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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
High-Flying Gov. ... Will Fly Away
By Winthrop Quigley
Journal Staff Writer
So what did I think of Bill Richardson, my English visitor wanted to know.
To Europeans, he said, Richardson's selection to be commerce secretary seemed like a great idea. A shame, he said, that a federal investigation derailed the nomination.
This was a month or two ago. I was reminded of the conversation, and my struggle to provide a coherent answer, by last week's Washington Post story that described Richardson as stranded in a political desert. This was a guy who wanted to be president, was expecting to be Barack Obama's secretary of state, settled for commerce, then had to withdraw when it surfaced that prosecutors were investigating whether donors to the governor's campaigns and causes got state business in return — pay-to-play, it is called.
The Post described a man languishing in Santa Fe, the lame-duck governor of a fly-over state.
I don't know the governor well, but he is very bright, imaginative, energetic, often great fun, exuberant. His attention span isn't very good. He can be a bully, petty, arrogant and impatient. He seems to think people who disagree with him are enemies, and he doesn't have much use for the media hectoring that goes with the job. For what it's worth, I think he would have made a great commerce secretary.
To understate the obvious, Bill Richardson is like no political figure New Mexico has ever seen.
Former Govs. Jerry Apodaca, Toney Anaya and Bruce King still roam the Roundhouse during a legislative session. Garrey Carruthers is a dean at New Mexico State University. Gary Johnson skis in Taos. Whether running for president or working for a Cabinet position, Bill Richardson has been trying to leave New Mexico ever since he became governor. That's not a bad thing, but a governor with no obvious long-term stake in New Mexico is a guy without much to lose once he wins re-election.
The magnitude of his ambition and the kind of fundraising that goes with it were unprecedented. Richardson has been playing on the national stage from the minute he was elected in 2002. New Mexicans were treated to a governor who would zip off to Las Vegas, Nev., to watch the fights or join some fat cats in a skybox. Carruthers made a point of vacationing in New Mexico to promote tourism. Voters accustomed to governors raising a couple of million dollars for a statewide race watched the multimillion-dollar scale of Richardson's national fundraising with growing amazement and discomfort.
We make much of Richardson's Hispanic heritage, but I really notice the New England, where he went to prep school, then college. His accent is more Connecticut than Santa Fe. The scarves he wears with his suits, in my experience, are a uniform in Massachusetts. His personal style, including the sometimes frat-house atmosphere that could invade Richardson's entourage, reminds me of my prep school cousins.
He came to New Mexico to run for office. What with multiple congressional terms, the Cabinet post, the U.N. ambassadorship, Richardson hadn't really lived here for years, unlike his predecessors. Friends from his first gubernatorial campaign told me Richardson hired reporters early in his reappearance in New Mexico because neither he nor his out-of-state political team knew very much about the place and needed local people who had some history.
He didn't govern like anyone else. A lot of us believed our teachers were underpaid, our economy was moribund and our income tax rates were too progressive. It had been that way for years. Richardson raised school funding, lowered tax rates and initiated multiple economic development programs. I say Richardson did it because through that period the Legislature spent most of its time waiting for the governor to tell it what to do.
But heaven help those who cross him. When the Retiree Health Care Authority opposed one of his legislative initiatives, its office was moved from Santa Fe into an Albuquerque basement subject to leaks. I know some very confident business executives who quake at the mere thought of gubernatorial disapproval.
I don't know what the feds will find. Lobbyists, legislators and state officials have told me that even if no laws have been broken, the pay-to-play attitude has become a fixture in Santa Fe. My guess is Richardson won't be indicted, but as the Post reported, he is tainted. With public employment off the table, I suspect he'll get a high-level job with a company controlled by an East Coast supporter, and he'll finally be back in Washington.
UpFront is a daily front-page opinion column. You can reach Win Quigley at 823-3896 or wquigley@abqjournal.com.
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