Blogging Blue

The Associated Press is reporting New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has withdrawn his name from consideration as Commerce secretary in the Obama administration amid a grand jury investigation into how some of Richardson’s political donors won a lucrative state contract:

A federal grand jury is investigating how a California company that contributed to Richardson’s political activities won a New Mexico state contract worth more than $1 billion. Richardson said in a statement issued by the Obama transition office that the investigation could take weeks or months but expressed confidence it will show he and his administration acted properly.

In a statement issued by the Obama transition office, Richardson said the investigation could take weeks or months but expressed confidence it will show he and his administration acted properly:

“I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process,” Richardson said. “Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing, I could not in good conscience ask the president-elect and his administration to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done.”

Obviously the allegations of a “pay to play” are very serious, and it remains to be seen what involvement - if any - Gov. Richardson had in the alleged “pay to play” scheme. While the optimist in me would like to think he had no involvement in these allegations, I’ve learned never to put anything past anyone who’s been involved in politics as long as Gov. Richardson has.

Just a few random political tidbits that caught my eye today…

• Fox News announced today Hannity and Colmes are splitting up. After 12 years, Alan Colmes is leaving “Hannity & Colmes” at the end of the year, leaving Sean Hannity to go it alone. Something tells me we won’t see the addition of another “liberal” to take Colmes’ place on the show, leaving us with just “Hannity.”
• The speculation as to who would succeed Vice President-elect Joe Biden in the United States Senate is over, with Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner appointing Ted Kaufman as Biden’s replacement until 2010. Kaufman is Joe Biden’s longtime senior adviser, currently serving as the co-chair of Biden’s transition team in addition to having spent roughly 20 years as Biden’s Senate chief of staff. Obviously the appointment of Kaufman to fill Biden’s seat means we’ll likely see Senator Beau Biden in 2010.
• I’m encouraged by news president-elect Obama has named Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary. Geithner’s gotten good marks for his performance as chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, and investors have already responded positively to news of Geithner’s appointment, with Wall Street finishing up for two consecutive days.
• And finally, it looks like New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has been tapped as president-elect Obama’s Commerce Secretary. Considering Richardson served as Energy Secretary under President Clinton and was once considered a possible running mate and Secretary of State for Obama, Commerce Secretary seems like a step down. Then again, Richardson can’t run for a third term as governor of New Mexico due to term limits, so I suppose he’s just trying to guarantee he’s got a job past 2010.

I’m going to go ahead and make a few predictions on who will end up in president-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet. I won’t be predicting who’ll end up in some of the more obscure Cabinet positions like Interior, Commerce, and HUD (to name a few), simply because I’m not terribly interested in who might end up in those positions.

Having said that, here are my picks:

Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates. I’m inclined to believe President-elect Obama will choose to keep Gates around, at least for a couple more years. Gates has done a good job and deserves an opportunity to continue in his current role, provided he wants to stay.

Secretary of State: Sen. Hillary Clinton. While I’d love to see New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson get the nod here, I think Sen. Clinton is a great choice as well, provided Bill Clinton’s finances aren’t going to be a problem.

Attorney General: Rep. Artur Davis. Davis, a former assistant US Attorney and longtime Obama supporter, seems like a logical choice.

Secretary of Treasury: Timothy Geithner. Geithner is the current president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and he seems to be gaining momentum as the logical choice for Treasury now that Larry Summers’ star has started to fade.

Secretary of Energy: Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. Schweitzer’s long been a proponent of clean coal and renewable energy technologies, and I think he’d be a smart choice. However, I’d be curious as to whether Schweitzer, who’s wildly popular in Montana, would want to leave his position to move into an Obama Cabinet.

Secretary of Health & Human Services: Dr. Howard Dean. Given the fact that Dean isn’t seeking another term as DNC Chair, he’s definitely available, and I think he’d be a great choice, given how health care reform was his top issue as a presidential candidate.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Tammy Duckworth. In addition to being an Iraq war veteran and a double amputee, Duckworth has served as Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs since 2006. She’d be a logical choice.

Who will it be?

