Richardson Bumped to Prime Time
I was standing with one of the NM bloggers and not far from Bill Richardson’s Presidential internet staffer last night when Beau Biden started speaking. All of a sudden, I realized that Richardson, who was supposed to have a slot in the schedule before Biden, hadn’t spoken. We were in a bit of a tizzy trying to figure out why Richardson hadn’t spoken.
It looks like they got behind on their schedule, and decided to bump the popular, Latino Western Governor to a prime time slot today at Mile High, before Obama speaks. From DNCC spokeswoman Jenni Engebretsen:
Giving even more Democrats and supporters an opportunity to hear from Governor Bill Richardson, his speech has been moved from this evening to a featured speaking slot tomorrow at Mile High. Because of such an enthusiastic audience response, the long-running schedule led the Democratic Convention to ask the governor if he would speak tomorrow and he graciously agreed. He will be speaking to 75,000 people and a nationally televised audience.
I find this particularly fascinating since, even with Obama’s surprise showing at Pepsi Center last night, they still finished about 15 minutes before 9:00–they’re running a really tight ship timewise. Though perhaps they hadn’t calculated in time for Obama’s appearance and had to bump Richardson to allow time for that?
Actually EW, similar to a point I made in a previous thread, this will play great to have his speech tonight. The Hispanic-Latino vote is quite important. This adds to showing the Dems as the true “face” of the United States…
So far, the Dems have hit on the African American voter, female voter, middle class voter, the senior citizen voter, the middle age voter, the family values voter, the Armed Services voter and the youth voter.
Talk about your pluralism and “open heart” to the “face of America”.
The best part is, the party does not even have to “stretch” to make a fit for representation in any of these voter slots…it IS who the party is and the contacts are in the party naturally and historically.
Well, it’s too much to hope that my ‘tea leaves’ have anything to do with it, but here are a few puzzle pieces that I WISH the Dems had used to make this decision:
1. On Monday, Schweitzer gained attention talking about (gasp!) energy.
2. On Tuesday, Harry Reid laid out a case about how the GOP has neglected making the US secure because they haven’t had a decent energy policy (going back as far as Jimmy Carter).
3. On Wednesday, the NYT had a front page article on wind + problems with an antiquated electrical grid.
4. Also on Wednesday, Tom Brokaw interviewed (former Swift Boat financier) T Boone Pickens — in Denver (!) — about his new energy initiative. Oil baron Pickens spoke about the linkages between energy and security.
5. Warner, Daschle, and most of the speakers that I’ve been able to hear have referenced the linkages between Security and Energy Policy.
6. Richardson threw his support to Obama (rather than Clinton) when he dropped out of the Pres. campaign, so not too surprising he’d be called upon.
Bill Richardson was Clinton’s head of Dept of Energy.
Personally, I hope Richardson rips Cheney, Bush, and the entire GOP several about a thousand new arseholes over the linkages between ‘security‘ and oil/gas and exposes as the GOP’s militarized oil/security nexus (no-bid contracts, Blackwater, Putin’s power growing, yadda, yadda…) as utter lunacy.
Yeah, I’m a dreamer.
Also of note: TPM reporting that Abramoff implicates many others ‘not yet charged’.
And also: look at what Cong. Ney is saying now that he’s out of prison: he’s claiming that the BushCheney DoJ prosecuted him for working with the **Swiss ambassador** to open negotiations with Iran.
The planets must be doing something weird, because between the good Dem vibe, and the Abramoff and Ney datapoints, there sure seems to be some weird karmic convergence going on. Nice that Jimmy Carter has lived long enough to see it all unfold.
I have been wondering: where is Jimmy Carter? Has he been invited to the convention, even if only for a courtesy round of applause?
Nice summary. We’ve all known since ‘73 that were are in an enegy bind. The matter is so important that it became a priority of the Bush admin from the beginning. The VP was named to head a taskforce to (pardon the expression) hammer out a coherent energy policy. We now can see what Plan A came out to be. Lets hope Plan B is better. My problem is that the appeal of nuclear energy is logically the way to go, but in this “contract out”, every-company-for-itself business mode, safety (like mine safety) is a detail to be worked out, after we go online.
ROTL,
Great points…I hope you are correct.
Kerry actually made good headway with voters when he focused on energy-security link in the last election.
Obama-Biden are coming to my hometown on Saturday at Dublin Coffman High School. Anyone in the threads from central Ohio going? You must register for the event. It is first come first serve, registration only.
I doubt that I’m correct; but I sure wish that I were
BushCheney — plus Rove and GOP lobbyist/campaign strategists — are the Mark-to-Market** practioners of American politics, as far as I’m concerned. You can only ‘create your own reality’ just so long before it implodes — Bubble Politics, so to speak.
(Mark-to-Market was an accounting term invented by Enron; for more, Wikipedia or Alex Gibney’s documentary, “The Smartest Guys In The Room“.)
Went to the Hispanic caucus at the Convention Center (Hillary spoke). This is a powerful caucus. Bumping Richardson to Invesco is a good idea.
will be going to Invesco today to hear Obama will share later.
I know folks around this neighborhood are not going to like hearing this. At the MSNBC’s live broadcast last night (just past Union station) Chris Matthews was the only one who pounded on the Democrats hard for avoiding the “red meat” issues that some Americans are pissed about. He repeatedly focused on the lies repeated in the run up to the invasion, how Cheney is in control and has been committing endless crimes, torture, outing Plame, illegal wiretapping, undermining the Dept of Justice. Sorry folks but he was the only one to pound hard on these issues and asked why the Dems seem to be avoiding adrressing these issues at the convention.
