Could NM politicos be headed for cabinet positions?

Heather Wilson, Bill Richardson and even Steve Pearce have made their way onto one Washington publication’s list of potential members of the next president’s cabinet.

CQ Weekly, part of Congressional Quarterly, is out with a special report that examines who might make up the cabinets of Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

The publication isn’t online, so I can’t link to it.

Richardson, the state’s Democratic governor, is often mentioned as a potential secretary of state in an Obama administration. But Richardson isn’t at the top of CQ’s list for that job: He’s third behind Susan E. Rice, Obama’s senior foreign policy advisor, and Richard Hollbrooke, a former assistant secretary of state.

In writing about Richardson, CQ highlights his former jobs as U.N. ambassador and energy secretary, his endorsement of Obama after he ended his own presidential campaign last year and the continuation of his international work even as he has been governor. It also mentions his seven terms in the House.

New Mexico’s two Republican U.S. representatives are ranked by CQ as more likely to get cabinet positions in a potential McCain administration than Richardson is in a potential Obama administration. Wilson is first on CQ’s list of potential energy secretaries.

Though she lost the GOP primary, CQ writes, Wilson is “still regarded in GOP circles as a political and intellectual force, especially on energy issues.” The article cites her membership on the Senate Intelligence Committee and states that her experience “dovetails with one of the Energy Department’s primary jobs: managing the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal.” She has supported boosting nuclear energy, like McCain, and, the article states, like McCain “she has not been shy about bucking her party’s leadership and says she has always regarded herself as an iconoclast who makes up her own mind.”

Pearce is second on CQ’s list of potential interior secretaries in a potential McCain administration. Noting that he’s trailing Democrat Tom Udall in polls of the Senate race, the article states that if he loses, “a cabinet job could be more than adequate consolation.”

“The former owner of an oil well services company, Pearce is a vocal member of the House Natural Resources Committee, who tends to favor expanded energy development on federal lands,” the article states. “A McCain administration could count on him to support additional oil and gas leasing, timber harvesting and mining. But his staunch conservatism could bring intense opposition from environmentalists.”

Ahead of Pearce is Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.

Richardson and Wilson have been carrying a lot of water for their party’s presidential candidates in recent months. Pearce has been busy campaigning for Senate.