Richardson in Seattle
Cross posted at America for Richardson
This afternoon in Seattle Gov. Bill Richardson met with a dozen or so Washington State bloggers. Richardson was in Washington to encourage Hispanic voters to participate, and to stump for Maria Cantwell and Tomas Villanueva, a legislative candidate in eastern Washington.
I know I’ve supported Richardson for awhile now, but I have to say I was impressed. Really. I’m not just saying that because I want this meeting to sound like it went off well, it went a lot better than I was expecting.
I’d heard a lot about Richardson’s open door office days, when anyone can come by and talk, and about his town hall meetings, when anyone
I feel like we got a small taste of that today. Even when he disagreed with someone, he listened and didn’t’ try to run them over with rhetoric. And, in one case, he came back to them at the end and thanked them.
Twice Richardson’s staff tried to get him to cut the meeting off and he rebuffed them. When Ken tried to help the staff out a bit, Richardson let him know that he was going to continue talking.
If Andrea is right, Richardson likes bloggers, I think she’s really right.
The discussion was very broad, ranging from nuclear energy in eastern Washington to the chances the for the Democratic party to take back state houses across the country.
Two things stuck out for me. One, even though I’m loath to discuss Iraq usually, Richardson laid out a broad and well thought out plan. Admittedly vague, but I thought unique. First, negotiate with the three ethnic groups with an upfront and clear goal for American troops to be pulled out. And, include other regional players, such as Iran. For good or for not, they have an influence on what is going on, and we can’t help who the players are.
After you have the settlement there, invite all parties (including the Europeans who didn’t join us originally) to a broad Middle East peace conference. “You talk to adversaries. If you negotiate, you get things done, show respect to your enemies, let them save face.”
The other, was on immigration. Richardson laid out a three point strategy, that included boarder security (focused on law enforcement to stem violence and drug trafficking), offering a pathway to citizenship, encouraging Mexico to do what it can to provide opportunities for its citizens so they don’t emigrate, and
A lot of other stuff is worth writing about from the meeting, and I’ll probably end up posting on each topic individually. But, I’ve also posted my raw, misspelled notes here for your reading enjoyment and deciphering.
Emmett O'Connell | July 16, 2006 | Comment on This Post (6 so far) |
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Comments
I'm still waffling on whom to support in 2008 between Richardson and Mark Warner. I would **love** to see the Dems win the White House by pulling NM, NV, CO, and AZ into their column, and Richardson is the only viable western candidate. Two things concern me about Richardson: rumors of marital infidelity, and scandals at the Energy Dept when he was secretary. Can anyone convince me these are not things to worry about?
Posted by: OR Dem | Jul 16, 2006 11:13:52 PM
Odd that the rumors swirl around Richardson while GOP front-runners, John McCain, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani are hardly in a position to cast a first stone. See
http://www.alternet.org/story/38015/
So far I haven’t seen anything substantiate the rumors about Richardson. It is time for the rumormongers to lay their cards on the table.
As for the problems at Los Alamos, it is hard to fault Richardson directly for this or even be sure what actually happened. And this doesn’t compare with huge strategic mistakes we are making in foreign policy these days.
Conversely, Richardson has way more experience than Warner in foreign policy and energy policy as well as legislative and executive experience. Richardson may be the Democrat best able to rebuild our country’s foreign relations because of his international experience.
Posted by: Leo Brown | Jul 17, 2006 7:10:27 AM
I know that Republicans have plenty of problems of their own, but that never stops them from hammering away at Democrats -- in fact that's their primary strategy to deflect attention from their own problems. Don't get me wrong -- I hope these things don't cause any problem for him, because I think he would be a great candidate. I'm just wondering how vulnerable he is on those two things.
Posted by: OR Dem | Jul 17, 2006 11:26:40 AM
He sounds like a cool guy in person. I like to hear Bill when he's interviewed on news shows
Posted by: jr | Jul 17, 2006 12:57:04 PM
Hello,
Although I like Richardson, I dont think he will be the Democratic Candidate for President, if he is, I dont think he will win, although I would vote for any Democrat.
I like him better as a Senator rather than the President. The new issue of the Economist has a good article about New Mexico and his governorship, although everything is not shiny and great.
I think that his being of latino descent is both a positive and negative in our current political climate and times.
Although Hillary is looking more conservative, I think she would be a better candidate for President at this time.
Posted by: Daniel Cardenas | Jul 18, 2006 9:56:50 PM
Richardson has some good points and he can be a very charming politician but he also takes big dollar donations from some very nasty people. It's a big story in the NM newspapers these days. I think if he gets anywhere near the presidency, he will get hit from this stuff very hard. Check out racetrack and casino owner Stan Fulton, who has given him much money via the DGA and other ways.
Many also believe he leaked the name of Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee to the media. Lee got pummeled as an alleged spy and put into solitary confinement without outside contact for many months. Eventually the federal judge in the case threw out all the charges except for a minor one about being somewhat careless about secure documents. He also appologized to Lee on behalf of the fedral government's ridiculous claims and their treatment of him. Bad stuff.
Posted by: NM Dem | Jul 19, 2006 2:18:15 PM
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(and yes, we know that sometimes they're very, very wrong. Other times, they're right on.)
