Category: Government

Governor says negotiations with Colombian rebels will move forward after his meeting with Venezuelan president

Kate Nash | The New Mexican

CARACAS, VENEZUELA — He traveled 2,943 miles, slept little and had to wait hours after Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez bumped his appointment.

Still, Gov. Bill Richardson heads back to New Mexico today with the eight words he wanted to hear.

“President Chávez has agreed to try and help,” the governor told a mob of reporters outside the Venezuelan presidential palace.

The words came after an hour-and-20 minute meeting with Chávez late Saturday about his effort to free three U.S. citizens being held hostage in Colombia.

They also give Richardson the go-ahead to keep working to get the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to give up the men, held since 2003.

“He’s accepted my role as somebody that’s an intermediary,” Richardson said about Chávez in an interview after the meeting.

The globe-trotting governor said last month that he had made inroads with another key player in the situation, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. Chávez, however, is seen as a central figure, someone to whom FARC in recent months has released hostages.

Now, Richardson said he’s ready to move forward with the negotiation process. “I’m going to try and engage the best I can to secure the release of these hostages to promote the humanitarian accord,” he said.

The governor’s next efforts are undefined, but Richardson indicated he would be in contact with the parties by telephone in the days ahead.

“The next step is going to be to engage in some shuttle diplomacy in the days ahead and the weeks ahead,” he said. He has no immediate travel plans and neither does Chávez, Richardson said.

Chávez didn’t address members of the media after the meeting.

The meeting, the highlight of Richardson’s trip, was seven hours behind schedule, forcing a throng of media to wait in a swanky media room inside the lush complex of the Venezuelan presidential palace, known as Miraflores. Some watched pre-recorded speeches by Chávez.

Others smoked and waited outside in the 70-degree weather while attentive waiters served small sandwiches, fresh squeezed juices and handmade pastries.

That meeting, inside an ornate mansion so big it has its own chapel, was the main objective of Richardson’s trip. He also met with the country’s foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, and the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Álvarez.

Since January, Richardson has been working for the release of the hostages, Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Tom Howes, all military contractors.

The rebels want to exchange the U.S. hostages for members of their group who are jailed by the Colombian government. FARC also holds other hostages, including a French-Colombian woman who was once a presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt.

Chávez’s blessing is a big deal for the governor, who some speculate wants to be secretary of state in a future Democratic administration.

Chávez is an inescapable figure here. Some reporters at the press conference were quick to gush about the Sunday program on which Chávez addresses the nation, sometimes with speeches lasting for hours.

He’s also a force in other places: Venezuela is the fourth-largest oil exporter and one of South America’s richest countries. The state-owned petroleum company, Petróleos de Venezuela, is one of the world’s largest.

Images of Chávez adorn the city, including one blue garbage truck spotted by a reporter that said ‘Con Chávez, sí,’ (With Chávez, yes.) Even the repair men at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs display their feelings. A renovation worker walked by one of the meetings with Richardson in a red pro-Chávez shirt, worn by time and speckled with paint.

But the residents of this city of more than 6 million aren’t insulated from the rest of the world: The plight of the hostages in next-door Colombia is a well-read story here, and many reporters seemed interested in Richardson’s role in the negotiations.

As for the governor, he had some cards lined up for him before he left. The bilingual 60-year old already had met Chávez and is familiar with South America and its politics.

To be sure his fortune would hold, Richardson said he brought a piece of his long-time lucky blue blazer to help. He wore the blazer on many an international foray during his time in Congress and while he worked for the Clinton administration.

He also took a gift for Chávez, but declined to say what it was.

If nothing else, Richardson’s meeting here has reignited hope among the family members of the hostages. Jo Rosano of Bristol, Conn., whose 36-year-old son, Marc Gonsalves, is among the three U.S. hostages, said she sees Richardson as among the first people to really work on the situation.

“Bush doesn’t care, Bush backs Uribe and could care less about the hostages,” she said. “It’s really a shame that this government is treating these American citizens like they don’t exist.”

The Bush administration has said it doesn’t deal with terrorist groups such as FARC. Bush and Chávez have an antagonistic relationship, with Chávez once calling him “the devil.”

The patience of the families, who have waited five years for some movement in the situation, has worn thin. But, Rosano said, she hasn’t given up hope. “It’s a matter of time. It’s a matter of testing faith,” she said.

“It will come. There is a reason God is using him (Richardson) for this purpose.”

Published April 27, 2008.