Speculation has already begun in earnest, and while I don’t proclaim to be an expert on the inner workings of Obama’s VP search, here’s my thoughts on some possibilities.

General Wesley Clark - Maybe I’m crazy, but I see Wesley Clark as more of a Secretary of Defense in an Obama administration than as the Vice President. Clark has a lot of great military/defense experience, but I don’t see him bringing much to the table as a campaigner.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson - Let me preface this by saying Bill Richardson was my initial pick out of the entire Democratic field. However, as much as I love Bill Richardson as the Vice President on Barack Obama’s ticket, he did make some pretty critical mistakes on the campaign trail, and he never really came across as being as funny and charismatic as I’ve heard he can be. I think Richardson would be an interesting choice for Secretary of State.

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer - Brian Schweitzer’s star is on the rise. He’s a hugely popular Democratic governor of a red state, he speaks fluent Arabic, and he has some expertise when it comes to energy issues. I think he’s a dark horse, but he’s someone who bears serious consideration.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius - Sebelius has a good record of bipartisanship in Kansas, and her presence on Obama’s ticket might help Obama shore up his numbers with women.

Virginia Senator Jim Webb - Senator Webb would bring some defense credentials to the table and could possibly help swing Virginia, which is already trending blue, into the Democratic column in November. Webb’s main drawback is his propensity for saying what’s on his mind without first thinking about what he’s saying. He’d be a good “attack dog,” but at the same time, you don’t want your campaign’s attack dog going off the reservation.

New York Senator Hillary Clinton - Yeah, I went there. Now I’ve not been a fan of the kind of campaign Clinton has run during the primaries, but I still can’t deny the tenacity and proven skills as a campaigner and fundraiser that she’d bring to the table as Obama’s Vice President. Obviously there’s a lot of baggage that would need to be sorted out, namely Bill Clinton’s role if Hillary were offered the VP spot, but she certainly wouldn’t be the worst choice in the world.

Now am I crazy, or is there something inherently wrong with Hillary Clinton calling herself “HillRod” on national TV? I know she’s trying to seem hip and cool for the young wrestling fans who watch Monday Night Raw, but there’s something about calling herself “HillRod” that seems neither hip nor cool.

And on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary - a primary Hillary Clinton desperately needs to win by a convincing margin if she’s going to avoid hearing calls for her to drop out of the race - I find it telling that yet another Clinton Administration official has Barack Obama. This time it’s former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich:

My avoidance of offering a formal endorsement until now has also been affected by the pull of old friendships and my reluctance as a teacher and commentator to be openly partisan. But my conscience won’t let me be silent any longer.

I believe that Barack Obama should be elected President of the United States.

Now sure, Reich’s endorsement might not carry the weight of someone like New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, but it’s significant that another former member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet has chosen Senator Obama over Senator Clinton. After all, these are some of the people who should know Hillary Clinton best, and they should be solidly on her side. The fact that these same folks who know Clinton from behind the scenes of her husband’s administration are endorsing the other guy speaks volumes about what they think of Hillary Clinton as a leader and potential president.

I don’t proclaim to be an expert, but I do believe they mean we’re a long way from having a nominee on either side of the political spectrum. I think the results from New Hampshire’s primary just underscore the fact that both parties really are in a state of flux when it comes to choosing their nominees, but especially so on the Republican side of things.

With Mike Huckabee’s win in Iowa and John McCain’s win in New Hampshire, the Republican presidential field is wide open, and although there’s still a lot of uncertainty, one thing’s for sure - Mitt Romney absolutely must win in Michigan in order to remain a viable candidate. While Romney’s got vast personal wealth at his disposal, I simply cannot see him staying in the Republican presidential race if he continues to lose, and I see Michigan as his Waterloo. There’s no doubt Romney needs a win in Michigan, but more than that, he needs an impressive win to reassert himself as a candidate to be taken seriously among the Republican presidential field. Romney’s already started putting all his eggs in Michigan’s basket, as his campaign has decided to pull television ads in South Carolina and Florida, at least until after the Michigan primary, with one campaign aide quoted as saying, “Romney-paid media has been re-focused away from South Carolina and towards Michigan.” If I were a betting man, I’d bet on Romney winning Michigan with Mike Huckabee or Fred Thompson winning South Carolina, leaving the Republican presidential race as muddled as ever, with no presumptive nominee in sight.

