J.C. Watts going Democratic?...likes Richardson...

Compares him to the Big Dawg



http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/washingtonwhispers/070304/whats_with_watts_and_richardso.htm

Whats this guy up to? He is not trustworthy.

My Top 10 Problems with Richardson

1. Pro-NAFTA/Pro-CAFTA/Anti-Fair Trade;

2. Supported Vouchers for Private Schools (draining public school funding);

3. Shut down presidential recount despite suspicious circumstances;

4. Supported medical savings account approach to broken health care system;

5. Hawkish on military bases and homeland security;

6. Supports revenue reduction via tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-wealthy;

7. Supports giving churches access to federal funds to provide faith-based social services;

8. Has much praise for Bush's immigration plans;

9. Richardson is a favorite of the DLC; and

10. Weakness on Civil Rights (see below)



Richardson's Top 10 Civil Rights Weaknesses (So Many, I Need Another Top 10 List)

1. Richardson’s support for mandatory jail time, even for non-violent offenders;

2. Richardson’s support for the death penalty;

3. Richardson’s vote to abolish habeas corpus in death penalty appeals;

4. Richardson’s opposition to offering the option of life-without-parole as an alternative to the death penalty;

5. Richardson’s support for prosecuting minors as adults;

6. Richardson’s support for expanding the number of federal crimes punishable by death;

7. Richardson’s support for eliminating parole for anyone convicted of a violent crime;

8. Richardson’s support for eliminating automatic citizenship for all children born in the USA;

9. Richardson’s support for limiting access to our court system for people hurt by negligent hospitals; an

10. Richardson’s vote in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act against gay marriage.



Sources:

http://www.ontheissues.org/Bill_Richardson.htm

http://www.whereistand.com/BillRichardson/16327

http://vote-smart.org/npat.php?old=true&can_id=H2505103&npatform_id=11

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151631,00.html

I was really starting to like Richardson. I realize that unfortunately a lot of Dems support the Death Penalty, but he seems to love it almost as much as the Bushes. The Defense of Marriage vote bothers me a great deal too. He's certainly dropped a few spots for me.

There is certainly a lot to like about this candidate, and I won't go through it all, but I will tell you why I was there...I wanted to personally thank him for his use of inclusionary language for the LBGTQ community. As best I could tell ( and I was on a lot of cold medicine) he was the only candidate I heard speaking to the issue of equality for all at the DNC Winter meeting* aka cattle call in early February. I got my chance, and his reply was direct, "always have always will".

http://www.blogfordemocracy.org/2007/03/sunday_afternoon_with_gov_bill.html

Wasn't all that going on when he was Sec. Of Energy?

which inaccurately claimed that Richardson was drafted in the Major League Baseball draft when he was not drafted (I am having a difficult time tracking down how this erroneous claim happened, but it seems like something that could blow up later if Richardson was the nominee).

I would be grateful to hear how this false claim got circulated and how it should not reflect poorly on Richardson if anyone knows.

And how do they compare on the issues that irk you as compared to Governor Richardson?

I can understand sharing your dislike for one of our candidates -- but let us know who in your mind is better on the issues you listed.

Thanks-

First of all, many of the negative points are based on the National political Awareness Test that Richardson filled out over 10 years ago. If you've ever looked at one of these actual tests, you'll find that many of the questions are misleading. Case in point, someone recently criticized Barack Obama by saying that he wanted to ban all semi-automatic weapons. This would include hunting shot guns and rifles according to the wording posted on the at "On The Issues" site. However, when you actually read the question in the NPAT, it sounded more like they were talking about assault weapons. If you notice, no one in office with any experience fills that survey out anymore.

From your top ten problems list:

1. Richardson was pro-NAFTA, I don't have a problem with that, especially if we have a Democratic president who will enforce the environmental and labor provisions within the treaty. I tend to agree with Brad Delong and Paul Krugman regarding trade. I don't see NAFTA as Anti-Fair Trade if implemented as written. Some of our deals with China, I'd probably consider anti-fair trade.

2. You're basing this entirely on Richard's answer to the previously mentioned '96 NPAT but are ignoring the statement right above it from 2002.



3. Sorry, while I understand about the problems in Ohio and Florida, I don't see how a further recount could have made any difference in NM. The challenge for the recount was from the Libertarian and Green parties not the Democratic Party. They had already recounted the ballots that they could. Richardson supported and signed an overhaul of the elections laws that required paper ballots like we all want. I wish we had that law here in Florida.

