Tuesday, February 28, 2006

San Juan Convention and I am Retired!

It is 11:00PM on Tuesday night. I just got home after a quick round trip to Farmington and the San Juan County Democratic Convention. I still have some caffeine in me so here is a days tour in pictures. I also just realized that I am now officially retired at Natural Resource Trustee for Governor Bill Richardson. The new Trustee will be Albuquerque City Council President Martin Heinrich. He will do a great job and serve the Governor well.

People often wonder why I enjoy grueling statewide campaigns so much. It is because of the beautiful landscapes that slip by at every milepost on our state highways. Here are the Sandias.

Certainly these landscapes are worth saving and that is why I am running for Land Commissioner once again.


Good light and a good camera catch the Jemez, without snow, on a late winter day.

It was great of my Campaign Treasurer Rodger Beimer to drive me up Highway 550. He is handy to have around to hang the banners in places a guy like me could rarely reach.

There was a very good crowd on hand for the convention at the Farmington Civic Center. County Chairman Gordon Glass ran a smooth operation. All of these people are genuinely nice.

Here is a picture of Magistrate Judge Jim Attcity and me. He has always been one of my favorite personalities up in San Juan County.

Looking back on this long day I have to say it was a lot of fun. Rodger and I talked a lot about our careers as Broadcast Journalists some 30 years ago and how much we loved that profession when TV news was at its best.
I will be on the road quite a bit more this week. Las Cruces, Deming, Silver City and Sandoval County.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Long Day on Tuesday

Here is the schedule for Tuesday. Up at 6am, 40 minutes on the elliptical, then shower, latte, newspapers. Go to campagin office after stop at Starbucks for a tall with room. 9am, three hours of 'call time'. Lunch. 1pm, two hours of call time. Meet Rodger Beimer my treasurer at 3pm. Drive to Farmington for 7pm County Convention. Stay two hours. Drive back to Albuquerque. Go to bed.

Repellant

I signed on to the web site for State Land Commissioner today to see what was going on over there. You need to look at it here.

This headline is really beyond the pale. It says, "Land Commissioner Lyons earns $1 Billion Dollars for Trust Land Beneficiaries." This headline was written by the same people who convinced Lyons to use over $100,000 in Land Office money to air name i.d. commercials for him in the last four months. That money was intended to go to those beneficiaries but Lyons just used it for his political advantage instead. (I bet that money would have paid for all the school supplies in some of our poorer counties.)

Lyons, in one fell swoop, is taking credit for earnings coming off of oil and gas leases that have been producing revenues for the last 40 years. A good portion of that money is due to the fact that I worked to raise the royalty rates to fair market value in the 1980's after many years of New Mexico having the lowest royalties in the nation. It was not difficult to do because the oil and gas guys knew the rates were low and most, not all, agreed to reform legislation in the legislature. We also started the oil and gas audit department in my first term in the 80's and that has brought in untold millions of dollars that otherwise would have been lost to the beneficiaries.

There is no doubt that oil and gas revenues are up for the land office but frankly, Commissioners have little to do with that. Oil prices are set globally, not in state land offices. What is really surprising is that Lyons goes on to brag about cutting the Land Office budget during this time. I submit this is the time to increase the field force to ensure that state lands are being treated properly by the lessees and that good conservation practices are being followed.

At any rate, it appears that Lyons is now using a state funded website to campaign as well. If he is going to do that he should at least do it in a credible way.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Starbucks and Politics in Arlington

Bobbi got up early here in Virginia to go to Jazzercise and I took a nice walk over to the Starbucks about a half a mile away. When ever I am here I do this because the Starbucks has glazed donuts made in heaven. It is the only time I eat them anymore so I make sure I don't miss the chance. I picked up a Washington Post front page section from a table. The front page contained two stories that you will see anywhere in the nation in one form or another. One was the conviction of a defense contractor who bribed Rep. Randall Cunningham. He looked the part in the photo. The other was about a developer who was fined a large amount of money for violating zoning laws. He paid the money and was let off the hook which angered local residents.

