The Bill Richardson Blog

Continued from Part 1.

Concord City Dems Keynote Speech: 10:30

Pablo and I pack into my little car and head up I-93 toward Concord. We have a nice chat about politics and how we got involved with Richardson. I end up telling this story several times today, and wishing it was more dramatic, like that I got hit with a meteorite shaped like Bill Richardson. But the truth is just that Ian and I emailed a bunch of times about this one governor who had been everywhere and done everything and should be the President, and then started a blog about him. Pablo looks about 20 years old, but has worked on more campaigns in more states than I can keep track of. We pull up at the IBEW hall about five minutes behind the Gov’s car, and I just have time to park and run to the bathroom.

While I’m in the bathroom, a loud male voice starts calling the meeting to order. It sounds like he’s there in the women’s room with me, and I jump. I look up to find a speaker in the ceiling of the bathroom. I guess those union types don’t like to miss any of the action. I rush out and station myself by the back wall.

This room is less packed than the coffee shop, with older people sitting at folding tables covered with white paper, gold stars, and hard candies. It’s not a fancy fundraiser, that’s for sure. Evan, the volunteer I met earlier, told me not to laugh at the red and blue streamers he taped up, which hang a bit unevenly from the walls.

The veteran introducing Richardson jokes that he got 69% of the vote in his reelection – almost as much as NH Gov. John Lynch. He more seriously says that the Gov. has “mastered the art of diplomacy – an art that’s apparently been lost on our current administration.” The room grumbles in agreement.

The Gov takes to the podium and starts into his speech by talking about negotiation and the crisis in Sudan. He promises to keep his speech short, so they can take questions, and so no one will have to hear him ramble on and on.

The guy next to me laughs. “Yeah, who does he think he is – Biden?”

The Gov gets applause talking about “aggressive diplomacy,” education, and promoting a regime of international human rights. “What would you do about Guantanamo?” asks a woman during the Q & A period. “I would close it down,” says the Gov, without a pause, and discusses human rights some more. Big round of applause. He adds, “but I would close it down on Day 2 of my presidency, because on Day 1 we need to get out of Iraq.”

He also tells the very funny story of how he broke the Guinness hand-shaking record previously held by Teddy Roosevelt. The story includes him negotiating the Guinness entourage required to certify the record from five down to three, and closing the New Mexico State Fair’s exits from five to one, so everyone had to shuffle by the Gov just to get out of there. The Guinness people told him every handshake had to be a full, real one, and so kids didn’t count, because “their hands are too small.” It’s a really charming story, and the crowd understands Richardson is telling them he’ll shake every hand in New Hampshire with pleasure. “I’m not here to do one big event at a gym and then leave,” he says, taking a sideways crack at Hillary Clinton, who did a single event at a high school before going back to Washington.

He also jokes about being at 6%, but under the joke is the point that he used to be at 1%, then 3%, now 6%, and that as people find out who he is, they like him. (See Ian’s post for more.)

Richardson gets some tough questions on heath care and Israel that he answers, but not totally to the back of the room’s satisfaction. The back of the room contains some local media and some tough nuts who are checking out all the candidates and commenting on their weak points. When the Gov rattles off the list of foreign countries that supply us with oil, mostly problem countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria, a local radio person mutters, “Canada, Mexico!” These New Hampshirites don’t miss a beat. (See the Union-Leader article, and the Concord Monitor article on the speech.)

Also in the back of the room with me is a guy who sees me scribbling in my notebook and asks if I’m a reporter. When I say I’m a blogger, he says he is too, from BlueHampshire.com. I learned today that the Richardson campaign invited him on the car ride from Manchester to Concord just for a blogger interview. That is amazing. See Mike’s writeup and audio feed here.

A woman calling herself an “Eisenhower Republican” asks about the size of the military budget, and during his answer, which is that it’s too big, although we clearly need to keep certain things up to date, the Gov remembers the red pen from this morning and starts looking around for it. He won’t let it go. He wants that pen. It’s very funny. Eventually Pablo has to run up to the front and give him the pen so the Gov can pull out the budget chart and talk about how wrong our priorities are.

The usual crowd gathers around Richardson as he finishes, and I have to dash out to Portsmouth, a good hour away, to make the next event at a bookstore. It occurs to me as I get in the car that I have no idea when I’m eating lunch today.