfectm for example Clinton is right when she attacks him for having shifted to supporting the Patriot II Act (for the record I started out supporting Bill Richardson, and having endorsed him will still vote and work for him unless he drops out before my state votes on Feb. 5) but I feel that Obama much more reflects my passionately felt positions that does Hillary Clinton.
Isn't that what a Democratic primary is for anyway? I assume that the Republicans will pick someone who reflects what they want, not just someone who some pollster or focus group tells them might pick off a few votes from indecisive Democrats.
In other words, my vote was Hillary's to lose. Seven years ago she's had it. But during the past seven years, she's lost it.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Richardson has the best Iraq plan
Many of the other Democratic candidates have recently explained that they support leaving some troops in Iraq in order to prevent genocide, fight terror, keep the Kurds safe, etc.
They don't get it.
First, none of these require U.S. troops. There are certainly Shiites who kill Sunnis and Sunnis who kill Shiites in Iraq, but that is not genocide. It is a civil war. And genocide won't happen for one very basic reason-- Iraq is crawling with arms. Large scale massacre of all the followers of a group in a region (this is what genocide is) becomes impractical if the people targetted are even lightly armed-- you man ovewhelm them with force, but losing a soldier at every second or third house that they clear out would not be an acceptable rate of loss.
Second, the terrorists are there to fight us. And has recently been shown by some Sunnis turning on their former al-Qaeda allies, they don't want domination by foreign invaders. Neither us nor al-Qaeda.
Third, the Kurds were plenty autonomous and self-protecing for years without out putting troops on the ground. The only real threat they might face is Turkey's army to the north, but let's be honest here-- if the Iraqi Kurds ever want independence they have to prove that they are willing to live within the rules and mores of the world they are in. And for starters that would mean cracking down on people wanting to attack over the border into Turkey. In fact, I would join many in supporting the idea that Turkish Kurds should decide their future for themselves, but they have to renounce violence as a means to get there.
The bottom line though is that none of this requires any American troops. And if we leave troops there then the folks in Iraq who want to kill Americans will continue their work unabated. And sooner or later the troops we leave will be involved in combat and take casualties.
Far better to do something different. Let's get down a book that has likely never been dusted off in the past six years. The book of diplomacy.
They don't get it.
First, none of these require U.S. troops. There are certainly Shiites who kill Sunnis and Sunnis who kill Shiites in Iraq, but that is not genocide. It is a civil war. And genocide won't happen for one very basic reason-- Iraq is crawling with arms. Large scale massacre of all the followers of a group in a region (this is what genocide is) becomes impractical if the people targetted are even lightly armed-- you man ovewhelm them with force, but losing a soldier at every second or third house that they clear out would not be an acceptable rate of loss.
Second, the terrorists are there to fight us. And has recently been shown by some Sunnis turning on their former al-Qaeda allies, they don't want domination by foreign invaders. Neither us nor al-Qaeda.
Third, the Kurds were plenty autonomous and self-protecing for years without out putting troops on the ground. The only real threat they might face is Turkey's army to the north, but let's be honest here-- if the Iraqi Kurds ever want independence they have to prove that they are willing to live within the rules and mores of the world they are in. And for starters that would mean cracking down on people wanting to attack over the border into Turkey. In fact, I would join many in supporting the idea that Turkish Kurds should decide their future for themselves, but they have to renounce violence as a means to get there.
The bottom line though is that none of this requires any American troops. And if we leave troops there then the folks in Iraq who want to kill Americans will continue their work unabated. And sooner or later the troops we leave will be involved in combat and take casualties.
Far better to do something different. Let's get down a book that has likely never been dusted off in the past six years. The book of diplomacy.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
What is a 'trivial' candidate anyway?
That's a good question, following an open mic exchange between Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton and current third place candidate John Edwards at the conclusion of last week's NAACP debate. The exchange, according to CNN, went like this:
The open microphone caught the following exchange:
Clinton: “We’ve got to talk, because they are just being trivialized.”
Edwards: “They are not serious.”
Clinton: “No.”
Clinton: “I think there was an effort by our campaigns to do that. That got somehow detoured. We got to get back to it, because that’s all we’re going to do.”