As I was sitting there this pretty and young girl came up to sit at my table. She immediately started talking politics to me. Lets see, abortion, John McCain, Kerry, sea ports, Idaho economic tailspin, and democrats are wimps. She, however, was a democrat and liked McCain and was really pissed at the dems for not taking a stand. We both agreed that this story on the American seaports was conflicting us. We thought it was probably okay if the Dubai company was professional and security conscious, however we both agreed that bush was a doofus for not even knowing this was in the works. Where was his homeland security breifing on this? Oh, thats right, this guy doesn't read much. bush has been basing his administration on scaring the bejeesus out of Americans about arabs and then wants Americans to fall in line over this thing. That is where the disconnect really is. Also, if I am not mistaken the United Arab Emirates just bought a bunch of airliners from Boeing. I think this is called International Trade. It was really interesting talking to her because she was probably not more than 25 but really had an opinion on everything. Bobbi says this is all normal in Arlington, VA. This county actually went against bush in the last election.

I hope more 25 year olds start taking notice like this young woman. Their futures depend on it.

Friday, February 24, 2006

DC Meetings and Fundraising

I have been in meetings for two solid days at the Wilderness Society Governing Council meeting. The meetings were generally upbeat. As some one pointed out, bush and his cronies have still not put a single road into the roadless areas of our public lands in the last 5.5 years. Maybe their incompetence is being effective there too! Let's don't bank on that happening over the last 2.5 years of this surreal administration however. Vigilance is the operative word here.

The fundraising time I put in here in DC has really paid off.....literally. I have made a good size dent into paying for the nuts and bolts for the campaign, but a lot more will be needed. I will be meeting with other fundraisers on Saturday before having lunch with my good friends Steve Cobble and Moses Mercado of the Democratic National Committee.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Airport Ripoffs

I have discovered through my very own research that a small cup of coffee in the Albuquerque airport costs $2.08. In the Dallas airport it costs $2.01. So my findings are, 1. Albuquerque had the inferior coffee at a higher price and 2. Dallas coffee was ok but all they had to put in it was creamer from those little containers that are so hard to open and 3. When you are in an airport if you want a cup of coffee you just pay ridiculous prices. I figure that cup of coffee could not have cost them more than 15 cents. What a racket!

My cab driver in from Washington National Airport to Bobbi's apartment was a Pakastani. I think 50% of DC cab drivers are from overseas and they are always fun to have a conversation with. He had the nicest and cleanest cab I have been in for a long time. As I have said before I always love the cabbies in DC because they listen to the NPR news all day and have great opinions on what is going on and I have never run across one in the last few years that had anything nice to say about bush. But, today we didn't talk about bush. We somehow got on subject of natural disasters after I mentioned we had a drought in New Mexico. He said he is from he region of Pakistan that was devasted by the earthquake last year and that the members of his family that survived were living in tents. I added that a lot of the Katrina survivors didn't even have that which says a lot about the current leadership in the nation's capitol. Well, I guess I did talk about bush.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

DC Bound

I will be leaving early Wednesday morning for Washington, DC to attend a meeting of the Wilderness Society. I have been on their national Governing Council for about 14 years. I will also be doing a little fund raising for my Land Commissioner race. Now, dont forget you can send a check to Jim Baca for Land Commissioner, PO Box 7514-Albuquerque, NM 87194. I will blog from the road.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Family on the Move

Okay, personal blog time for those who might be interested. Our nuclear family is on the move again. The big news is that Bobbi, after eighteen months in Washington, DC as the National Environmental Engineer for the U.S. Forest Service is returning to Albuquerque. Our commuting marriage will end in mid April when Bobbi comes back to Albuquerque to take on a job with the new big regional business service center for the USFS. She will now put her skills acquired from getting her MBA to work. A lot of her colleagues in the Forest Service are happy she is doing this because they will know someone in the Service center who can help them get things done.



Next is our daughter Noelle. She is shown here with one of the horses out in Pena Blanca at Christmas time. She graduates from Rice University in May. While she was at home during Christmas break, after returning from a semester in Bangkok, she did two phone interviews with Intel. Then a couple of weeks ago they flew her from Houston to Phoenix for more interviews. A few days after that she got a call with a tremendous job offer, including a signing bonus and a relocation package. She just turned 21 and will report for work in July.


Here is Justin after an all night hike up a 12,000 mountain under a full moon near Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Justin has been there since January 9th studying Spanish. He will stay there until May before coming home for a month and then taking off to get his MBA. He took this fantastic picture of a volcano venting below them.

