N.M. governor moves toward White House bid

‘The best-equipped candidate’
“I know I’m not the favorite in this race. As an underdog and governor of a small, western state, I will not have the money that other candidates will have. However, I believe these serious times demand serious people, who have real-world experience in solving the challenges we face. I humbly believe I’m the best-equipped candidate to meet these challenges,” Richardson said in his video.

He has hosted talks on North Korea’s nuclear program in New Mexico and most recently traveled to Sudan to meet with the country’s president to press him for an end to the bloodshed in Darfur.

Despite the varied resume, Richardson enters the race as an underdog. Polling in early voting states shows him ranking near the bottom in a very crowded Democratic field led by Clinton, Obama and 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards.

Other Democratic contenders include former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack; Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd; Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the party’s 2004 vice-presidential nominee. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden has said he will run and planned to formalize his intentions soon. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the party’s 2004 standard bearer, is also contemplating another run.

A smaller fundraising network
Richardson does not have the national fundraising network of some of his rivals in what is bound to be a very expensive race. Also, he will have to spend the next two months concentrating on a legislative session in Santa Fe, N.M., instead of campaigning.

William Blaine Richardson was born in Pasadena, Calif. His father was an international banker from Boston; his mother was Mexican. He spent his early childhood in Mexico City, where his father worked for CitiBank. As a teenager, he attended a boarding school in Concord, Mass.

After graduating from Tufts University in 1971 with a master’s degree in international affairs, Richardson worked first as a congressional aide and then for the State Department. He was a staffer for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he decided to leave Washington in 1978 to launch a political career.

Richardson settled in New Mexico, partly because of the state’s large Hispanic population. In 1982, Richardson was elected to the House and then was re-elected seven times.

In 1996, President Clinton named Richardson ambassador to the United Nations, where he served until 1998, when he joined the Clinton cabinet as energy secretary.

He was easily elected governor of New Mexico in 2002 and re-elected in November with 68 percent of the vote.

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