Clinton: “Our guys should talk.”
This is insulting to those of us who plan to vote in the Democratic primary.
To begin with, the field of eight, including the two of them, plus Joseph Biden, Christopher Dodd, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson has already been 'selected' by the powers that be from among dozens of announced candidates. To cite one example (a ten year old who clearly knows the score), ever hear about Susie Flynn, Democratic candidate for President? I thought not. Of course the field of eight could be defended in that its members did meet certain qualifying standards before being invited to debates, having eiher been elected at some time to the United States Congress, the United States Senate or as Governor of a state (though Richardson is the only governor and he would qualify anyway as a former congressman.) But exceptions to that bar have been made in the past, as for example four years ago when former General Wesley Clark and civil rights leader Al Sharpton were included in the debates. However, one can certainly argue that members of congress or the Senate or state Governors have been close enough to the top that they have a realistic idea of what the Presidency entails and what it would take to win a campaign for President. Not 'trivial,' in other words. And yes, I do consider all of them to be serious candidates.
Further, among those eight, the only reason why Clinton, Barack Obama and Edwards are the front runners at all is because the national press gave them the most coverage, even before they announced. So the idea that they can claim that they are somehow 'more serious' than the rest of the candidates is also pretty insulting. They have better poll numbers and better fundraising numbers because the news organizations that cover politics assumed they would be the frontrunners before the campaign, which in term gave them higher name recognition which led to higher poll numbers and that in turn becomes a positive cycle of positive publicity, fundraising and polling (though if they don't meet expectations, that can just as quickly become a negative cycle-- just ask John McCain.) But as we get closer to the primary season, voters want to hear from all the candidates and make up their own minds, not just based on poll numbers. As it is, the fundraising advantage that the early frontrunners have will still give them an advantage early next year (the meaningful primary season this year runs from mid-January through February 5). But even a candidate who is now buried in the polls can and has jumped up and made a move at the right moment. Heck, Edwards of all people should know that, since he came from way behind just to finish second in 2004. For that matter, while Clinton is clearly in first place at this point and Obama is clearly in second place in the Democratic primary field, Edwards' hold on third place, while still a given, is not all that secure as Bill Richardson has been moving upward for the past couple of months to the point that he is now much closer to Edwards than he is to Biden, Dodd, Kucinich or Gravel, the neighborhood where his poll numbers were residing about three months ago.
What this shows really is that there is a certain amount of conceit among some of the front runners that 'they' are 'it.' Though to his credit, Obama kept his distance from that exchange between Clinton and Edwards.
And as we all know, pride cometh before the fall.
The open microphone caught the following exchange:
Clinton: “We’ve got to talk, because they are just being trivialized.”
Edwards: “They are not serious.”
Clinton: “No.”
Clinton: “I think there was an effort by our campaigns to do that. That got somehow detoured. We got to get back to it, because that’s all we’re going to do.”
Clinton: “Our guys should talk.”
This is insulting to those of us who plan to vote in the Democratic primary.
To begin with, the field of eight, including the two of them, plus Joseph Biden, Christopher Dodd, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson has already been 'selected' by the powers that be from among dozens of announced candidates. To cite one example (a ten year old who clearly knows the score), ever hear about Susie Flynn, Democratic candidate for President? I thought not. Of course the field of eight could be defended in that its members did meet certain qualifying standards before being invited to debates, having eiher been elected at some time to the United States Congress, the United States Senate or as Governor of a state (though Richardson is the only governor and he would qualify anyway as a former congressman.) But exceptions to that bar have been made in the past, as for example four years ago when former General Wesley Clark and civil rights leader Al Sharpton were included in the debates. However, one can certainly argue that members of congress or the Senate or state Governors have been close enough to the top that they have a realistic idea of what the Presidency entails and what it would take to win a campaign for President. Not 'trivial,' in other words. And yes, I do consider all of them to be serious candidates.