Paradox or Politics

There was another big hand picked crowd for bush to appear in front of the other day. It started with a citizen saying something like, "Mr. President, God has truly blessed this country by making you President." Well, somewhere there is a disconnect. Especially, after you read this little jewel.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Reclamation & Transformation

Picture taken last July prior to reclamation project.

This morning my brother Tom and I flew his Bonanza over to Pena Blanca for some more aerial photography. I have blogged several times about the reclamation project on some of our irrigated farm land in Pena Blanca. Last July we started by cutting down hundreds of wild elm trees that had sprung up on the 22 acre parcel.

We then contracted with the Natural Resource Conservation Service to do a water conservation project on the property under a cost sharing agreement. The land has been laser leveled and in the last week the new irrigation system was completed. It is a system of underground 15 inch pipe that connects into the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District ditch. You can now see the transformation of this property. After my dad's death in May my brother Tom and I decided to start this project. It will save immense amounts of water during the irrigation season. This is a great program that NRCS has, but I fear it will not be funded well in the future because of bush's war costs. The state engineers office in New Mexico, which over sees water, should consider the same kind of cost sharing program The amount of water that is conserved will be well worth the costs.

Picture taken this morning, February 19th, 2006 of reclamation results.


Saturday, February 18, 2006

Campaign Trail in Pictures

This was a day for campaigning. Mort, a real Democrat, was manning a table at the Bernalillo County Convention this morning at the Performing Arts Center at Highland High School. He was joined by over 300 Dems who will be going to the State Convention on March 18th.

This was a really well attended County Convention and it was heartening to see the unity.

Bobbi and Jessie think we will win in June and then show the incumbent republican the door in November.

We then traveled down to Socorro for the Socorro County Convention. They were electing 15 delegates to the state convention. I have always loved the Gazebo in the Socorro Plaza.
Their County Court House is a real classic too!

The crowd wasn't as big but they were very friendly and engaging. We will see them again in about three or four weeks in Albuquerque.


These are Treasurer Candidate Lucky Varela's grand daughters, Camille and Andrea. Their enthusiasm was typical. They ended up holding up everyone's signs before it was over.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Bobbi and Friends


We fired up the gas log tonight since it was pretty cool in the house. Bobbi has been home the last four weekends in a row. Jerry the Cat and Athena and Beagle always relax with her around and they really like the fireplace.


Saturday Bobbi and I will attend the Bernalillo County Democratic Convention in the morning and then race over to Socorro for the Socorro County Democratic Convention in the afternoon.

So Long-Farewell


These are the great state employees I have spent the last three years of my professional life with. They took me to lunch today at the Artichoke Cafe. That is Will Fetner on the left, me, Elysia Martinez and Rebecca Neri Zagal. They are the employees of the Office of the State Natural Resource Trustee. This little team of ours has taken an agency that was virtually ignored by the Johnson Administration and turned it into a very potent entity that works to restore damaged natural resources in New Mexico. We have been very successful because Governor Richardson supported us every inch of the way. Rebecca is the Executive Director, Will is our scientist and Elysia is the administrative assistant. They are really representative of many of our state employees in their dedication to doing the right thing for all New Mexicans. I am going to miss them when I retire on March 1st. I will continue to help them and the new Natural Resource Trustee in every way possible. I am sure the Governor will announce my successor soon.

Orange Vests and Dedicated Dems

I went to a very well attended meeting of the Bernalillo County Democratic Party last night at the Law School at UNM. They invited the candidates from Attorney General on down the ballot to give short presentations on their platforms and what they felt was the single most important issue in their race. About half of the candidates showed up and there were actually many more people in the audience than in the candidate entourages. It was very encouraging to see the rank and file taking time out of their evening to listen.

The candidates were split between McKinley County and Bernalillo County functions last evening, but I made the call that talking about my platform for 10 minutes was worth more to the campaign that getting introduced in Gallup. I will be getting over there for a lot of one on one interaction in March.

It is obvious to me that the resentment to bush and his cronies is growing daily. People are angry and it is becoming apparent that one of the main criticisms is the sheer incompetence and fingerpointing of this administration. I was actually interuppted by applause several times as I promised to fight bush's land and environmental policies during his last two years in office if I am elected.

