Richardson at Google

Filed under: Politics
5 Comments

New Mexico Governor and Presidential candidate Bill Richardson spoke at Google the other day; the video is now available on YouTube. I've posted a link to that, and a couple comments of my own, in my Presidential candidates at Google entry; after some waffling, I think I'm going to post all future links to such videos as comments to that entry, rather than making them entries of their own, so that if someone shows up at that page via a search, they'll find all the links, not just the first two.

5 Responses to “Richardson at Google”

  1. Vardibidian

    On paper, Gov. Richardson should be my candidate. I was very disappointed when he wasn’t chosen to run with either of the last two Democratic Presidential candidates; he seems like he would be a very good vice-president in addition to being an asset on a ticket. The problem is that (a) anyone who can’t get more support than he is getting shouldn’t be my Party’s choice to run what will be a very tough general election, (2) there appear to be some … issues … with his personal manner with women, which may be a symptom of some rather serious character issues, may mean nothing, and may not even be true, and (iii) somehow I don’t like him as much as I want to.

    Thanks for the links, Jed. I keep planning to watch the videos, and I probably will actually watch them sometime. Sad but true, it’s probably more entertaining for me than anything else on Google Video.

    Thanks,
    -V.

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  2. Jed

    It occurred to me during his discussion of the diplomatic steps he would take as President that he sounded like he was very qualified to be Secretary of State. So maybe that would be a good role for him to get him wider name recognition, preparatory to a later White House bid….

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  3. Vardibidian

    The cabinet is not a good stepping-stone to the presidency, actually. Well, the route from the cabinet to a Governor’s office back to the White House is possible, but Gov. Richardson’s already halfway along that route.

    In the past century or so, the major parties have nominated (a) Vice-Presidents, (2) Governors, and (iii) Senators. And Dwight Eisenhower. And Herbert Hoover. And Wendell Willkie. And John Davis, who had been Solicitor General and US Representative, and who I don’t think I’d ever heard of before double-checking the list. And in 1908, it was Taft against Bryan. As for going from the Cabinet to a Vice-Presidential nomination, Dick Cheney really only did that because he was in charge of deciding who the nominee would be. Henry Wallace went from Secretary of Agriculture to the OVP, after FDR turfed John Nance Garner, but that’s another bizarre situation where the incumbent VP ran against the incumbent P, so the victorious P needed a new VP. Sargent Shriver got picked in a panic after Thomas Eagleton was turfed. Other than that, since the war, VP nominees have come out of the Senate, the House of Representatives, or a Governor’s office, and you will notice that the three exceptions did not go on to the Presidency. Yet.

    But I would rather have Gov. Richardson be an excellent Secretary of State and never be President than have a lousy Secretary of State for four years and then have Gov. Richardson win the White House in 2012.

    Thanks,
    -V.

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  4. Jay Hartman

    Here’s a can’t miss dem ticket: Richardson and Obama, with Obama at the top. Richardson came to our office too, a few months ago. imho, (he DID NOT say this to us) Richardson is really running for VP. He knows that Obama and Hillary are not *both* going to implode.

    Richardson is a really a great compliment to Obama, who recently was asked by George Step. on “This Week”: What is the biggest crisis you have ever dealt with? Obama couldn’t say: “My daughter’s birthday party when cake and punch was spilled everywhere,” so he gave a non-answer that his experience was really on the legistlative side, not the executive side.

    Richardson could very nicely fill in that hole for Obama.

    This is extremely unlikely, but a cross-party ticket would be very interesting. Kerry tried to get McCain as VP in 2004, but no go. If, for example, Hillary gets Dem nom, and Romney gets Repub nom, then Romney should pick up Obama as VP…A Romney/Obama ticket would get 70%+ of the vote in US.

    ps V., you seem to be as much of a politcal junkie as me…we should have a beer sometime!

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  5. Tom Galloway

    Personally, I’ve had Obama penciled in for the VP nod this time around for quite a while. I was very surprised he decided to run for the top spot, and think it’s a mistake. The longer he’s out there, the more apparent it is to me that there’s not much there yet other than him being very charismatic, a good speaker, and, well, not Hillary. I’d be a lot more interested in him as a candidate if he started coming out with some very detailed proposals rather than generalities and platitudes. I mean, quick, what’s his defining issue and what does he propose to do about it (and Iraq doesn’t count for any candidate as such this go around, since it’s such an obvious and universal one)?

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