Further, among those eight, the only reason why Clinton, Barack Obama and Edwards are the front runners at all is because the national press gave them the most coverage, even before they announced. So the idea that they can claim that they are somehow 'more serious' than the rest of the candidates is also pretty insulting. They have better poll numbers and better fundraising numbers because the news organizations that cover politics assumed they would be the frontrunners before the campaign, which in term gave them higher name recognition which led to higher poll numbers and that in turn becomes a positive cycle of positive publicity, fundraising and polling (though if they don't meet expectations, that can just as quickly become a negative cycle-- just ask John McCain.) But as we get closer to the primary season, voters want to hear from all the candidates and make up their own minds, not just based on poll numbers. As it is, the fundraising advantage that the early frontrunners have will still give them an advantage early next year (the meaningful primary season this year runs from mid-January through February 5). But even a candidate who is now buried in the polls can and has jumped up and made a move at the right moment. Heck, Edwards of all people should know that, since he came from way behind just to finish second in 2004. For that matter, while Clinton is clearly in first place at this point and Obama is clearly in second place in the Democratic primary field, Edwards' hold on third place, while still a given, is not all that secure as Bill Richardson has been moving upward for the past couple of months to the point that he is now much closer to Edwards than he is to Biden, Dodd, Kucinich or Gravel, the neighborhood where his poll numbers were residing about three months ago.
What this shows really is that there is a certain amount of conceit among some of the front runners that 'they' are 'it.' Though to his credit, Obama kept his distance from that exchange between Clinton and Edwards.
And as we all know, pride cometh before the fall.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
I wanted to say this but obviously Bill Richardson is on my wavelength
It looks like Richardson day today. Following up the last post, he had the following press release on George Bush's speech. I had been planning to blog about the President's speech, but Gov. Bill's press release says it better than I could have:
"I strongly oppose any plan to increase American troop levels in Iraq. Sending more American troops will not make us safer. It will only add to the sectarian violence that is already tearing Iraq apart. I am also very concerned with this plan’s impact on our overburdened National Guard forces, which already compose half of our forces in Iraq.
The only surge we need in Iraq is a diplomatic one. We need to withdraw American troops from Iraq this year, redeploy our men and women to Afghanistan and other international terrorism hotspots, and reinvigorate our diplomacy throughout the Middle East. We need a political solution to the Iraq crisis, not a military one."
Amen.
"I strongly oppose any plan to increase American troop levels in Iraq. Sending more American troops will not make us safer. It will only add to the sectarian violence that is already tearing Iraq apart. I am also very concerned with this plan’s impact on our overburdened National Guard forces, which already compose half of our forces in Iraq.
The only surge we need in Iraq is a diplomatic one. We need to withdraw American troops from Iraq this year, redeploy our men and women to Afghanistan and other international terrorism hotspots, and reinvigorate our diplomacy throughout the Middle East. We need a political solution to the Iraq crisis, not a military one."
Amen.
We need a diplomat, not a warrior in the White House.
What if on the eve of George Bush's announcement of a new war plan for Iraq, peace broke out someplace instead?
Well, maybe it is. Several days ago Bill Richardson was asked by the Save Darfur Coalition to go to Darfure and try to arrange a cease fire so that the U.N. could start working there. The reason they asked Richardson is that he has a long track record of success in everything from hostage negotiations to representing U.S. interests as a former U.N. ambassador.
According to a press release from Bill Richardon's office
KHARTOUM, SUDAN – New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson today announced that he has secured a commitment from Sudanese President Omer Hassan Al Bashir to agree to a 60-day cessation of hostilities in the Darfur region to allow for a new political process under the Darfur Peace Agreement and the auspices of the African Union and the United Nations. Governor Richardson also spoke this week with rebel leaders who said they would agree to a cease-fire. If all parties follow through with the cease-fire, the A.U. and the U.N. will convene a Peace Summit on March 15 under the framework of the peace agreement.
Governor Richardson also secured the following commitments from President Al Bashir:
· Agreed not to have the National military aircraft painted in white markings normally reserved for international organizations.
· Agreed that government forces would attempt to improve security conditions in all areas of Darfur with special emphasis on El Geneina, and would provide protection to food and other humanitarian convoys.
· Agreed to expedite procedures for entry visas for all humanitarian aid workers as well as goods. He also agreed to terminate the requirement of exit visas for humanitarian aid workers.
· Agreed to allow and facilitate travel by journalists from all over the world to Darfur.
