THE CASE AGAINST RICHARDSON: A REQUEST. For quite a while now, my go-to Dem presidential candidate pick, when conversations move to that subject, has been Bill Richardson; I've usually said it half in jest, but frankly I've never quite figured out exactly what's supposed to be so unserious and obviously funny about the candidacy of "a popular [Hispanic] governor of a Southwestern state who also has foreign policy experience." At the same time, I don't actually know a great deal of specifics about the guy, particularly about his tenure as governor; I'm curious to hear in comments what people who do think about him.
A few things, of course, I do know and are serious: a history, for example, not only of womanizing but of weirdo, inappropriate public touching. (Not only of females: "He hugs, pokes, jabs and tickles. If he sees a man with a bald pate, he rubs it. Looking to start a conversation, he might lean forward and head-butt someone -- male or female. Bored on an airplane flight? He'll lick his finger and smudge an aide's glasses." The full article conveys the sense of a pol whose old-school style of back-slapping bonhomie turned sociopathic long ago.) But say, Bill Clinton-style, Richardson could make the case that he's put all that behind him, or at least that such personal issues shouldn't rule out his candidacy. Is he, on the substantive merits, worthy of serious consideration by liberals?
--Sam Rosenfeld