Things on the Democratic side are only slightly more settled, with only two candidates standing a realistic chance of winning the nomination. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the obvious front runners, with John Edwards relegated to being nothing more than a second-tier candidate at this point. With Bill Richardson’s withdrawal as a candidate, as well as the withdrawal of Senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd after the Iowa caucuses, the Democratic field has quickly become a two horse race, but I can see this race ending up as a photo finish. It’s anyone’s call at this point as to who will win the Democratic nomination, and call me crazy, but I can see the Democratic race ending up as a floor fight at the Democratic convention. Hillary Clinton is the immovable object to Barack Obama’s irresistible force, and I just don’t see either candidate winning enough delegates outright to win the nomination.

The fact that Barack Obama won the Iowa Democratic Caucuses shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying close attention to the Democratic Presidential race. What should surprise folks is the fact that Hillary Clinton finished third behind Obama and John Edwards. Clinton’s third place finish - even though she was close on the heels of Edwards - was a tremendous blow to her campaign, especially considering how much of her campaign’s message seemed to have focused on her being the presumptive Democratic frontrunner. Her third place finish in Iowa had to take the wind out of her sails, and it will no doubt hurt her chances in New Hampshire, where she’s neck and neck with Obama heading into the New Hampshire primary.

If Clinton doesn’t win New Hampshire - or worse, she finishes third yet again - then I’d have to believe her campaign is in serious trouble. As she showed after her lackluster finish in Iowa, I expect to see a more negative Hillary Clinton if things continue to fall apart, and her increased negativity will only serve to drive more Democrats towards Obama, whose message of a new kind of politics has resonated with voters, no matter how shallow and empty it may be. Sure, Obama’s rhetoric is a lot of “fluff” and not a lot of “stuff,” but right now that’s what folks want.

So here’s my prediction for the New Hampshire primaries: Obama wins narrowly, followed by Clinton in second place and Edwards in third, and after the primary, watch for Hillary Clinton to go even more negative than she already has, giving more credibility to Obama as the “candidate of change.” At this point Hillary Clinton’s in what seems to me to be a no-win situation, and I think Obama is going to end up as the Democratic nominee, with Bill Richardson as the VP nominee.

Could New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s presidential campaign be in trouble? Earlier today, CNN’s Political Ticker blog reported Richardson’s South Carolina state co-chair Fletcher Smith is leaving the Richardson campaign because of Smith’s belief that Governor Richardson’s plan for the hasty withdrawal of American troops from Iraq is a bad idea.

“Right now we have a quicksand of a civil war, and I don’t believe we can just pull out precipitously in a six month period of time without jeopardizing our interests in the region. We don’t need another evacuation that we had in Vietnam.”

The loss of a campaign co-chair in an early primary state surely can’t be a good thing for the Richardson campaign, and what’s worse, the Richardson campaign stands poised to alienate Democratic voters throughout the Great Lakes region after Governor Richardson went on record as supporting the diversion of Great Lakes water to the southwest. A lot of folks here in the Great Lakes region - folks from both parties, I might add - are fiercely protective of the Great Lakes. Speaking about Governor Richardson’s comments, Wisconsin State Senator Rob Cowles, a Republican from Green Bay, said, “It’s another scary reminder that we need to get going and pass a compact - and a strong compact - so this kind of thing is off the table.”

As someone who’s supported Governor Richardson, I can honestly say I’m more than a little disappointed at his willingness to pander to folks in Las Vegas on an issue this important to folks here in the Great Lakes. I know Nevada’s going to be a key state for Governor Richardson early in the primary season, but considering his status as a “second tier” candidate for the Democrats, he’s hardly in any position to start alienating large groups of folks.

Now I don’t know that the loss of a key advisor and his comments about Great Lakes water will have a hugely negative impact on Governor Richardson’s presidential campaign, but they certainly won’t help things much.