Bill Richardson’s Reasonable Liberalism

By Aditya Sivaraman | Tuesday, April 10, 2007

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson held a town hall-style meeting at the Hopkins center on Wednesday, April 4th. He addressed the audience of Dartmouth students, faculty, and townspeople on his plans to reshape the presidency and his goals for the future of America. Richardson, a skilled diplomat and negotiator, conducted the event with a sense of casual ease and openness that is increasingly uncommon among American politicians.

Perhaps this should not be very surprising. At a distant third to frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Richardson certainly has far less to lose. His low poll ratings, however, seem slightly less important when compared to the governor’s professional credentials. A Tufts graduate, Richardson went on to serve as a congressman in New Mexico for 14 years before being appointed America’s ambassador to the United Nations. In 1998, he was appointed Secretary of Energy by President Clinton. Four years later, he was elected Governor of New Mexico, making him the first and only Hispanic governor in the history of the United States. Despite this impressive set of qualifications, Richardson is still at best a distant 3rd, with roughly 6% of the primary field. This doesn’t faze the governor at all; in fact, Richardson is convinced that he has two very good reasons to be confident.

The first is his platform. Richardson has come out as a much more moderate candidate than either Hillary or Obama. His years under Clinton seem to have served him well: his position on a number of issues, especially domestic issues, is far less offensive than those of his main competition.

Richardson began his speech by discussing Iraq. Like most Democratic candidates, Richardson supports a rapid pullout. He wants to patch up relations with the Middle East as well as ensuring that Iraq has at least some chance of transitioning to stability. The key factor differentiating him from most of the others on the Left was that he vocally supports Israel without caveat. Israel, as America’s “main ally” in the Middle East, is key to Richardson’s plan for stability in the region. He wants to effect a complete pullout within one year. He plans to concurrently negotiate with Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd leaders to put an end to the sectarian conflict in Iraq. He hopes to reach an agreement that would give a broad degree of autonomy to each of these groups while still combining them in a federalist system. Richardson hopes to bind this agreement with an equal division of oil revenues to all three of the sub-national groups. This is an agreement he plans on reaching with the help of the other major players in the region – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. During this entire process, he plans on working closely with Israel to resolve any residual anti-Occidental feelings in the region by resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Richardson takes a strong stance on illegal immigration. In a surprisingly refreshing move, he declared “laws are laws” and that he plans on vigorously enforcing border regulations. Appreciation for rule of law (and not the mob) by a Democratic candidate in this election is pleasing enough; the fact that Richardson is serious enough to suggest doubling the border patrol, working with Mexico, and penalize businesses that hire illegal workers is even better. The governor supports a path to citizenship for individuals illegally in the United States that would require them to learn English, pay back taxes and fines for breaking the law, consent to background checks, and embrace American values. Additionally, he also favors raising the legal immigration numbers for individuals from certain non-Hispanic countries to bring in specific job skills to the American economy.

Richardson is a moderate on energy. He proclaimed that he believed in science and technology and “not redistribution”. While he opposes drilling in the ANWR, the governor is open to drilling in the Rockies and finding other methods of decreasing American foreign oil dependence. He favors regulations to increase the efficiency of automobiles as well as encouraging every American citizen to simply consume less.

Richardson said he wanted to be an “education president”. He admits that the No Child Left Behind act was good in theory, but says that he would fund it better. He also supports doing much more for children with special needs, as well as increasing teacher training and salary.
Finally, Richardson says he would favor a constitutional amendment enforcing a balanced budget. This is an amendment of the New Mexico constitution; another power afforded to the executive in that state is a line item veto, another measure Richardson insinuated that he might favor to cut pork.

The last American senator who went on to the presidency was John F. Kennedy. This might seem strange, especially with a Democratic primary field dominated by senators in a political climate that seems to favor the Left. Add to this fact the enormous amount of fundraising done by Hillary and Obama and it might seem strange to remain optimistic to continue plugging for Richardson. But perhaps there is good reason why Americans choose governors and not senators. As Richardson says, “Governors are CEOs”. If his desire to run the government like a business weren’t enough, the fact that he is truly a democrat in the tradition of Bill Clinton can only lead one to hope that, if a Democrat must be president, at least let it be Richardson.

Bill Richardson’s Reasonable Liberalism

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