How To Lose Friends and Alienate Your Party
by Trapper John
Mon Apr 30, 2007 at 08:33:39 AM PDT
Like many, if not most Kossacks, I've been intrigued by the Bill Richardson campaign. Is he the only member of the second tier, or just another Biden/Dodd egotripper? He's got a terrific resume, and he's the only governor in the race -- and a Sun Belt governor at that. On paper, he's far more intriguing than Biden et al. But increasingly, he looks like he's just not ready for prime time.
Two recent stories illustrate the bumbling reality of Richardson's campaign, and how it contrasts with his glowing resumé. The first concerns the Guv's dumbass decision during last week's debate to name Byron "Whizzer" White -- one of the two dissenters in Roe v. Wade, and a dissenter from the majority in Miranda -- as his model Supreme Court justice. Yet that's not the worst part. When pressed to square his professed admiration for White with his alleged support for reproductive freedom and civil rights, Richardson made two more boners. Which one bothers you more?
A) He cited the fact that White "was an All-American football player besides being a legal scholar" as a justification for describing the often retrograde White as his model High Court member;
B) He apparently doesn't really know or care about Roe, given that he excused his White pick by saying, "White was in the 60s. Wasn't Roe v. Wade in the 80s?"
I can't choose. (A) is a hopelessly meatheaded answer, and I'm saying that as a serious sports fan. What next? Is Richardson going to name Ford as his favorite president simply because he was All-American at Michigan? And if Bush had said that Roe was decided in the 80s, we'd be mocking him for weeks. Either way, l'affaire Whizzer is a stain on Richardson.
As bad as that was, though, Richardson may have just outdone himself, with a truly gross example of Liebermanist Democrat-bashing self-aggrandizement. In response to John Edwards' musing that new taxes on the richest individuals and on oil companies might be needed to help pay for universal health insurance, Richardson served up this whopper of a Joe-quote:
"Democrats, whenever we have a solution, we want to tax," Richardson said. "I'm different. I'm a tax cutter."
In other words, "most Democrats suck and want to bleed your wallet dry. But not me. I'm different. I'm a maverick. Just like Joe Lieberman."
Didn't work for Joe, and it won't work for you, Bill. All that bashing your own party accomplishes is to convince previously open-minded folks that you're not worthy of further consideration. As far as I'm concerned, Richardson is squarely in the Biden Zone of Irrelevance.
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