· Governor Richardson and President Al Bashir reiterated that gender-based violence and such crimes must be condemned and prosecuted regardless of which party or organization was responsible. President Bashir said he would welcome a significant contribution of female members to the AU/UN hybrid operations. In addition the Justice Minister offered analyze and extend existing efforts to support Sudanese women against all gender-based violence.
I hope that this 60 day cease-fire does indeed lead to an extended peace negotiation. But considering it was patched together by an American peace coalition and a guy whose actual power ends a few miles east of Clovis, it makes one wonder what the White House and George W. Bush could accomplish if they focused their efforts on diplomacy instead of making war.
One big reason why I support Bill Richardson if he does run for President is because after the big mess that the next President will inherit both in Iraq and internationally, we will need the best diplomat in the White House that we can get, and I believe that Bill Richardson is about the only candidate running or likely to run who has proven that he could be that diplomat.
Well, maybe it is. Several days ago Bill Richardson was asked by the Save Darfur Coalition to go to Darfure and try to arrange a cease fire so that the U.N. could start working there. The reason they asked Richardson is that he has a long track record of success in everything from hostage negotiations to representing U.S. interests as a former U.N. ambassador.
According to a press release from Bill Richardon's office
KHARTOUM, SUDAN – New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson today announced that he has secured a commitment from Sudanese President Omer Hassan Al Bashir to agree to a 60-day cessation of hostilities in the Darfur region to allow for a new political process under the Darfur Peace Agreement and the auspices of the African Union and the United Nations. Governor Richardson also spoke this week with rebel leaders who said they would agree to a cease-fire. If all parties follow through with the cease-fire, the A.U. and the U.N. will convene a Peace Summit on March 15 under the framework of the peace agreement.
Governor Richardson also secured the following commitments from President Al Bashir:
· Agreed not to have the National military aircraft painted in white markings normally reserved for international organizations.
· Agreed that government forces would attempt to improve security conditions in all areas of Darfur with special emphasis on El Geneina, and would provide protection to food and other humanitarian convoys.
· Agreed to expedite procedures for entry visas for all humanitarian aid workers as well as goods. He also agreed to terminate the requirement of exit visas for humanitarian aid workers.
· Agreed to allow and facilitate travel by journalists from all over the world to Darfur.
· Governor Richardson and President Al Bashir reiterated that gender-based violence and such crimes must be condemned and prosecuted regardless of which party or organization was responsible. President Bashir said he would welcome a significant contribution of female members to the AU/UN hybrid operations. In addition the Justice Minister offered analyze and extend existing efforts to support Sudanese women against all gender-based violence.
I hope that this 60 day cease-fire does indeed lead to an extended peace negotiation. But considering it was patched together by an American peace coalition and a guy whose actual power ends a few miles east of Clovis, it makes one wonder what the White House and George W. Bush could accomplish if they focused their efforts on diplomacy instead of making war.
One big reason why I support Bill Richardson if he does run for President is because after the big mess that the next President will inherit both in Iraq and internationally, we will need the best diplomat in the White House that we can get, and I believe that Bill Richardson is about the only candidate running or likely to run who has proven that he could be that diplomat.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Why it makes sense in Arizona (and elsewhere) to support Bill Richardson
Preface: This post is part of a series started by Andrea, on her challenge to write about why a Bill Richardson Presidency would be good for your state.
I just posted a link to an online poll. You may want to know who I voted for. I voted for Bill Richardson.
There are a lot of reasons for this. One reason is because I've actually had the chance to watch Governor Richardson for more than twenty years, since he was my Congressman while I was living in Socorro, New Mexico. In fact I've met him at least a couple of times (though I doubt if he remembers the meetings because they were very brief) but I do remember a town-hall type of meeting that he held there on the end of the Rural Electrification Administration (which was announced by the Reagan administration in 1986, claiming that the job was '99% complete'). Governor Richardson was against ending it until the job was 100% done, as the original promise had been when the REA was created in 1935. And that's the way he is. Where I live now, in northeastern Arizona, I have met a lot of people living on the Navajo reservation who don't have electricity; despite the objections of Bill Richardson and a few others, the Reagan administration unfortunately won that battle-- so millions of Americans in hundreds of communities still are not on the electric grid (even though it really would not take all that big an investment to finish it). But Bill Richardson stood out to me then as a thoughtful man who was willing to take on even battles that didn't make headlines, like that one.
