"It's about time." National Leadership, New Mexico, Presidential Politics

I like seeing positive coverage of the West's man in 2008, Bill Richardson:

Richardson would have to be considered a serious contender, no matter what his ethnicity. He's got the goods. Having served as a member of Congress, a Cabinet secretary and U.N. ambassador, Richardson also has the benefit of being a governor -- in a Democratic field likely to be chock-full of senators, in a country where voters haven't elected a senator to the presidency since 1960. He won re-election this year with 69 percent of the vote.

This just isn't any blogger - this is Ruben Navarette, nationally syndicated columnist and CNN politics opinion writer.  After the deluge of positive "Western Democrat" coverage after the election, people are starting to see Richardson for what he is - the Democrats best chanced for an experienced executive with foreign policy experience that can solidify and build on the Western gains seen with this last election.

Mr. Navarette sees even more (some hope) for our country in a Richardson candidacy:

That's Richardson. His mother was born in Mexico, and his father was an American businessman. Richardson was raised in Mexico City before going off to prep school in Massachusetts and then earning college and graduate degrees at Tufts University. Being of two worlds -- bilingual, bicultural and binational -- he is well-suited to introduce one to the other.

One of the biggest thing holding our country back is not reconciling our true place within the Americas - our hemispheric neighbors that should be our natural allies and friends.  Some of the greatest of our leaders - FDR and JFK - realized that by pursuing a fairer and more just policy with our southern neighbors and northern neighbor that we would become safer and greater nation overall.

Out here in the west, we've been getting used to the idea of being closer to our southern neighbors for a long time with many of us even tracing our lineage that way.  Having someone in a leadership role facilitate a broader dialogue between all peoples of the Americas could be an enormous challenge and also offer a large potential for hope.

But, before all that it's nice to see Bill Richardson getting some positive national coverage this early in the race.  The talking heads saying this race is Barack vs Hillary more than a year before the first votes are extremely premature.   

Don't discount the western governor with the experience that matters most.

Landon Mascareñaz | December 17, 2006 | Comment on This Post (0 so far) Permalink: "It's about time." National Leadership, New Mexico, Presidential Politics

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