Gov. Bill Richardson makes a last hurrah in Iowa before caucuses

By Kate Nash
Tribune Reporter

MUSCATINE, Iowa — Wedged into a breakfast crowd at the River View Restaurant, Gov. Bill Richardson stood and made what might be one of his last pitches to Iowa voters, asking for the help of caucus-goers already in his camp and hoping to be heard by those who weren’t.

“I need to know who here is undecided, because I will go straight to your table,” he told the crowd of about 35 people whose body heat fogged up the windows of the cafe two blocks from the Mississippi River.

With the Iowa caucuses just hours away – they start today at 6:30 p.m. – Richardson needed every possible vote to maintain a viable bid going into the New Hampshire primary Tuesday.

He has said he would be happy with a fourth-place finish, but he has said he will continue campaigning in New Hampshire and beyond, regardless of tonight’s results.

While Richardson for days and weeks has headed straight to those in need of convincing in Iowa’s coffee shops and living rooms, it was U.S. Rep. Tom Udall who sashayed to the table of undecided women in the back of the cafe.

Richardson, clearly running on little more than adrenaline, took a seat to talk with other voters who had hurried in from the 2-degree weather Wednesday.

As caucus night loomed, Udall was helping buttress the governor’s campaign, playing lead in a back-up band for Richardson.

Department of Public Safety Secretary John Denko was there, campaigning for hours on end, as was the first lady, Barbara Richardson. So was former Ambassador Ed Romero.

Count in Children, Youth and Families Department Secretary Dorian Dodson and Department of Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught. Chief of Staff James Jimenez? Check.

Ditto for John Early, a Red Cross pilot who, in 1996, Richardson rescued in Sudan. Harold Bailey, executive director of the New Mexico Office of African American Affairs, is also doing literature drops, speeches in churches, whatever it takes.

While Richardson said he feels good, is upbeat and that he will surpass expectations, the toll of a year of campaigning was evident.

The governor, known for his stamina, on Tuesday and Wednesday looked run down and depleted. Hoarseness crept into his voice. He complained at one event about a sore knee and apologized for sitting down.

Still, he was focused on his last opportunities to reach Iowa voters, to reach his longtime dream, really, and spent Wednesday hopscotching the state in a small airplane, hitting seven far-flung cities.

Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he planned to end the day at a 10 p.m. rally in Iowa City. That day came after hitting six cities Tuesday, including several “football watching parties” in small towns like West Burlington, a place with the population of Eunice, N.M., just under 4,000.

In West Burlington he appealed to about 30 people gathered in a basement recreation room to turn out for him today.

“Please caucus for me,” he said, wearing snowproof shoes instead of his trademark cowboy boots. “Give me a chance. I’d be honored to get your support. I’m going vote by vote.”

The appeal no doubt was echoed by the other Democratic candidates who slamdanced across the state. But unlike the top-tier candidates, Richardson needs to do better than expected – finishing in the top three, many pundits say – to keep his presidential bid viable heading into the New Hampshire primary.

The most recent Des Moines Register poll, however, shows he’s a distant fourth, ahead of Sens. Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd.

While polls this week show many Iowa Democrats undecided – even at house parties sponsored by Richardson supporters – the 60-year-old governor has some more-than-enthusiastic supporters in a state that’s more than wild about politics.

Muscatine resident and elementary school teacher Pam Lee let her husband, also a teacher, oversee her first class Wednesday so she could hear Richardson at the cafe for the fifth time since the campaign started.

“That’s how important this is,” she said.

But don’t think Lee has watched only Richardson this campaign season. She also turned out for other candidates, including Republican Mitt Romney, before deciding on Richardson for his stance on the Iraq war and his ideas to improve education in the United States.

“This man has restored my faith in politics,” said Lee, 58, whose son is an Army captain in Iraq.

While Richardson’s events this week attracted both supporters and undecided voters, there is another type of caucus-goer – voters who are firmly for one candidate, but who show up in the morning’s stinging cold to hear what their No. 2 choice has to say.

Retha Monroe, who also turned out at the River View, was one of them – something you might guess from her red felt hat.

Her headwear bore political pins dating back to Jimmy Carter’s presidential run in 1976, Jesse Jackson’s 1988 bid, a “Yo quiero Gore 2000″ button, and a “Richardson for President” sticker.

Still, Richardson is behind Sen. Hillary Clinton in Monroe’s mind.

“I’d like to see him as vice president,” she said.

The governor, for the record, didn’t change Monroe’s vote for Hillary Clinton with his coffee shop talk.