Another reason is that living in Arizona, I'd have to say that Bill Richardson understands our issues in a way much different from all the other candidates in the race. There is more to the term 'neighbor' than just living next door. Your neighbor has pretty much the same perspective as you do on a lot of things in life; the view from your neighbor's house is much the same as it is from yours. If the street needs to be fixed or it snows or a stray dog is getting into people's garbage, it is something that you go through and deal with together with your neighbor. Governor Richardson, to begin with, understands the unique issues involved with matters like tribal sovereignty, water issues and the border much more than, say, a Clinton of New York, an Obama of Illinois or an Edwards of North Carolina. In fact, of all the announced or likely major Democratic candidates, only Clark (of Arkansas-- right on the Mississippi river) and Richardson are from anywhere west of the Mississippi at all-- and Governor Richardson is the only one who is from a place where water generally even is an issue.
Governor Richardson has also taken a balanced approach to the border, of the type that is favored by most Arizonans. At a time when most national politicians-- of both parties-- are struggling to find themselves on the issue, Bill Richardson seems to have a good handle on it. Last year, together with our own Governor, Janet Napolitano, Governor Richardson announced a state of emergency along the border which allowed for the stationing of the National Guard along the border in order to enhance border security. At the same time he has opposed building a wall along the border. That fits the views of most Arizonans. The Arizonans who took the hardest lines on immigration-- Gubernatorial nominee Len Munsil, Attorney General nominee Bill Montgomery, Congressional candidate Randy Graf, and Congressman J.D. Hayworth, all lost in their election bids this year. The reason is plain-- other than the Minutemen and a few other loonies out there, people don't want a wall around the country. In Arizona, as in New Mexico, the ability of people and goods to pass over the border easily helps the economy and keeps thousands of people employed. Many businesses near the border make their money from trade with, through and in Mexico. Former Republican congressman Jim Kolbe understood this, as does Republican congressman Jeff Flake. So do Democrats like Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords, who beat Graf handily and will succeed Kolbe. They understand that Mexico is a partner, not an enemy. And Bill Richardson also understands this.
Further, what a lot of politicians don't understand about immigration is that the whole border issue is tied up with family. Many families run the gamut, with family members who are U.S. citizens, family members living happily in Latin America, and perhaps with family members who are here legally or illegally as aliens. So when people talk about building a wall or making being here without documents a felony, it is a personal issue that strikes to the core of family values. I know this is true in my own family. My father's family has been here since 1630 (in fact I had an ancestor who was a ship's chandler in Southampton who rented the Mayflower to the pilgrims, and himself came over ten years later.) My mother's parents were both Ellis Island immigrants during the early part of the last century. I have a cousin (on my father's side) who is today married to a Latin American man (he is a legal resident) and they go back every couple of years to visit his parents and other family members still living there. I know he has other family members living in the United States, and I haven't asked what their immigration status is (because it doesn't matter to me-- if I meet one of them then they are my family by marriage, and whether they have a green card or not won't change the family relation.) Bill Richardson's mother was from Mexico, so he certainly understands the family issues like no one else who is running. And further, whether we like it or not, the relations the U.S. has with Mexico are more important than the relations the U.S. has right now with probably any other country in the world. Geography, history and family have made it that way. Both Bill Richardson's knowledge of issues, his knowledge of Mexico and his negotiation skills would make him the best choice for someone who could work out a plan with Mexico that would secure the border, get a handle on who is going in and out and allow the free flow of trade and legal immigrants across the border. Stopping terrorists, criminals, drugs and maybe even WMD at the border won't work unless we have cooperation with Mexico, and Bill Richardson is a guy who I think can get it.