Everyone of the candidates had a few choice remarks about cheney's hunting accident. I had the notion that if cheney comes to New Mexico again that all Dems should go buy orange hunting vests and caps and stand on every street corner.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Our Campaign Logo


I have always felt it was important to have a logo for a political campaign. I am fortunate to have a name that fits nicely on any bumper sticker, yard sign, stationary, and lapel badge. Just seven letters in Jim Baca......It leaves room for other stuff.

This image is my campaign logo for my 2006 Land Commissioner Race. It was done by the genius folks at Vaughn Wedeen Creative in Albuquerque. They have done some beautiful work including the Albuquerque Isotopes logo. They are the best.

I told the artists what I envisioned. I wanted a Lynx in the picture since there is an effort underway to protect that cat in New Mexico. I have always liked them. I also had called a friend of mine on the Wilderness Society Council, Tom Barron and he described coming across a Lynx in Northern New Mexico not long ago while hiking. His verbal description of the encounter was dramatic and he was obviously moved. Tom is a well known author who writes under the name T.A. Barron. Follow this link to see more about this great writer.

Anyway, this logo says a lot about why I am running and I am very happy with it.

Filing Day

All statewide candidates for elective office had to file their candidacy today in Santa Fe. Jessie Keefe, my campaign manager, and I got up there at about 10AM to file our petitions and fill out necessary paper work.



Jessie handed in our 6,500 signatures(more or less) while I filled out financial disclosure information. You will remember I was obsessive compulsive about getting enough signatures, but we have more than twice as many as needed so we will pretty much survive any attempts to throw out our signatures.
I was required to fill out some forms, show identification and fill out a really brief financial disclosure statement. New Mexico has really weak campaign finance laws and I will not be required to show my donors list until about four weeks before the election. That is really ridiculous.

Newsworthy Challenge Here

I hereby challenge my primary opponent Ray Powell and Republican Pat Lyons to start releasing their donor reports every two weeks starting on March 15th. I will do it if they will do it. The same goes for all expenditure reports.

I am sincere about this and I hope they will take me up on this. There really is nothing to hide.


Old Friends

After filing I strolled over to the Pink Adobe Restaurant to meet Rachel Cohen, my sister's stepdaughter and her husband Booth. My sister Carlota was married to Ira Cohen in my office at the State Land Office in Santa Fe back in the 80's after being together for many years. They moved to Santa Fe after living in Washington, DC and Buffalo, New York for many years. Ira died in 1992 while engaged in his favorite pastime, skiing. We all miss him.

Anyway, Rachel and Booth come from Austin, Texas where they have both retired from jobs with Texas State Government. They are true liberals who have braved the neo con winds in Texas for many years. They say Austin is a bastion of liberal to moderate Texans who really don't like w very much. They are staying in Santa Fe for a couple of weeks at my sister's home while she is away on safari in Africa. She bought a new digital camera so I envision some vacation slide shows. I hope she doesn't get eaten by a lion!

Monday, February 13, 2006

Homer on Cheney

Marge: This is the worst thing you've ever done.
Homer: You say that so often that it lost its meaning.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

A Scary Read

That big red spot on the North American Continent does not mean we have only 'red states.' This is another one of those scary reads from some of the bush administrations worst enemies.....scientists.

If only the sun-drenched celebrities are being noticed and worshiped, then our children are going to have a tough time seeing the value in the shadows, where the thinkers, probers and scientists are keeping society together.
Rita Dove

Friday, February 10, 2006

Airplane Freaks


My twin brother Tom has been an airplane/helicopter freak since the 1950s when we started watching some weekly 30 minute drama on TV about helicopter pilots. The shows star was a Bell H-47 helicopter. It took some actors for lots of rides.

Ever since then he has been obsessed with flying. Even when people were shooting at him. He has over 10,000 hours time in choppers, turbine aircraft, jets, puddle jumpers and anything else that has thousands of moving parts that fly in unison.

Tom is now the State Aviation Director for Governor Richardson's Department of Transportation. He is in charge of making sure all the airports around the state are following rules and getting resources. He still flies around a lot in his own plane and some of the state planes.

When I served as Mayor I worked hard with Albuquerque business people to get Eclipse Aviation to Albuquerque to manufacture their new inexpensive business jet. Verne Rayburn, Eclipse CEO, attended a party we threw for him and talked fondly of his time as a New Mexico resident and his love of the Albuquerque Dukes baseball team. Right after he decided to locate Eclipse here the Albuquerque Dukes left town and we scrambled to get a new team. We succeeded and built a new stadium which Mayor Chavez put his name on after not helping a bit to get it built. I know, I should get over it.


