Bill Richardson on the presidential election: “I’ve never seen anything like it”

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

Bill Richardson laughs when you ask him what he thinks about the presidential election. It’s not a loud boisterous laugh, it’s more a surprised chuckle. And there’s more to that chuckle than amusement, there’s a knowing in his reaction. Governor Bill Richardson, of New  Mexico, is a former Secretary of Energy, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, former U.S. Representative, and former Presidential candidate. It’s a valuable perspective, if only for his experience.

So he chuckled. “Nothing,” he said, “is like we thought it would be.”

[pullquote]”I didn’t expect for Nevada to be so close.”[/pullquote]

He came to San Antonio to put in a good word for Hillary Clinton; he’s on the Clinton team serving as an as-needed surrogate. He was needed in Texas where Clinton faces a must-win primary on Super Tuesday, so he met partisans, gave them a good pep-talk and met me for coffee the next morning.

The old school doesn’t work with young voters

His sense is that Texas is going well for Hillary, although he acknowledged that young Democratic voters are an uphill climb. “The young don’t know Hillary’s history, and combined with Bernie Sanders’s appeal they’re hard to convince,” he said. The key, he thinks is phone calls and social media, “the kids live on their devices.”

He realizes that “the old school doesn’t work with the young,” TV ads and mailers don’t gain traction with them. So there’s a cadre of young Hillary staffers who are working that flank while he and other party stalwarts fan-out among donors and local party leadership, giving advice, convincing contributors to give more.

He says the best strategy to get and retain Latino votes, in Texas and other Super Tuesday states, is education and immigration – “those two issues resonate with the Latinos.”

Did anything surprise him? “I didn’t expect for Nevada to be so close.”

Do you think Latinos will have a real seat at a Hillary Clinton presidency table? “Look, Cisneros, Peña and I served together in the Clinton cabinet, there’s a history there, a real place in policy. It’s going to be the same.”

These are interesting times

On the GOP side – his chuckle turned to a laugh and his eyes brightened – he said “I’ve never seen anything like this. Three months ago I wouldn’t have predicted this.”

This, as Richardson says it, is the Donald Trump phenomena. There’s nothing in his experience to base an analysis, so he turned the issue to me: “Do you think the Republicans can survive Trump?” I evaded, “That’s up to the Republicans, no?”

“If Trump takes Texas,” he said, “it’s over.” And that’s the reigning conventional wisdom. With all his knowledge and experience, when it comes to the GOP race Bill Richardson is as clueless as the rest of us.

He smiles, “these are interesting times.”



[Photo by Center for American Progress/Flickr]

 

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