He hasn’t swayed many Iowans, in fact. The Register poll showed Richardson at 6 percent – with about 6 percent also undecided – while Sen. Barack Obama led the Democratic field with 32 percent. Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards had 25 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

Other polls by Reuters and CNN in recent weeks have put Richardson at 7 percent in Iowa.

While Richardson’s support might be small in the surveys, it didn’t seem that way in Des Moines on Wednesday as James Jimenez walked door to door looking for undecided voters in the northeast part of town.

The governor’s chief of staff, who has been stumping for his boss in Iowa for a week, started his rental car with a remote control and headed out Wednesday for the umpteenth time.

He had to rap on several doors along York Street before he found Vietnam veteran Michael Reed at home and answering.

Jimenez, in a wool golfer’s hat and hiking boots, asked Reed, whom the campaign had flagged as undecided, to consider Richardson when he votes.

Ignoring the John Edwards sign on Reed’s porch, Jimenez listened to Reed’s concerns about illegal immigration and veterans’ health care for five minutes, then handed him a brochure.

Reed seemed a hard sell for Jimenez, who didn’t leave with a sure vote.

“We’ll just see how the cards fall,” Reed told him.

Back inside the car and steeled again against the cold, Jimenez told co-campaigner Matt Ruybal he was optimistic.

“I think we got a shot at it,” he said, driving on.

The governor’s door-to-door campaigners will go to any house – with any sign out front – that staffers label as having an undecided voter inside.

“What we’ve found is a lot of people aren’t locked in,” Jimenez said. “Even though they have a sign for one person, the spouse may have a different opinion,” he said, getting back in the car after finding no one home at a house with a Clinton sign.

“What we are hearing and seeing is quite different from what they (the polls) are saying,” he said.

It won’t be long now until Jimenez – and Richardson – will know.

Published Jan. 3, 2008.

Richardson stumps in Nevada

By Kate Nash
Tribune Reporter

MINDEN, Nev. — This is where it starts for presidential candidate Bill Richardson: a dim, red velour ballroom in the basement of the Carson Valley Inn Casino, with a plywood gray donkey and a pile of yellow “Nevada for Richardson” buttons.

Minden, with a population of about 3,000, isn’t Washington, D.C. It’s not even Des Moines, Iowa.

But this small town and others like it across this small state are critical if Richardson’s bid for president is to get beyond the starting gate.

Richardson concedes that he must exceed expectations here in Nevada’s Jan. 19, 2008, caucus if he wants a shot at winning the rest of the country. It’s the second stop on the Democratic Party’s roll call of primaries, sandwiched between Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus and the New Hampshire primary.

“I have to do extremely well. I have to do more than respectably. I’m not sure I can carry Nevada, but I’m going to try,” he told a bevy of reporters, mostly from local newspapers, on Saturday.

His effort will center on small towns like Minden, built up against the Sierra Nevadas near Lake Tahoe.

While Sen. Hillary Clinton was in Iowa over the weekend, Richardson was here – less than a week after announcing his bid for the White House – talking to a crowd smaller than he could easily draw on any day back home at the Capitol in Santa Fe.

The sometimes impatient, crowd-loving governor with the world’s handshaking record didn’t seem to mind.

“I wanted to emphasize northern Nevada,” he said when asked why he came to this Republican stronghold.

“Like in New Mexico, Albuquerque and Santa Fe and Las Cruces are not the only centers of gravity. Rural areas, rural parts of Nevada, Reno, Carson City, Minden, Washoe – did I say it right? – is important.”

Richardson has conceded he won’t have as much money as rivals such as Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama or former Sen. John Edwards, so his strategy will be to try to connect with people in places big and small, wherever, whenever.

As sure as he’ll journey to other early-primary states, he’ll be back in Nevada – in Carson City for a debate in February and in Las Vegas for a debate in March. Richardson said he can’t afford to write any area off.

“Only 15 percent of America lives in rural areas,” he said before speaking to about 250 Democrats at the annual Douglas County Democrats Turn Nevada Blue dinner Saturday night. “And as a candidate, I’m going to pay attention to rural areas. I know this is Republican territory, but in a primary, I’m going to campaign everywhere.”

Before he and retired Gen. Wesley Clark – another potential candidate – spoke at the dinner, they held mini news conferences in the Chapel at the Inn, a wedding room right across from the ballroom.

“My main message in running for president is that I’m a governor who has managed the state successfully, a Westerner,” Richardson said. “I’m the candidate with, I believe, the most foreign policy experience, as ambassador to the United Nations, as secretary of energy, with energy being one of the most critical areas,” he said.

