Yesterday, without much fanfare, Gov. Richardson stated that he will be supporting Ned Lamont in the Connecticut race. While he called Joe a “good friend,” he also said that Lieberman should “respect the will of the voters and step aside.” There are a couple of implications to this.
At first blush, this seems like the safe move, right? But no. Not quite. The safest move would be to say nothing. Gov. Richardson is not in the Senate, he will probably never be in the Senate, and he is not involved with the DSCC in any official way. His main jobs in 2006 are (1) get re-elected himself, which is essentially done, and (2) help more Democratic governors get elected, as the chair of the DGA. So if he wanted to, he certainly had the option of staying silent.
Notably, Ken Salazar (D-CO), made the opposite decision. Salazar was being responsive to his own fortunes in Colorado. (Wrongly, I think, but whatever.)
Richardson is being responsive to the demands of the national party. Quite simply, defection from Lamont is not something the progressive netroots will forgive. Backing Lieberman in the primary is one thing, but the netroots feel they’ve earned a win and deserve the spoils. Richardson, as a matter of political necessity, is backing Lamont because he is going to need the netroots in a little while.
This is low key. But it’s supposed to be. Just like those meetings with bloggers at Yearly Kos, in Washington, in South Carolina. Richardson is laying the groundwork so that, in about six or nine months when it’s announcement time, there will be a structure there and a relationship. And it seems to be working:
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson scores an A+ on the “guy you’d wanna drink a beer with” Presidential litmus test. . . . I expect he’ll be one of the leading anti-Hillary candidates among the 2008 Democratic Presidential contenders.
That’s from one of the SC bloggers Richardson met with.