A lot of people thought Rayburn and his engineers would never deliver the jet they promised. Well, they have done it and thousands of the planes will be built here providing lots of good paying jobs.

My brother Tom was like a kid in a candy store today when he was invited to pilot one of the operational jets. He said it handled extremely well. I cant wait to get a ride.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

BLM Targets Valle Vidal

The bush administration and its Bureau of Land Management team have secretly cut a deal to drill gas wells on land abutting the Valle Vidal. Given the sensitivity over this pristine New Mexico treasure you would have thought that interested parties would have been asked to comment on this mineral estate leasing, but this is the bush administration and back room secrecy and deal making is the rule.

The amount of damage the bush administration can do to New Mexico lands in the next three years is scary. Don't forget the present land commissioner, Pat Lyons, has teamed up with the bushies on these issues. One wonders if he knows our state slogan is "Land of Enchantment" or if he thinks it is "Land to exploit."

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Disconnect

The Albuquerque School Bond and TVI Bond election held no surprises yesterday. They both easily won. Hooray! The voter turn out was about 8%. Abysmal!

There is a disconnect here that I have never understood. Polling data always show that education ranks at the top of the list of peoples concerns, and yet relatively few vote in bond or school board elections. I know some pretty respected people who feel that is no accident. They say these elections are designed to be stealth elections so that the people with vested interests are the majority of those who vote. Certainly, teachers, administrators, construction companies and suppliers are frequent voters in these elections. I think this is mostly true, but I also think average voters just don't see these elections as very important. The media doesn't cover them extensively and there is miniscule amounts of advertising.

There is no bigger cost in government than our education system and it is pretty much on autopilot when it comes to local funding issues. Go figure!

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Team Member with a Whip

This is Jessica Christiansen. She is my boss. Well, during the dreaded 'call time' anyway. Jessica is my fundraiser and she is pretty good. Now, what is this 'call time thing?' It is every candidates nightmare is what it is. This is where a strong willed and competent person like Jessica chains you to a desk and supervises your phone calls to potential donors. Nine out of ten candidates hate this process with a passion usually reserved only for puppy abusers. They will think of every excuse to get out of this. They will slash their own tires and then call in and say they have a flat! Well, you get the picture.

I am sort of getting used to it. I did it extensively in my Mayor's races and you get to the point where rejection isn't that big of a deal. You just go on to your next call. When you do get someone who is eager to send money then the whole day seems worth it. This 'call time' is useful even if you don't get much money because people generally will tell you what is on their mind and that is good for any politician to hear. I will be doing at least ten hours of call time a week until June and it will really be the main source of fund raising for my campaign. So far I have logged about ten hours of call time and am very happy with our efforts.

Now, Jessica's message to you all is to send a check to Jim Baca for Land Commissioner, PO Box 7514, Albuquerque, NM 87194.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Kid's are Smart!

This is how I spent part of my morning. I was a guest speaker at a combined class at the Montessori School on the Rio Grande Charter School on Gabaldon Road in Albuquerque's North Valley. My little niece Amanda and nephew Ian were asked by their teacher Rebecca Gilson to invite me over to talk about working in government. This was one bright group of kids. It was really nice to see a classroom where government was being studied. I remember well my civics class at St. Pius X High School where we were indoctrinated to be members of the communist party by our teacher, Father Cushing. During the second semester he told us why Communism really didn't work. I guess he was right now that we see capitalism pretty much running the planet.

I hope that all high schools are still teaching government courses. It is frightening to know that most naturalized citizens know much more about our democracy than the average American does. The thing is, our governments history is really interesting and a halfway decent teacher could make it enjoyable for the class room.

I know that Father Cushing did. We appreciated him so much that we carried his Volkswagen into the building one day. He didn't see any humor in that for some reason, but he was still acting out the commissar role as I recall.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Superbowl Food

We always go to the Superbowl party at Rodger and Connie Beimer's house. That is Connie in the middle of the couch around one of the TVs. Rodger and Connie had their first date at a Superbowl party at our house back in the late 80's sometime. And, as they say, the rest is history.

