Bill Richardson Thinks “Forward” To 2008
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Elections, General Politics, Smart Things Said By Smart PeopleA new article from the LA Times digs into the life and times of Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico.
Why? Well, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that he has presidential designs on 2008, and he might just have the honesty and ideas to beat Hillary for the nomination.
In the last 2 1/2 years, he has slashed taxes and won the hearts of New Mexico’s business leaders, shaken up the education establishment and steamrolled his critics on the left and right, all while fashioning the philosophy of what he calls “a new progressive Democrat.”“It’s basically not center, not left, not right, but basically forward,” Richardson explained one morning over coffee at the governor’s mansion. “What works? What helps people? What solves problems?”
I love this line of thinking. What will help the people? That’s the most important question we should all be asking ourselves.
And as a sidenote, if I could define Donklephant as anything, I would define it as “forward” blog. Forget ideology. Forget rhetoric. What’s going to do the greatest good for the greatest amount of people? Those are the ideas and policies I’m interested in championing, be they from the left, the right, the middle or the forward.
Well said Bill. You’ve got my ear.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 15th, 2005 and is filed under Elections, General Politics, Smart Things Said By Smart People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 15th, 2005 at 11:08 am
“What’s going to do the greatest good for the greatest amount of people?”
I like that. Right now, we seem to be stuck with “doing the greatest amount of good for the least amount of people, at the expense of the majority.”
August 15th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
To me it seems more like “doing the greatest amount of good without offending, excluding or otherwise putting out anyone in the process, especially not anyone with the werewithal to harm our political careers or drag us into a protracted lawsuit.”
As for Bill Richardson, you can add me to those who hope he runs in 2008. I find him more loads more appealing than any of the other Democrats that have been bandied about so far as presidential candidates, including Hilary Clinton, and most of the Republicans as well.
August 15th, 2005 at 5:11 pm
“It’s basically not center, not left, not right, but basically forward…What works? What helps people? What solves problems?â€Â?
Exactly. This to my mind means in some circumstances gov’t action, which will piss off many libertarians and conservatives, but in many others civil society action and gov’t restraint which will piss many liberals off.
August 15th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
Note that Gov. Richardson has declared an emergency on his Mexican border to try to control it. Kudos for some politician actually doing something other than complain about our porous southern border.
With ideas like this, Richardson might be the first Dem candidate for president I would vote for.
August 16th, 2005 at 10:37 am
Richardson may say all the right things, but I get the sense that he is one of the more fake politicians out there. The way he dealt with speculation that he might be named Kerry’s VP choice in 2004 showed this quite clearly. Before anyone from the Kerry camp even mentioned Richardson’s name, he had a big press release saying that while he would be honored to be chosen, he would like to take his name out of the running. The Kerry people said, “uh, Bill, you weren’t IN the running.” It showed how transparently ambitious he was. As a result, he would be one of my last choices on the Democratic side.
August 16th, 2005 at 11:13 am
Just because of that? Well, fair enough. We all have different standards when it comes to choosing a President.
January 27th, 2006 at 5:34 am
1-26-06
April 13th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
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