Keeping tabs on New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as he seeks the Democratic nomination for president …

    RISING: A new ABC News-Washington Post poll of Democrats and those who lean Democratic had Richardson at 3 percent. He trailed Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore (who hasn’t said he’ll run) and John Edwards. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain led Republicans. The national telephone survey took place last week.

    PITCHING WOO: Richardson played Hardball with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for eight minutes on Monday but fielded only softballs. Matthews told Richardson: “You know more about foreign policy than I do;” put him in fourth place in the Democratic field; and told him, “You’ve got a real shot.”

    BIG CROWD: While he was in D.C., Richardson spoke at the Latino Leaders Luncheon Series on Tuesday, and according to Las Cruces blogger Heath Haussamen, drew more people than Eva Longoria did when she addressed the group.

    HELP ON THE WAY:
Richardson gets out to the country on his swing through Iowa on Friday and Saturday. He’s in Des Moines on Friday on Iowa Public TV and at a Democrats’ luncheon, a house party and a meet-up. On Saturday, he heads to Ames and Boone for house parties. Interesting timing: Richardson on Tuesday waived truckers’ weight limits on New Mexico highways to help utility companies trying to get help to Iowans without power during this week’s blizzards.

    FOLLOW THE MONEY: Time magazine includes Richardson in a story headlined, “How Big Money Picks a Winner” and dings him for allowing the owners of ValueOptions to fundraise for him after he chose the company to oversee mental health services in New Mexico.

    SOCIALIST SLANT: Political Affairs (motto: “Marxist thought online”) likes Richardson’s anti-Iraq statements and strong labor ties but doesn’t like his support of NAFTA and cautions that he’s a pragmatist: “Wherever there are strong movements by labor and the peace movement for peace and social progress, you can expect Richardson to reflect those sentiments. At the same time, if any of these movements become an obstacle to his personal ambitions, he will drop them like a hot potato.”

    WEIRD? YES: The Daily Herald in Chicago has an oddball slant on the presidential field: Why don’t the people who might be president undergo the same level of scrutiny that NFL prospects get at the scouting combine? Which leads to this paragraph that will surely (hopefully) never be written anywhere again: “It started me wondering how many times Hillary Clinton could lift 225 pounds. What is John McCain’s vertical leap? Is Bill Richardson’s percentage of body fat higher than Rudy Giuliani’s?”

    DREAM TICKET: FedSmith, the newsletter for federal employees, has polled its readers about their favorite nominees. They picked Barack Obama as the Dem and Rudy Giuliani for the GOP. A NASA engineer from Cleveland described his idea of a winnable ticket: McCain/Richardson.

Compiled by Journal Staff Writer Leslie Linthicum 

Keeping tabs on New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as he seeks the Democratic nomination for president …

ATTACK DOG? Political consultant Dick Morris (whose big-time credentials include helping Bill Clinton get re-elected in 1996) blogs on The Hill that Richardson’s backing of Hillary Clinton in the Clinton/Barack Obama/David Geffen war of words last week was no accident: “ … Richardson is not really running for president. He’s running for vice president, so it makes sense to attack Obama. Not only is Barack his chief rival for vice president, but he can audition in front of Hillary for the role of attack dog, which Hillary badly needs in her vice presidential candidate.”

BUSY BILL: A Pulitzer Prize-winning Miami Herald columnist says Richardson is campaigning around the clock — almost literally. “When I asked for an interview with him during his visit to Florida (last) weekend, I was given a slot at 6 a.m. on Saturday,” Andres Oppenheimer writes. Richardson told him he gets up at 5 a.m.

UP EARLY: Good thing he’s an early riser. He was on C-SPAN live at 7 a.m. Monday — Eastern time. Sounding a little raspy, Richardson fielded questions for 30 minutes and most callers wanted to talk about foreign affairs.

ONE DOWN:One handicapping of the effects of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack getting out of the race puts Richardson in the winner’s column. The Washington Post says: “Richardson is the only candidate left on the Democratic side with executive experience. There’s a reason no senator has been directly elected to the White House since 1960.”

PEACEMAKER: Speaking of the Post, Richardson’s essay on diplomacy and Iran ran in Saturday’s edition. He repeated his mantra: Talk now to avoid fighting later.
HE’S IN: Addressing the executive committee of the National Congress of American Indians in D.C. on Monday, Richardson said he’s the first candidate to RSVP for the Prez on the Rez forum on a reservation in California in August.

PINK STAR: Bay Windows, the Boston area’s gay and lesbian newspaper, measured up Richardson’s record and gave him props for ordering domestic partner benefits for state workers in New Mexico and opposing a defense of marriage act in New Mexico because it didn’t address civil unions for gay couples. The paper said Richardson might take flack for his vote for a federal defense of marriage act when he was in Congress.

By Journal staff writer Leslie Linthicum