After declining to take a position during a visit to South Carolina earlier this month, Gov. Bill Richardson is now taking a stand against the Confederate flag flying on South Carolina’s capitol grounds, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Richardson’s comments are sure to have an effect on his support in the state, one of the first four in the nation to hold a presidential primary in January 2008.
While in South Carolina over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, Richardson would not answer questions about the controversy that has been brewing in that state. At the same time, U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, another presidential hopeful, came out against flying the flag at the capitol.
So the New Mexican sought comment from the governor, and he gave it Thursday.
“This was and still is a very divisive issue, and I don’t claim to know all the different positions,” Richardson said in a statement to the newspaper. “But if I had been in the legislature when the vote had been taken, I would have voted to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds altogether.”
The flag flew atop the capitol building until 2000, when it was moved to a monument in front of the statehouse by the state Legislature to try to appease the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. That didn’t work, and an economic boycott by the NAACP is ongoing.
Many see the flag as a symbol of slavery, while defenders of the flag say it represents Southern heritage.
Richardson’s statement might help him in the Democratic primary in that state, but might also have a negative affect in the general election.
After declining to take a position during a visit to