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Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Gov. Toying With 'A Hill of Beans'

By Jeff Jones
Of the Journal
    OK, New Mexico political junkies. See if you can match these quotes from Gov. Bill Richardson to the dates and places he said them:
    1. "I may make a decision and do an endorsement. ... I may decide not to."
    2. "I might endorse or I might not— I don't know. I'm going to decide whether to endorse certainly this week."
    3. "I'm going to decide very shortly. ... I'm going to decide in the next few days."
    4. "I'm very clear with them when I say I may decide not to endorse, or I may endorse. It depends how I wake up one morning and feel."
    5. "And, by the way, I may still endorse before Tuesday, or I may not."
    6. "I may wake up tomorrow and do it. Then I may not."
    A. CNN's "The Situation Room," Feb. 18.
    B. Interview with Journal Washington Bureau reporter Michael Coleman, Feb. 25.
    C. CNN's "The Situation Room," Feb. 26.
    D. Interview with The Associated Press for a Sunday story.
    E. CBS's "Face the Nation," on Sunday.
    F. Another interview with Coleman for a Feb. 2 story.
    Richardson in recent weeks has been in high demand by the political media, and blogs have been ablaze with speculation about when— or whether— he will finally cough up the presidential endorsement that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both have been pursuing.
    It would be unfair to fault Richardson for having a tough time making up his mind: Many Democrats I've spoken with over the past year have been pleased as punch with both of their top 2008 contenders, and those voters also had a hard time making up their minds.
    That said, Richardson's nonstop political tease talk on the endorsement issue was growing old by Sunday.
    Richardson may be spot-on with one assertion that he has made several times and repeated again on "Face the Nation" over the weekend:
    "One politician endorsing another, I don't think it means ... a hill of beans," Richardson told CBS' Bob Schieffer.
    Sounds right to me.
    But that sure hasn't stopped Richardson from making the rounds to discuss that hill of beans.
    And when Richardson himself was seeking the White House, it sure didn't stop him from trumpeting endorsements that went his way. By my count, his presidential campaign machine rolled off at least 13 endorsement news releases, ranging from a plug by several members of Congress to what his camp termed a "crucial endorsement" from a mayor in New Hampshire.
    As for the answers to my quotes quiz, I may decide to give them to you— or then again, I may not.
    Just kidding. The answers are as follows:
    1--C; 2--B; 3--A; 4--F; 5--E; 6--D.