March surprise: Richardson wins online contest

Supporters of the presidential campaign of Gov. Bill Richardson are promoting their candidate’s netroots strength after a recent and surprising victory in an online contest.

Richardson was recently picked to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in the Presidential March Madness contest sponsored by the left-leaning ProgressNow Action.

The online contest, modeled after the bracket for the NCAA basketball tournament, allowed people to vote only if they entered their e-mail addresses. More than 30,000 voted.

Washington for Richardson blogger Ken Camp said the victory shows that “Richardson’s online supporters… are stronger than the formidable netroots machines that we’re hearing that other candidates have put together.”

Rudy Giuliani won the contest for the Republican Party nomination.

Richardson, ranked as the fourth seed in the Democratic bracket, beat Al Gore – who’s not running for president – in the first round, then Hillary Clinton in the second round. In the final round, he knocked off Barack Obama.

Richardson supporter and blogger Emmett O’Connell wrote on the site America for Richardson that beating Obama was a shock.

“Holy freakin’ crap. I was resigned to losing out to Obama in the final round,” he wrote. “Beating Gore made sense. Despite his popularity, he isn’t actually running. Clinton is so hated online, beating her in the next round made total sense.”

“But we beat Obama, which totally blew me away,” he wrote. “Wow.”

Winning the contest wasn’t something Richardson’s campaign ever mentioned or pushed on its Web site or e-mails. The victory was entirely driven by grassroots supporters.

“You can have thousands of friends on your MySpace or Facebook pages,” Camp said, “but if they’re not willing to take action for their candidate, what’s the point?”