“I know how to reduce energy dependence. I’ve done it. I’ve done it as governor. New Mexico is the clean energy state, ahead of California.”

“Please print that,” he told a reporter from Las Vegas Review-Journal, and laughed.

As much as he’s looking for news coverage, he’s looking for voters. He connected with several by way of his 50-minute speech, which touched on everything from the war in Iraq to foreign policy, water and renewable energy.

Shirley Fraser had heard of Richardson before, and started checking him out on the Internet after he announced for president a week ago.

She found herself at the Carson Inn on Saturday night, wanting to hear him in person.

“I loved it. I really loved it,” she said. More than anything, Richardson’s diplomatic and negotiating skills appeal to her.

Place Fraser, a restaurant bookkeeper, in Richardson’s column.

“Hillary is very famous, but Richardson has more experience,” she said.

Jeff Elpern, a high-tech business owner in Reno, said he’s looking for a presidential candidate with courage.

“I’m looking for someone with a spine,” he said. “Someone who’s not too timid.”

Richardson might be that man.

But he’s got to let the world know.

“I think he’s an interesting candidate,” Elpern said, noting how early it is in the race. “But he doesn’t have the high-powered candidacy like Obama and Hillary.”

He doesn’t. And in fact, some in Minden hadn’t ever heard of Richardson.

“Is he a Republican?” said Jennine Cunningham, a stylist at Hair Cottage, about 10 blocks from where Richardson spoke.

He’s not. But he can sometimes sound a little like one, emphasizing private property and gun-ownership rights and the tax cuts he’s signed as governor.

While he’s popular with some members of the GOP, Richardson, 59, also seemed hip to members of a youth group who signed up to attend a community conversation Sunday with the governor at the Washoe County Democratic Party headquarters in Reno, a stone’s throw from the Reno airport and the last of Richardson’s stops here. About 20 people attended.

“He’s real,” said Greg Bailor, community outreach director for Youth Voice, a nonpartisan group focused on opening dialogues with politicians about issues that affect young people. “He’s a presidential candidate who has gone out of his way to reach out to young voters.”

While those accolades sound good, Richardson will need more.

Nevada for now is about is about turning up the volume on his candidacy and checking how it sounds, said John Garcia, a political science professor at the University of Arizona.

“It’s a way to check what your neighbors think of you before you test yourself out there further afield,” Garcia said.

It’s also about the West, where Democrats now claim five of the seven governors’ seats.

But the Silver State is also about laying the foundation for his campaign in the rest of the country.

“What he does in Nevada, he’s got to do better in the states after that,” Garcia said.

Published Jan. 29, 2007.

Analysis: Is America ready for ‘Presidente Richardson?’

By Kate Nash
Tribune Reporter

SANTA FE — Out from somewhere in the crowd at Gov. Bill Richardson’s inaugural ball came the shout: “¡Viva presidente Richardson!”

It was a phrase that made the governor smile – larger ambitions expressed with a Spanish twist.

The words also might express two themes Richardson wants the world to hear as he considers a run for the White House: He can be president, and he’s Hispanic.

Voters beyond New Mexico might not know that the Anglo-surnamed man speaks Spanish as quickly as anyone in, say, Puerto Vallarta. Or that one of the last times he flew to Mexico City, he got to use the presidential runway.

So is America ready for a Hispanic president?

“I think they are ready for a Hispanic who isn’t so Hispanic,” said Albuquerque media and marketing firm owner Armando Gutierrez.

“If his name was Bill Ulibarri or Bill Archuleta, it would be more difficult for him.”

Richardson says he should be judged not on his ethnicity – his mother is Mexican and lives in Mexico – but his abilities. That’s a fine message, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama considering runs for the Democratic nomination.

“I think America is a very open country. I think it could very easily elect a woman, an African-American or a Hispanic president. I think the issue is merits, not ethnicity,” Richardson said.

And, he said, his background doesn’t affect how he governs.

“I try to represent all my constituents. I’m proud to be Hispanic, but I don’t govern as a Hispanic governor, I govern as a New Mexico governor for everyone. But I’m very proud of my heritage.”

As he prepares to run, he needs to decide what image to project and how to distinguish himself from other the candidates in a race where ethnicity plays more of a role than in any other year, political scientists say.

So far, he’s playing himself down the middle, said Gabriel Sanchez, an assistant political science professor at the University of New Mexico.

“He’s pushing himself as a Democratic candidate of Hispanic background, not just a Hispanic candidate,” he said.