Water is another critical issue in the Southwest. We have a rapidly expanding population in Arizona (in fact Arizona just recently outpaced Nevada in this category to become the fastest growing state in the nation), and the limit on how far it can expand is dependent on one thing more than anything else: the water supply. New Mexico is also experiencing rapid growth (I went back with my wife a couple of years ago to visit Moriarty and Los Lunas, communities where we used to live, and was amazed at the growth that has occurred in both places.) The water issues in New Mexico, if less stressing than they are in Arizona, are very much the same. In 2003, a dry year, Governor Richardson was willing to endure the heat from outraged boaters and others when he released 122,500 acre feet instead of the expected 217,000 from Elephant Butte reservoir. While he has since visited the area and funded classes on boating safety and other issues, his decision then showed that 1) he understands water limitations, and 2) he is willing to make an unpopular decision that he thinks is right even when it costs him political support; that's a rarity in a politician these days.
Bill Richardson has always respected the Native American tribes in New Mexico. He hasn't tried to interfere with the free exercise of tribal soverignty, and (as I mentioned earlier) he is aware of the fact that on some reservations the electric grid was never completed, and felt that it should have. I am involved right now with a project to bring electricity to a community that has been waiting for decades to receive it, and my belief is that if Bill Richardson becomes President this issue, and others on reservations (such as the high numbers of meth labs) will be addressed, but in a way that respects and works with, rather than dictates to the sovereign governments that exist on the reservations.
Those are some reasons specific to Arizona that I support Bill Richardson, and believe that if it came to it he is the one Democrat who might be able to force John McCain, if he is the GOP nominee, to campaign at home (particularly with the McCain-mafia connection that is likely to come up sooner or later). There are some other reasons as well, that would apply no matter where I lived. The biggest one, now that we see the disastrous consequences in Iraq of our policy of unilateralism and the doctrine of 'pre-emptive war,' is that Bill Richardson's foreign policy (and he has extensive experience in the area) is based on diplomacy and peaceful resolution of conflict. That doesn't mean that he couldn't make a hard decision if he had to-- for example, in a speech to the U.N. in Stockholm in 1998 then-U.N. ambassador Richardson, speaking on behalf of the Clinton administration policy, said that it was possible that use of force might be needed to get Iraq to comply with U.N. sanctions (which the threat of did in fact get Saddam Hussein to let the inspectors back in before President Bush decided that he would rather just unilaterally ignore that the Iraqis had done what he asked and invade anyway.) Bill Richardson is a man of peace though and I know from having watched him for twenty years (during which time he has engaged in successful hostage negotiations and other negotiations with some pretty dangerous and unsavory characters) that he would consider war as a last resort only, and only if all other options for resolving a situation have failed. Further, he brings something that is sorely needed at this time-- a voice that is respected in the world and would begin to return the U.S. to a position of leadership in the world. No other candidate, of either party has the credentials and respect around the world that Bill Richardson has that will enable him to do the long, hard job of repairing America's reputation in the world and re-establishing America's moral authority to lead.
Bill Richardson also is innovative and willing to use the Government to help ordinary people. One example of this was his landmark initiative for providing a quarter million dollars of life insurance for each member of the New Mexico National Guard, including those deployed in Iraq. The effect of this was to eliminate one of the main concerns that our soldiers have-- worrying about how their loved ones will get along if they don't come back, and allow them to focus on the task at hand. The innovation by Richardson eventually embarrassed President Bush into doing the same thing on a national level.
New Mexico has also always been a very poor state with thousands of people in grinding poverty. It's still a poor state, but with Richardson's leadership as governor it is starting to grow and inch up on all those lists where it has been at or near the bottom for decades. New Mexico is blessed with a budget surplus again this year-- largely because of Richardson's willingness to resist the urge to throw money at problems while still increasing funding for specific areas to address specific and well-defined deficiencies. He has cut a few taxes in New Mexico, but the taxes he has cut-- like sales tax on things like groceries and medical care-- really are targetted towards everyone, not just the wealthy.
I just posted a link to an online poll. You may want to know who I voted for. I voted for Bill Richardson.