Matthews is seething under his skin about the crimes committed by the Bush administration and the lack of accountability
Olberman still stayed out of the reach of the peasants, while Matthews
mingled and talked with folks.
Well, where was Chris years ago? His seething needs to be self directed…
Matthews took a call from Rove (July 2003) in which Rove called Valerie Plame “fair game” (!). And IIRC, the very next thing Chris Matthews did was call Joe Wilson.
Matthews got under Cheney’s skin back in July 2003, and I recall reading about that at FDL when I was confused about who “Tweety” was — hadn’t watched him until msnbc.com came online. Your comment confirms my sense that he’s fundamentally a very decent extrovert.
My comment @6 was flip and probably encouraged by his last interview he did with President Jimmy Carter. Knowing he had been a speech writer for Carter for 4 years, I watched him display a level of disrespect in his interview approach with Carter. I think he was trying to come off as working to be an “objective” interviewer in light of the history he had with the interviewee. The result was a display of disrespect which he ended with “respectful” commentary that it was an honor to have served in Carter’s administration. A dual-sided mouth spew in action.
I have just found his style of late to “bate” both sides despite his history and being “a very decent extrovert”.
He started seething immediately after he realized he had been duped with the rest of the believing Americans. He drank the kool aid before the invasion. Was not watching his program before the invasion as closely as I was after. What I do know for sure is that after the invasion he hammered the neo, oil, theo cons on his program. He had Bill Kristol, David Frum, Bolton and others on and pounded them with questions…hard questions about the lies told to the American public before the invasion. I believe he pounded them so hard with his wit, sarcasm and disdain that they will no longer come on his program. He was also the first MSMer to have soldiers on returning from Iraq, he broadcast from Walter Reed for quite a few days in (I believe 2004 or early 05) He had Amy Goodman and Katrina Van Heudal from the Nation on numerous times over the last six years (although he has not had them on much the last year).
I really believe Matthews was sincerely duped and is pissed that he was part of the “group think” in the run-up to the invasion.(but again I was not watching him as closely as I was after the invasion) Matthews pisses me off a lot (I agree with Maddow and Olberman far more often), But I really fell Matthews tries harder to mix it up, ask the hard questions of all sides, piss us off with challenging thinking.
I will continue to go to the internet for more accurate news but I will also continue to put pressure on the MSM to “do their jobs”
was this while msnbc was not covering john kerry doing exactly what chris matthews was complaining about the dems not doing?
.
Amen!
skdadl, he spoke (I think it was on Monday) – I’m sure the link is somewhere. He’s been interviewed on msnbc, IIRC. Also, msnbc has shown him a number of times sitting and watching and clapping (IIRC, they cut to a shot of him while Biden was speaking).
If you go over to beliefnet.com, there’s been an interesting commentary by Jim Wallis about what the Dems are doing in terms of reaching out — or at least being open to — evangelical points of view (esp climate change, and social justice). I wonder whether Pres Carter hasn’t been a good ‘bringer together’ of those disenchanted with Bush and the GOP. Interesting development.
Personally, I attribute it to torture, Katrina, and things like the Bear Stearns bailout — but I’m certainly no expert. Just glad to see people treating one another with a bit more decency…
I wonder if they had the plan in place for a big prime time speech all along but kept it under wraps to avoid pissing off Hillary and Bill C. before the big unification.
Watching MSNBC I saw interview with Richardson who said Bill is still pissed at him for endorsing Obama and won’t speak with him. Richardson was a big defection that certainly helped Obama.
Just a thought.
NEW POST ALERT
McCain Proves Cactus Is Not The Biggest Prick In The Desert
Maybe Richardson’s interest in humanitarian law contributes to Barack Obama’s plans for the US presidency. This is the way the best Democratic Party candidates have governed, by strong associations that add to the ticket and the administration. Besides the foregoing UN link’s emphasis on Richardson’s and Clinton’s views on war and crime, there is a courteous sketch of Richardson’s immigration policies at Council of Foreign Relations.
Thanks, JohnL – I’d forgotten about the foreign policy and humanitarian experience.
Although each day it sure becomes more obvious those topics are interrelated with energy issues (!).
We’ve seen some McCain bashing, but I expect Obama to also soar rhetorically.
America is about hopes and dreams. Can a person fly like a bird? Can we have a national higher educational system? Can we harness the lightning to our own purposes? Can ALL people, regardless of color, live together as equals?
These were dreams of the Wright brothers who invented powered flight in North Carolina and of Thomas Jefferson who invented a great university in Virginia and of Benjamin Franklin who studied electricity in Pennsylvania and of all Americans who sought the abolition of slavery, so we can live up to our Constitution.
Americans are dreamers and we work hard to make those dreams come true.
Now is one of those times and we are the people to make it happen.
We seek freedom from oil. Cleaner skies. Peace around the world. The rule of Law. And so much more.
Yes, we dream big. Yes we make these things happen. Yes we can!
If you want to soar with the eagles, you better polish off the deadly predators first. The other side isn’t play a game of soaring rhetoric, they are playing for keeps; failure to pay heed to that will prove tragic. Kill the opponent before you claim the prize. It is that simple.
Bill Richardson certainly got people on their feet at Invesco