{"id":1173,"date":"2007-01-29T19:42:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-30T01:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/01\/candidate-richardson-finds-love-in-las-cruces\/"},"modified":"2007-01-29T19:42:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-30T01:42:00","slug":"candidate-richardson-finds-love-in-las-cruces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/01\/candidate-richardson-finds-love-in-las-cruces\/","title":{"rendered":"Candidate Richardson finds love in Las Cruces"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There was nothing but praise for Gov. Bill Richardson today during his first visit to Las Cruces<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> since announcing himself as a candidate for president. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In his speech endorsing the proposed spaceport tax increase, Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> made no references to his national ambitions, but the event was colored by the comments of others and lots of applause. Two middle-school students who introduced Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> read off a list of accomplishments provided by the governor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Las Cruces Mayor Bill Mattiace, a Republican, was the first to mention the presidential race by saying, after Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> concluded his speech and it was his turn to speak, that \u201cit\u2019s hard to follow the governor.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the future, we may be following the next president of the United States<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place>,\u201d Mattiace said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That elicited a loud round of applause from the hundreds in attendance.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Do\u00f1a Ana County Commissioner Kent Evans, another Republican, had especially kind words for the Democratic governor.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI love him and I think he\u2019s doing a great job,\u201d Evans said. \u201cI think he is going to be the next president of the United States<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place>.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

More thunderous applause.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I asked Evans after the event if he was endorsing Richardson<\/st1:city>\u2019s candidacy, and he said he was, adding that Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> is the best candidate he knows about.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

There weren\u2019t many members of the national media following Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, but the governor took questions from members of the local media after the spaceport event. The first few questions had to do with the spaceport tax increase, but questions about his campaign soon came up.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said he will continue to do his job as governor even while he is campaigning and pledged to work on issues important to New Mexicans \u2013 raising the minimum wage, improving health care, combating drunken driving and developing clean energy initiatives. He said if he is elected president, he won\u2019t forget New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI will take care of New Mexico<\/st1:state> no matter where I am,\u201d Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

After speaking with the media, Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> signed autographs for students and a number of other people. One girl asked him if he was running for president, and Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> told her he had announced that last week.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t Hillary running for president?\u201d the girl asked.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. I\u2019m running against her,\u201d Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Then he smiled and corrected himself.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s running against me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Following the Las Cruces<\/st1:city> event, Richardson<\/st1:city> said he was heading to a private fundraiser for his presidential campaign in El Paso<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was nothing but praise for Gov. Bill Richardson today during his first visit to Las Cruces since announcing himself as a candidate for president. In his speech endorsing the proposed spaceport tax increase, Richardson made no references to his national ambitions, but the event was colored by the comments of others and lots of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}