There are a lot of reasons for this. One reason is because I've actually had the chance to watch Governor Richardson for more than twenty years, since he was my Congressman while I was living in Socorro, New Mexico. In fact I've met him at least a couple of times (though I doubt if he remembers the meetings because they were very brief) but I do remember a town-hall type of meeting that he held there on the end of the Rural Electrification Administration (which was announced by the Reagan administration in 1986, claiming that the job was '99% complete'). Governor Richardson was against ending it until the job was 100% done, as the original promise had been when the REA was created in 1935. And that's the way he is. Where I live now, in northeastern Arizona, I have met a lot of people living on the Navajo reservation who don't have electricity; despite the objections of Bill Richardson and a few others, the Reagan administration unfortunately won that battle-- so millions of Americans in hundreds of communities still are not on the electric grid (even though it really would not take all that big an investment to finish it). But Bill Richardson stood out to me then as a thoughtful man who was willing to take on even battles that didn't make headlines, like that one.
Another reason is that living in Arizona, I'd have to say that Bill Richardson understands our issues in a way much different from all the other candidates in the race. There is more to the term 'neighbor' than just living next door. Your neighbor has pretty much the same perspective as you do on a lot of things in life; the view from your neighbor's house is much the same as it is from yours. If the street needs to be fixed or it snows or a stray dog is getting into people's garbage, it is something that you go through and deal with together with your neighbor. Governor Richardson, to begin with, understands the unique issues involved with matters like tribal sovereignty, water issues and the border much more than, say, a Clinton of New York, an Obama of Illinois or an Edwards of North Carolina. In fact, of all the announced or likely major Democratic candidates, only Clark (of Arkansas-- right on the Mississippi river) and Richardson are from anywhere west of the Mississippi at all-- and Governor Richardson is the only one who is from a place where water generally even is an issue.
Governor Richardson has also taken a balanced approach to the border, of the type that is favored by most Arizonans. At a time when most national politicians-- of both parties-- are struggling to find themselves on the issue, Bill Richardson seems to have a good handle on it. Last year, together with our own Governor, Janet Napolitano, Governor Richardson announced a state of emergency along the border which allowed for the stationing of the National Guard along the border in order to enhance border security. At the same time he has opposed building a wall along the border. That fits the views of most Arizonans. The Arizonans who took the hardest lines on immigration-- Gubernatorial nominee Len Munsil, Attorney General nominee Bill Montgomery, Congressional candidate Randy Graf, and Congressman J.D. Hayworth, all lost in their election bids this year. The reason is plain-- other than the Minutemen and a few other loonies out there, people don't want a wall around the country. In Arizona, as in New Mexico, the ability of people and goods to pass over the border easily helps the economy and keeps thousands of people employed. Many businesses near the border make their money from trade with, through and in Mexico. Former Republican congressman Jim Kolbe understood this, as does Republican congressman Jeff Flake. So do Democrats like Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords, who beat Graf handily and will succeed Kolbe. They understand that Mexico is a partner, not an enemy. And Bill Richardson also understands this.
Further, what a lot of politicians don't understand about immigration is that the whole border issue is tied up with family. Many families run the gamut, with family members who are U.S. citizens, family members living happily in Latin America, and perhaps with family members who are here legally or illegally as aliens. So when people talk about building a wall or making being here without documents a felony, it is a personal issue that strikes to the core of family values. I know this is true in my own family. My father's family has been here since 1630 (in fact I had an ancestor who was a ship's chandler in Southampton who rented the Mayflower to the pilgrims, and himself came over ten years later.) My mother's parents were both Ellis Island immigrants during the early part of the last century. I have a cousin (on my father's side) who is today married to a Latin American man (he is a legal resident) and they go back every couple of years to visit his parents and other family members still living there. I know he has other family members living in the United States, and I haven't asked what their immigration status is (because it doesn't matter to me-- if I meet one of them then they are my family by marriage, and whether they have a green card or not won't change the family relation.) Bill Richardson's mother was from Mexico, so he certainly understands the family issues like no one else who is running. And further, whether we like it or not, the relations the U.S. has with Mexico are more important than the relations the U.S. has right now with probably any other country in the world. Geography, history and family have made it that way. Both Bill Richardson's knowledge of issues, his knowledge of Mexico and his negotiation skills would make him the best choice for someone who could work out a plan with Mexico that would secure the border, get a handle on who is going in and out and allow the free flow of trade and legal immigrants across the border. Stopping terrorists, criminals, drugs and maybe even WMD at the border won't work unless we have cooperation with Mexico, and Bill Richardson is a guy who I think can get it.
