Working the field, part VII - Richardson

William Blaine Richardson III

Governor of New Mexico, former Secretary of Energy, former UN ambassador, and former member of the House of Representatives. Not a bad resume for a Presidential candidate, actually. He grew up in Mexico City, and later majored in French and political science at Tufts University. This might mean that he has violated the all-important American tradition of being monolingual. I rather suspect him of being trilingual. I’m not sure if we can put up with that kind of thing.

Seriously … he was in the House from 1983 until 1997, when he was appointed by Bill Clinton to be UN ambassador. He served there for about a year and a half before he was appointed as Energy Secretary. He then served out Clinton’s term in that office, and went on to the well-paying jobs that former bigwigs can often find: he was an adjunct professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and joined Kissinger-McLarty, the strategic consulting group of Henry Kissinger and Mack McLarty.

In terms of his political positions, he’s a fairly-standard liberal. The Issues section of his campaign web site lists positions on: Iraq, Energy, Health Care, Jobs & the Economy, Civil Liberties, Education, Environment, First Responders, Foreign Policy, Immigration, LGBT, Women, and Veterans.

That’s actually sort of lean on profound messages. His energy plan is bold, though it lacks specifics on the site itself.  He does endorse the CAFE standards, and wants to encourage the development of cars getting 100 miles/gallon. He wants to use a cap and trade system for greenhouse emissions, which is actually a fairly reasonable idea.

The man was Secretary of Energy. He has to have a clearer and better picture of the issues and potential solutions than most other politicians. However, he’s not sharing. On the Issues page, he makes no mention of nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, solar, or any other form of power. Therefore, it’s unclear exactly what specifics he has in mind.

On health care, he advocates a fairly-predictable system of requiring everyone to have health insurance, and promises that it won’t cost taxpayers anything. Won’t that be nice?

Not surprisingly, he is against torture, he’s pro-choice, and such. He wants to close Guantanamo Bay and supports expanded charter schools — but not tuition vouchers for private schools.

On immigration, Richardson supports the “comprehensive” system, although he does mention securing the borders. He also notes that he was the first border governor to send the National Guard to support the Border Patrol when President Bush wanted the additional personnel.

He makes no mention of gay marriage, but he promotes “domestic partnerships” and ending “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in favor of allowing open homosexuals in the military. Having said that, he voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. So committed is he, though, to the gay rights issue now, that if he was elected President, he would refuse the honorary position as president of the Boy Scouts of America because the BSA doesn’t allow homosexuals to take young boys on camping trips.

He does have a pretty good record of cutting taxes in New Mexico, and supports the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights. He vetoed legislation that would have increased cities’ imminent domain power in NM, and signed a law which legalized medical marijuana in NM.

Differing from the traditional liberal mold — Gov. Richardson supports capital punishment and is generally not a supporter of gun control. He has actually been endorsed by the NRA, which is not a common trait for a Democratic Presidential contender. (One can imagine the mental hijinks that would ensue if Giuliani were running against Richardson …)

Richardson has an impressive collection of experiences in terms of foreign affairs. He was our UN ambassador for a little while, and he’s negotiated with several other nations. This has included work with North Korea, Sudan, Cuba, and others. His credentials here are far more impressive than most.

He also wants to apply more pressure to China, which is to his credit.

On Iraq, of course, Gov. Richardson has the unique distinction of  being the only one completely committed to withdrawing all US forces immediately. President Bush warns that leaving Iraq prematurely will give terrorists a safe haven.

Gov. Richardson will see his safe haven and raise him some “light equipment.” He wants to leave things behind so that we can leave more quickly:

I do not believe the Congress has done enough. We have been able to move 240,000 of our troops in three months in and out of Iraq through Kuwait. It would take persuading Turkey. I would leave behind some of the light equipment. Leaving any troop behind will prevent us from moving forward toward stability in the region.

Not only does he want to flee, he wants to leave things behind. Most of us look at images of Americans leaving equipment in Vietnam and feel remorse and regret. Apparently, Bill Richardson thinks it’s a great idea to relive it.

He claims that only after every single American soldier is out of Iraq can the Iraqis put their land back together. Perhaps he admires the Khmer Rouge and their efforts at putting Southeast Asia together after the US was no longer there to restrain them.