4. This is a complete misinterpretation. Richardson supported and voted for medical savings accounts that allow anyone with foreseeable medical expenses to put away money tax-free for them. We're going to use them for our sons who were both born deaf and require a ton of expenses each year. This not Shub Inc's bait and switch plan where it allows healthy folks to put money in an account and buy insurance with a higher deductible. I can guarantee that Richardson opposes it. Just look at his health care programs in NM. He's trying to insure all children under 5 as one of his final goals as governor.

5. He spent money to lobby against base closures in New Mexico. Every state does that. It means an elimination of jobs when a base closes. The Department of Homeland security was originally a Democratic proposal. Democrats voted against it when Shrub Inc had provision attached to it that gutted union protections for Homeland Security workers.

Richardson is not very hawkish. That is one of his strong points to me. He even voted against sending US troops to Bosnia when Clinton supported it. He'd rather negotiate than attack and his negotiating ability is probably his strongest skill.

6. This is a complete exaggeration. Richardson cut some of the top rates in NM to attract business but increased revenue through mineral rights and sin taxes. He also dropped the rates for lower income, eliminated sales taxes on groceries, eliminated taxes on medical services, and put in place an earned income tax credit for the working poor. He has also stated that he supports raising the rates for the top earners at the federal level.

7. This one is weird. I read the response that "On the Issues" claims means Richardson is for faith-based services. Here is what Richardson actually agreed to in the NPAT:



Now you can see why no one will fill out that survey anymore. How in the heck do you go from that response to supporting Shrub Inc's faith based grants?

8. Shrub's guest worker with a path to citizenship proposal is one of the very few things that he has proposed that I agree with. What's wrong with it?

9. I don't always agree with everything the DLC supports but I don't have a problem with the DLC that some DUers do. I was primarily a Republican up until Clinton's presidency. Clinton is definitely DLC and his policies and governance convinced me to eventually become a Democrat.

Regarding 10-1, 10-2, and 10-4, I'll agree are problems I have with Richardson. I'm anti-death penalty. 10-3 is based on a bill that he voted on while a congressman that limited Habeas Corpus for constitutional challenges to the death penalty. While I don't agree with that since I don't believe in the death penalty, it's not as bad sounding as saying all Habeas Corpus is limited for death penalty appeals.

10-5 through 10-9, I couldn't find more on those except for this 1996 NPAT. For instance, I can't find where Richardson has pushed for tort reform or where he has said that constitution needs to be changed to eliminate citizenship by birth in any of his speech. I don't trust this NPAT survey. I'd rather see something he voted on or a public statement.

10-10. I disagree with this vote but most Democrats voted for it out of a political calculation. He has really reached out more to the gay and lesbian community than most other candidates.

I did notice something interesting in the vote smart link that I hadn't paid attention to on previous visits. Bill Richardson actually voted against the welfare reform bill passed under Clinton.


Finally the two other issues, his baseball draft and the Wen Ho Lee stuff.

The baseball draft issue went like this according to Richardson and sources favorable to him. He was a promising pitcher in college. He heard he was about to be drafted by a team. He then blew his arm out and wasn't able to play and wasn't eligible for the draft. He repeated the story several times about that he was about to be drafted. However, it turns out that no one was actually going to draft him. Basically, he repeated a rumor that a team was planning on drafting him before he became ineligible. This sounds like a really stupid criticism to me. It's not like he claims to have served as a pilot in the National Guard.

The Wen Ho Lee case is a bigger issue and Repugs have worked to make it into something else. Repugs make it sound like Clinton was giving away nuclear secrets through Wen Ho Lee in exchange for campaign money from China and Bill Richardson was in the middle of it. This is all a huge stinking load of crap.

The actual issue is that Richardson took over the DOE in '98 and one of his chores was to increase security at the Los Alamos Lab. Wen Ho Lee had almost been fired in '96 apparently due to his lax security procedures. The FBI was investigating him because he was following lax security protocols and someone leaked it to the press that he might be a Chinese spy. A judge later speculated that Bill Richardson could have been the leaker. He (supposedly) would have leaked Wen Ho Lee's name to show that he was making progress in bringing security under control. Of course that is sort of ridiculous since it hurt Clinton and Richardson was tied to Clinton as DOE secretary. Wen Ho Lee was cleared and sued the Newspapers that accused him of being a Chinese spy wining several million in damages. Bill Richardson has categorically denied that he was involved in leaking Lee's name (Democracy Now transcript is where I saw it). Richardson did improve security at the lab by the time he left office and it remained higher until Shrub Inc privatized the lab where it hit a new low again.

