Richardson re-election mailers sound like he’s running for national office

Bill Richardson is talking about national politics to people all across America under the guise of being re-elected New Mexico governor.

His re-election campaign has mailed thousands of fundraising letters that, according to the Albuquerque Journal, “at times read like they came from a national office seeker.”

He blasts the Bush administration and promotes his own work on national and international issues. Three times in the letter, according to the Journal, he tells potential donors, “I promise you I can show America a better way.”

“My name is Bill Richardson and I’m a Democrat who’s not afraid to talk about what we Democrats stand for and what we have to do to turn our country around,” the letter states.

Richardson’s re-election campaign chair, Dave Contarino, told the Journal that, “If you’re running in New Mexico, but you’re talking to a national audience, you have to address national issues.”

How convenient.

“I’m writing to you because George Bush and the GOP smear machine have targeted me for defeat and I urgently need your help to fight off their attacks,” Richardson states in the letter, according to the Journal. “They know I can call them on their incompetence and show them how a real leader – a Democratic leader – can address our nation’s problems.”

Here’s where it gets really interesting: Dendahl told the Journal that national Republican leaders are not targeting Richardson, but he wishes they would. He has only $130,000 in the bank and said no national Republican groups have committed money to his campaign. Richardson has some $5 million.

“I remain hopeful,” Dendahl told the Journal.

While Dendahl works, thus far in vain, to make a dent in Richardson’s fundraising and popularity, Richardson was in Arizona on Tuesday and Ohio on Wednesday to campaign for candidates and garner national attention, according to another article in the Journal. He’s been all over the nation campaigning for other Democratic governors and gubernatorial candidates and members of Congress and congressional hopefuls.

Richardson is demonstrating that he’s so unconcerned about being re-elected here that he has time to win while also leading his colleagues across the nation to victory.

If Democrats like Richardson that much, he probably should be running for president.

There’s another question that should be asked: If Richardson is so influential, why aren’t the national Republicans targeting him by giving Dendahl more money?