Let's see, on the menu was Chile con Queso, Green Chile dip, Chips, hot dogs, frito pie(my favorite), browines, cookies, and some veggies. Superbowl parties are known for the best bad food ever, if you know what I mean.

One thing, though is that Lobo football helmet with a hole in the top to hold chips. I wanted to shoot it with something other than the Nikon, but out of respects for my hosts I just tried to ignore it. It also holds dip.

Eureka!

One month ago I was in a constant state of panic about getting enough signatures on my nominating petitions. Ask Jessie, my campaign manager and she might agree that I was a little obsessive compulsive about getting these signatures. You can't get on the ballot without them and it will be all over for any candidate who falls short. You need about 2900 to qualify so you shoot for more than that in case you are challenged by an opponent on their validity. Judy Espinosa, one of last year's Mayoral candidates found that out the hard way when she fell short.


This little pile contains about 4800 signatures and I know of at least another 1,000 or so that will come in from volunteers. About 70% of my signatures came from paid gatherers. I know that just about every candidate hired these folks. I had two paid groups getting mine. One was SC Consulting and the other was the Campaign Finance Company. They guarantee about a 70% validity rate on their signatures.

On February 14th all of the candidates will carry their signatures to the Secretary of State's Office and file their candidacies. Then the campaign season begins in earnest. The next big hurdle is to attend the Democratic pre-primary nominating convention in March and get at least 20% of the delegate votes to get on the ballot. If you don't get those votes you have a few weeks to get more signatures to get on the ballot anyway. After that, it is just plain hard work raising money and getting votes for the Primary election in June.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Staging


I remember when Bill Clinton used to come to Albuquerque and hold large public events that every one could attend. While I was still Mayor, President Clinton came for several rallies. The Mayor's Office was asked to help coordinate the events and my staff, Connie Beimer, Luisa Casso, Brian Morris, Julie Hicks and Theresa Trujeque did a great job. They worked closely with the secret service and advance teams to make sure the public had good access to see the nation's leader.

Clinton's last rally here was scheduled just after the Monica Lewinsky story hit the press. I was really worried that the scandal would hurt attendance at an evening Civic Plaza event in Albuquerque. I was totally wrong about that as well over 10,000 folks showed up and wildly greeted the President. It was a wonderful evening spent with an intelligent man who was our leader. Americans love seeing their President up close and personal. Clinton would always go to the crowd and shake the hands of his constituents.

Flash forward to 2006. President bush comes to town and makes no real public appearances. Just a stop for red chile at El Pinto. You might get a glimpse of him in his armored limo as he and the convoy pass by. He and his handlers have become so paranoid that they can't even have an event where more that 200 handpicked participants can be there. Everything at these appearances is so staged that it actually ends up hurting bush's credibility.

I predict this man will become more and more isolated over the next three years. When he finally ends his term one can only wonder if anyone will be there to wave goodbye. Oh, wait....I will be there celebrating with what might actually be a big crowd come to think of it.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Coverage of the Governor and Other Stuff

I was kind of amused at the story the Journal did on the Governor this morning. It seems his steak dinner after an NFL playoff game in Denver piqued the interest of the editors at the State's largest newspaper. The fact he had dinner with Gerry Peters, who is a long time supporter and a prospective casino developer, might be understandable. But the story showed a little Q&A regarding what everyone had for dinner.
Uhhh, well I for one don't care nor do I think it is important. White linen tablecloths and steak and lobster similar to the offerings at The Palm in Denver can be had just about anywhere these days. Drive south on I-25 in Albuquerque everyday and see the jammed parking lots at all those overpriced restaurants and I bet many of those folks are eating steak and lobster too! I have eaten at the Palm and it is ok, but not a showstopper.

One person I know figures that the Journal has started covering Richardson as a Presidential candidate instead of a Governor's candidate. That is probably a correct assumption. It is also an indication they may consider him a viable candidate.

Religious Fanaticism

It is distressing to see religious fanaticism in operation. First I read that the Islamic world is getting worked up about editorial cartoons showing the Prophet Mohammed in a bad light. This was tasteless but hardly worth threatening violence against certain European countries.

And then, a movie called "The End of the Spear" which is about five Christian missionaries who were killed in Ecuador, is being derided by fundamentalists because a gay actor has a leading role. The movie was apparently being praised by the Christian right until this little factoid was made public. Life is too short!

Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.
Robertson Davies