The governor probably doesn’t need to emphasize his ethnicity too much, but can subtly remind voters, said John Garcia, a political science professor at the University of Arizona.

“He doesn’t need to wear a neon sign that says `I’m Hispanic,’ ” Garcia said. “But he can speak Spanish a little more, or make references to his Hispanic background. But to a certain segment, that can be a negative.”

Sanchez said there probably aren’t enough Hispanic voters to elect Richardson as a one-note candidate.

“Any candidate of minority background has to have a minority coalition in order to get elected.”

That will be a tough task if a candidate like Obama joins the race, he said.

Richardson also said there aren’t Hispanic-only issues that he needs to focus on.

“There’s this misperception that Hispanics only care about civil rights, immigration,” he said Wednesday. “Hispanics care about jobs, foreign policy, education and entrepreneurship.

“That’s a mistake both political parties make. They try to appeal to Hispanics on a very narrow basis.”

And immigration policy, which sparked rallies across the country when Congress debated reforms last year, is dangerous ground.

“The problem with immigration is that it’s super complex, it doesn’t lend itself to simple measures,” Gutierrez said.

“Immigration is an issue you touch at your own risk.”

Richardson has waded into the debate. He has come out against a fence along the border; he was the first border governor to declare a state of emergency along the U.S.-Mexico dividing line; he has good relations with neighboring state Chihuahua and Mexico City, where he grew up.

One thing that could help Richardson is support from influential Hispanics who could help fund a campaign.

In the past, he has received big donations from influential members of the Hispanic community, including Jerry Perenchio, chairman of Univision Communications Inc.

“There is a growing number of affluent Hispanic business individuals,” Garcia said. “And affluent people know other affluent people.”

Published Jan. 18, 2007.

Practice makes perfect for governor

By Kate Nash
Tribune Reporter

SANTA FE — Gov. Bill Richardson strode onto the floor of the House chambers, primed to stand on the podium.

“Hey, Allan, it’s too long,” Richardson barked across rows of empty seats Monday night.

The State of the State speech he was getting set to rehearse was 37 minutes long, without applause. And Richardson wanted it cut – edited, reshaped, shorter, better.

“Come up with another word for sustainable. We’ve said that like five times,” the governor told Allan Oliver, his policy adviser and the speech’s writer.

Richardson began to follow the lead of the teleprompter, rocking himself forward and back, squinting. He read a few brightly illuminated paragraphs, then shouted “Stop.”

He had another word, another cut, another tweak. He needed another drink of water.

The only people in the audience Monday were his staff members. The only other noise in the Roundhouse was a distant vacuum cleaner, someone making a last-minute touchup before the legislative session begins today at noon.

Richardson’s rehearsal Monday was a run-through of that half hour or so shortly after noon today when he’ll have the attention of the state.

The scene in the House chambers was mostly a practice in massaging the message, crafting the to-do list against which the second-term Democratic governor will be judged until he gives his next State of State.

“I want it to be about what we want to do,” he said before he started. “I don’t want to live in the past.”

Details of the speech will be released once the session clangs to a start.

But during practice Monday night, the governor made it clear he was only looking ahead.

“Get that meth registry stuff out,” he told another staffer, Josh McNeil. “We’ve done it, get it out. We did it yesterday.”

Actually, he made that commitment to create registries of methamphetamine users and homes affected by meth fumes earlier Monday. But to Richardson, it was all in the past.

The state of the state speech is months in the making, starting last summer.

Richardson’s handful of policy advisers began outlining key initiatives for the year, to be highlighted in the address.

As it got closer to delivery day, Oliver and Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos started stringing together the main points Richardson wanted to tout. The governor doesn’t have someone solely dedicated to speechwriting, Gallegos said.

Then the authors decided on the extras, the details that would liven the talk and make what the governor said more personal.

“We’re still deciding whether we want to make news in the State of the State,” Gallegos said last week. “Do we want to highlight a teacher, a family who had a member killed by DWI, a single mom?”

That’s the kind of stuff journalists love; real people who would be affected by whatever proposal the governor is pitching.

That’s not by accident, of course. Gallegos worked as a reporter for The Albuquerque Tribune for nine years, covering education and, when he was hired by Richardson, politics. He has a degree in journalism and political science from the University of New Mexico. He’s one of several former reporters working for the governor.

Oliver previously worked for Lt. Gov. Diane Denish and for Democratic attorney general candidate Geno Zamora. He has a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University.