Water is another critical issue in the Southwest. We have a rapidly expanding population in Arizona (in fact Arizona just recently outpaced Nevada in this category to become the fastest growing state in the nation), and the limit on how far it can expand is dependent on one thing more than anything else: the water supply. New Mexico is also experiencing rapid growth (I went back with my wife a couple of years ago to visit Moriarty and Los Lunas, communities where we used to live, and was amazed at the growth that has occurred in both places.) The water issues in New Mexico, if less stressing than they are in Arizona, are very much the same. In 2003, a dry year, Governor Richardson was willing to endure the heat from outraged boaters and others when he released 122,500 acre feet instead of the expected 217,000 from Elephant Butte reservoir. While he has since visited the area and funded classes on boating safety and other issues, his decision then showed that 1) he understands water limitations, and 2) he is willing to make an unpopular decision that he thinks is right even when it costs him political support; that's a rarity in a politician these days.
Bill Richardson has always respected the Native American tribes in New Mexico. He hasn't tried to interfere with the free exercise of tribal soverignty, and (as I mentioned earlier) he is aware of the fact that on some reservations the electric grid was never completed, and felt that it should have. I am involved right now with a project to bring electricity to a community that has been waiting for decades to receive it, and my belief is that if Bill Richardson becomes President this issue, and others on reservations (such as the high numbers of meth labs) will be addressed, but in a way that respects and works with, rather than dictates to the sovereign governments that exist on the reservations.
Those are some reasons specific to Arizona that I support Bill Richardson, and believe that if it came to it he is the one Democrat who might be able to force John McCain, if he is the GOP nominee, to campaign at home (particularly with the McCain-mafia connection that is likely to come up sooner or later). There are some other reasons as well, that would apply no matter where I lived. The biggest one, now that we see the disastrous consequences in Iraq of our policy of unilateralism and the doctrine of 'pre-emptive war,' is that Bill Richardson's foreign policy (and he has extensive experience in the area) is based on diplomacy and peaceful resolution of conflict. That doesn't mean that he couldn't make a hard decision if he had to-- for example, in a speech to the U.N. in Stockholm in 1998 then-U.N. ambassador Richardson, speaking on behalf of the Clinton administration policy, said that it was possible that use of force might be needed to get Iraq to comply with U.N. sanctions (which the threat of did in fact get Saddam Hussein to let the inspectors back in before President Bush decided that he would rather just unilaterally ignore that the Iraqis had done what he asked and invade anyway.) Bill Richardson is a man of peace though and I know from having watched him for twenty years (during which time he has engaged in successful hostage negotiations and other negotiations with some pretty dangerous and unsavory characters) that he would consider war as a last resort only, and only if all other options for resolving a situation have failed. Further, he brings something that is sorely needed at this time-- a voice that is respected in the world and would begin to return the U.S. to a position of leadership in the world. No other candidate, of either party has the credentials and respect around the world that Bill Richardson has that will enable him to do the long, hard job of repairing America's reputation in the world and re-establishing America's moral authority to lead.
Bill Richardson also is innovative and willing to use the Government to help ordinary people. One example of this was his landmark initiative for providing a quarter million dollars of life insurance for each member of the New Mexico National Guard, including those deployed in Iraq. The effect of this was to eliminate one of the main concerns that our soldiers have-- worrying about how their loved ones will get along if they don't come back, and allow them to focus on the task at hand. The innovation by Richardson eventually embarrassed President Bush into doing the same thing on a national level.
New Mexico has also always been a very poor state with thousands of people in grinding poverty. It's still a poor state, but with Richardson's leadership as governor it is starting to grow and inch up on all those lists where it has been at or near the bottom for decades. New Mexico is blessed with a budget surplus again this year-- largely because of Richardson's willingness to resist the urge to throw money at problems while still increasing funding for specific areas to address specific and well-defined deficiencies. He has cut a few taxes in New Mexico, but the taxes he has cut-- like sales tax on things like groceries and medical care-- really are targetted towards everyone, not just the wealthy.
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