With the Jan. 29 Florida primary approaching, we continue our series on all the major candidates for the presidency, with an emphasis on the issues they are discussing and their support in Tampa Bay. This week, New Mexico's governor and the challenge he faces in this state:
Bill Richardson certainly must have felt at home in the Disney World conference center in June. It was the annual National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials gathering, known informally as "the nation's Latino presidential convention." Speaking to the 2,000 members present, he called them mi gente, mi familia — my people, my family.
Richardson is the highest-profile Latino running for the presidency. His father was a California banker, his mother Mexican; he grew up in Mexico City after being born in Pasadena. Richardson's resume is as impressive as it is long: Clinton Cabinet member and energy secretary; U.N. Ambassador; congressman and the Democratic governor of a red state, New Mexico.
At the NALEO event, Richardson's campaign handed out an impressive five-page list of Latino supporters, prominent national names that included former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and the former Ambassador to Spain, Ed Romero. Dozens of other Latino mayors, council members, state legislators and former governors from Texas, Georgia, New Hampshire, California, Nevada and Arizona comprised the rest of the roster of endorsers.
Not one person on the list was from Florida.
Tampa's Frank Sanchez was at NALEO, as well — but spinning for Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton's campaign announced its Latino supporters at a NALEO news conference, a list that included Hillsborough School Board member Susan Valdes and Tampa Democratic consultant Ana Cruz.
Such is Richardson's dilemma in a decidedly Latino-rich state whose Latino politics don't follow the standard Democratic playbook. The dominant Latino political bloc in Florida is Republican, a legacy of the Cuban migration to South Florida.
While he's been able to count on at least a core of Latino support in many other states, especially Western states, in Florida Richardson has seen local Democratic Latino politicos already snapped up and split between the frontrunners Clinton, Obama and John Edwards.
"I would be looking at all three of those, and Richardson doesn't even make my list," said Maura Barrios, a West Tampa activist and historian of Cuban heritage. "Isn't that sad?"
Richardson has "great experience in the international arena. I really love him at the debates when he talks about foreign affairs," she added. But that doesn't mean she's considering voting for him at this point.
About the only high-profile Latino in Tampa Bay to even mention Richardson is Patrick Manteiga, the editor of the trilingual (Spanish, Italian and English) La Gaceta weekly. Manteiga has written that he favors Richardson as the nominee but he said last week that he is holding an open mind for all of the candidates until he writes his endorsement before the January primary.
And it's not like other Latinos dislike Richardson.
"Personally, I like Richardson the best. If you look on just paper, he's got the best qualifications," said Victor DiMaio, a Tampa Democratic consultant. "I feel that he is the most qualified of all the guys running."
Richardson did make some early overtures here. Before lining up with Obama, Sanchez set up a meeting between Richardson and some local Democrats.
"There was a buzz [for Richardson]. We were all kind of like leaning in that direction," DiMaio said. "Then Hillary got in and Obama got in, and it's all scrambled eggs now."
That leaves Richardson with a high hill ahead of him and a short list of online and fundraising supporters in Tampa Bay and Sarasota that includes Pinellas Democratic activist Frank Lupo.
Richardson's campaign could not be reached for comment on its plans for a Florida campaign. It does have a Miami native, Michelle Mayorga, on board as the Midwestern and Florida political director. But clearly both the high cost of running a race here and the possibility that the national party will disallow some or all of the state's delegates because it moved its primary earlier than party rules allow are taking a toll. In July, Richardson told the St. Petersburg Times: "There's been so much uncertainty about Florida. The biggest uncertainty is whether you're going to be just a beauty contest or not."
Where he is focusing his campaign, in key early primary states, Richardson is gaining some ground, albeit small. His polling results in Iowa and New Hampshire are trending up. He has gained almost 5 percentage points in Iowa but remains fourth with 12 percent. In New Hampshire, he is within two points of Edwards, and Pollster.com's averages have him just ahead of Edwards. Even still, he is 15 points behind Obama and 23 points behind Clinton.
In any other year, without the media-beloved names of Clinton and Obama running, Richardson might have been viewed as the ideal Democratic candidate with crossover appeal in a general election, the kind of politician who wins moderates who shift from party to party depending on the election.
He's won handily (69 percent of the vote) in a GOP-dominated state as governor. He's strongly pro-gun. He has a formidable foreign affairs resume and can speak with great knowledge on many international issues, the result of his year at the United Nations. He's the only governor running on the Democratic ticket, and governors tend to be favored as presidential material (see: Bush II, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Roosevelt, etc.).
And he would be the first Latino nominated by a major party for president, ostensibly giving him a leg up on the crucial and growing Latino vote, the largest minority bloc.
His platform is similarly centrist (Richardson's term is "new progressive.") Take this example, his key plank on energy, from a speech in Washington in May: "Today, I am going to stake my claim to being the next president, the Energy President, on the concept of a fast, comprehensive energy revolution in the United States. Our energy policy solutions must fight global warming, which threatens human, ecological and economic catastrophe literally everywhere on earth. [But] … I am a market-oriented Democrat. I want to set clear regulatory standards and systems and incentives, and allow the markets to respond."
On health care, he would reform the system to make it more accessible and more equitable but has not called for anything near universal coverage.
His stance and record on immigration may be the most problematic on his resume. While he opposes a fence along the Mexican border and supports citizenship for some of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., he would also crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers and beef up border patrols and security.
He angered some Latino officials and immigration activists in 2006 when he honored President Bush's request and sent his state's National Guard troops to the Mexican border to assist in keeping illegal immigrants out. Reformers decried the action as "militarizing the border."
Richardson, however, didn't apologize for that action at the NALEO conference earlier this year, and he proudly touts it on his website, saying, "I was the first governor in the nation to send National Guard troops to the border."
Just the kind of red meat that plays well to red-state voters but not so endearing to the hardcore blue-staters he needs to win the Democratic nomination.
This article appears in Aug 8-14, 2007.