Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico (remember him?) dropped out of the Democratic race for President before super Tuesday. It's a good thing for him that he did by rtbohan
(libertarian)
Saturday, February 9, 2008
At the time he still had dreams of winning the Democratic nomination for President, Bill Richardson had an idea for getting some "traction". He prevailed upon the Democratic Party of New Mexico to hold a Presidential Caucus on Super Duper Tuesday rather than wait for the state primary election scheduled for June.
This, he told his party, would bring valuable publicity to the state.By the time June came, the nomination would be decided and there would be no interst in New Mexico and its meaningless primary. On the other hand, Super Duper Tuesday would be a big deal with great attention from the national media. What was certainly understood by all was that it would be a good opportuniity to have Governor Richardson win at least one state on the big day.
So the caucuses were scheduled, and party funtionaries scooted around the state finding sites for the caucuses, primting ballots and preparing for a big celebration. And then, two things happened. Governor Richardson dropped his campaign and the race for the nomination turned into a tight two person struggle.
When the day of the caucuses came, the turnout of voters was about twice the number the party officials had expected. The fire marshals became concerned about the capacity of the sites. The voters were left standing in line for hours. absentee ballots had to be hurriedly printed at Kinko's. Hardly a day to brag about for the state. When night came, things got worse.
The volunteers did not finish counting the votes on Tuesday, so without their Governor in the race and no outcome to announce, New Mexico was ignored by the press. What is worse, the votes were not counted by Wednesday night either. Or Thursday night. Or Friday.
Today we can say that Senator Clinton has a lead of about one thousand votes over Senator Obama. There seems to be hope that the count will be finished tomorrow. By that time, of course, everybody will be talking about the results from Louisiana, and will not care.
The democratic state chairman stepped forward on Wednesday, and took the full blame for the mess. Governor Richardson at first expressed full confidence in the chairman, but by Friday was openly criticizing him. Since Governor Richardson was campaigning primarily on his skill at governance, it is probably just as well he dropped out before the country had this demonstration.
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