He also was on the receiving end of many of Richardson’s jabs Monday as he, Chief of Staff James Jimenez and re-election chairman Dave Contarino went over the speech, less than a day before it was to be delivered.

Richardson rarely gives his staff praise in public, but said when he finished with the rehearsal, he said he was pleased with the speech.

Along with the nuts and bolts of the State of the State, the speech also needed flavor: how many pauses, how much humor, how best to start and end.

With Richardson, there was also a question of how much Spanish to blend in with his oration. As on his election commercials on TV, he typically throws into his speeches a few phrases known even to non-bilingual New Mexicans. The speech will be translated for Spanish-language media.

Today marked Richardson’s fifth time giving the address to a packed room.

But many of those setting the stage Monday night have practiced this script for years.

House Sergeant-at-Arms Gilbert Lopez, whose work is key in getting the House ready for its big day, has worked at the Capitol for almost 20 years.

While Richardson prepared for his big event, the staffers who work for Lopez must dress the House floor as well.

And, it takes some outside touches. A florist buzzed about Monday, setting yellow roses, pink carnations, lilies and daisies on the rostrum. Richardson’s podium got a strand of ivy. All the representatives’ nametags were in place, the spelling of freshman legislators’ names checked and double-checked.

Lopez had 170 wooden chairs for staffers to set up, then rose-colored, cushioned chairs, and then whatever they could find by pilfering through committee rooms in the floors above the House, which is in the basement of the Capitol.

By noon, some 450 people will crowd in.

This year, Richardson’s speech was expected to be shorter than any in the past. It also had fewer jokes.

Because he’s considering a presidential bid, he knew he was likely drawing more attention this year – and not just on his words.

Published Jan. 16, 2007.

Richardson may be setting plate for role at State

By Kate Nash
Tribune Columnist

SANTA FE – A day before he was scheduled to meet with President Bush on a major free-trade pact with Central America, El Salvador President Antonio Saca flew to the City Different to dine with a governor he had never met.

The get-together, Gov. Bill Richardson said, was only a casual meeting. But it was clear Saca was in town for more than a dinner party: He was touring the nation to get support for the Central America Free Trade Agreement.

“As Central American presidents, we think it’s an important topic for us, and that’s why we’re here to talk to the governor,” Saca said before slipping inside the Governor’s Mansion with his international entourage last week.

Richardson, who is undecided on the treaty, doesn’t have a vote anymore in the Congress that’s considering whether to implement the trade treaty.

As governor, he really has no say over which international agreements the United States signs.

And free trade with a handful of teeny countries doesn’t seem to be a big topic for the 2008 presidential race if Richardson is indeed a candidate, as is widely speculated.

Could it be that the governor, a former ambassador to the United Nations who has racked up more frequent-flier miles than an Airbus pilot, has his sights on something else?

After all, meeting with dignitaries from around the world does help the governor keep his foreign policy credentials fresh. The meals make for good sound bites and photo ops. And the governor probably has a little fun, too.

So think about this: Maybe it’s Richardson for secretary of state in 2008.

The governor, a first-term Democrat, has said he’s got the best job he has ever had, and he’s lasering in on keeping it.

As he prepares to run for re-election in 2006, it’s not a stretch to think Richardson is running after something else, said Christine Sierra, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico.

“He’s clearly gearing up to run for president,” she said.

But Sierra said heading the State Department might be a possibility for Richardson, as well.

“That’s not far-fetched, given his experience in foreign policy,” she said.

While Richardson might say he’s not thinking about 2008, the guests he has had since taking office two years ago point to the possibility he’s at least eying the post.

Consider the plate mates: a group of North Korean diplomats; Mexican President Vicente Fox; Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar; Spain’s crown prince and princess; Chihuahua’s governor; Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia; the minister of foreign affairs from Qatar; the governor of a Mexico state; the Argentine ambassador to the United States.

Not to mention his trips to Davos, Switzerland, and Mexico City.

Richardson, who has a master’s degree in law and diplomacy, has met key world figures, including Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein.

And, sure, many of his contacts come from years spent as a Clinton administration Energy Department secretary and troubleshooter.

But they also come from a curiosity about other places.

Maybe Richardson, back from meeting in Nuevo Leon with Mexican and Canadian leaders late last week, is bored with the beltway and wants to see more of the world.

Being president or vice president is one way to do that. But if those don’t work out for Richardson who, you’ll remember, didn’t win New Mexico for Sen. John Kerry in November, maybe secretary of state is a pretty good backup plan.

Published May 16, 2005.