We agree that Richardson is pro-NAFTA, pro-CAFTA, and pro-"free trade"/anti-"fair trade"

We agree that Richardson supported vouchers. Apparently, this is an issue where he has flip-flopped. I, for one, would rather see a candidate change positions where he was originally wrong rather than foolishly persisting in the error for the sake of consistency. But is seems that Richardson flipped back to his old position: after he supported vouchers, and then spoke out against them in 2002, Richardson said this in 2004: "I am a strong supporter of charter schools. They provide opportunities for students to connect with the education process, and find a path to success. They are showing tremendous promise as alternatives for families who want something different - within the public school system - for their children. I promised to allocate additional resources for charter schools, and to help provide them a more level playing field with other public schools."

Are you aware that New Mexico had the highest-in-the-nation undervote in the presidential race? Richardson personally intervened to stop the recount effort and to wipe the voting machines while the investigations and complaints were still pending. That is peculiar and his timing was odd. I was heartbreaking to many.

We agree that Richardson allocated a pretty nice chunk of state funds for bases and for an expanded homeland security apparatus in New Mexico.

Just go to the DLC website and search for Richardson's speech in favor of tax cuts for corporations and for the wealthy. I have no problem with tax cuts generally. I do disagree with his tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations.



I have to run now, but I get back to this later today and address the rest of your views.

PS Thanks for the explanation of the confusion over whether Richardson was drafted by MLB.

suspicious

I am sure JC Watts wouldn't have such nice things to say about him. What you posted above makes me wonder about him, thank you for the information. Richardson doesn't look like too much of a factor in the polls as of yet, especially with Al Gore being used in many of the polls. He seems to be getting 13-16%.

I think there are huge prospects of Gore running, and maybe when he announces or the filing deadlines pass and he cannot run, Richardson might creep up.

I'll keep my eye out!

And I sense a mini upswing for Richardson so far...he has been slowly creeping up in the polls...

My bet is that Richardson supplants Edwards in the top three early next year. If he can hold his own in Iowa, and win Nevada, he could go places...

Even those masquerading as a Democrat. From Czolgosz post above.....

Czolgosz (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Mon Mar-05-07 05:00 PM
Response to Original message


3. I suspect MANY Repubs like Richardson:

My Top 10 Problems with Richardson

1. Pro-NAFTA/Pro-CAFTA/Anti-Fair Trade;

2. Supported Vouchers for Private Schools (draining public school funding);

3. Shut down presidential recount despite suspicious circumstances;

4. Supported medical savings account approach to broken health care system;

5. Hawkish on military bases and homeland security;

6. Supports revenue reduction via tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-wealthy;

7. Supports giving churches access to federal funds to provide faith-based social services;

8. Has much praise for Bush's immigration plans;

9. Richardson is a favorite of the DLC; and

10. Weakness on Civil Rights (see below)

"Americans for Democratic Action did rate Bill Richardson in 1996, as it has for decades and decades. This classic liberal-progressive alliance gave Bill Richardson an approval rating of 75% for his work in 1996, one percentage point higher than the average rating for Democratic members of the House. That pegs Richardson as neither outstandingly liberal nor dastardly conservative, but rather somewhere in between." (http://www.adaction.org/1996.pdf)

http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2007/01/22/bill-richardsons-last-legislative-year/

He is in bed with the DLC and the repukes on many issues. I watched all the CSPAN and CNN NAFTA coverage. I spent $80.00 with the US Printing Office to buy the agreement. He lied about what was in it. He knew better, yet he still sold us out. You can have him!

He fought for environmental provisions and sanctions which have been ignored by Bush. He didn't lie about anything.

NAFTA was under Clinton - not Bush. Also, the NAFTA agreement was an "up and down" vote. You could not add any amendments to a Fast Track trade agreement. There were some worthless side agreements added, but they were not enforceable. Your claiming Richardson treed to put some lipstick on a pig is hilarious.

Richardson would work to make good on those provisions, but he will speak for himself on this (again) at some point and I'll argue HIS position then.