{"id":1915,"date":"2007-06-29T08:26:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-29T14:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/06\/richardson-survives-another-presidential-debate\/"},"modified":"2007-06-29T08:26:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-29T14:26:00","slug":"richardson-survives-another-presidential-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/06\/richardson-survives-another-presidential-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Richardson survives another presidential debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s<\/a> first debate performance was a nightmare. His second was better, but he was still dogged by a penchant for sticking to talking points even when that meant not answering questions, which was just awkward. <\/p>\n

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

He improved again in Thursday\u2019s PBS debate on issues affecting black America<\/st1:country-region> at Howard<\/st1:placename> University<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>, which you can watch by clicking here<\/a>. Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> still, however, failed to rise to the top of the pack. And other candidates, most notably Barack Obama<\/a>, have shown more rapid improvement than Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.<\/p>\n

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

Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> did end the debate on a high note. His best line came on the last question, when candidates were asked about how to deal with genocide in Darfur<\/st1:place>. Richardson<\/st1:city> pointed out that, following the last debate, he was criticized for saying the United States<\/st1:country-region> should pressure China<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> to get involved with a threat to boycott its Olympic Games if it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

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

Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> defended that stance Thursday night.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI believe that fighting genocide is more important than sports,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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

His worst answer of the night was the reason Politico.com analyst Roger Simon<\/a> said Richardson finished seventh out of eight in the debate, with only the marginalized Mike Gravel<\/a> doing worse.<\/p>\n

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

Asked about how to deal with HIV and AIDS among youth in America<\/st1:country-region>, Richardson<\/st1:city> gave a bumbling answer that instead focused on Africa<\/st1:place>. In addition, as Simon pointed out, Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said \u201cWe have to use needles\u201d and \u201cfinding a way to increase needles.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\n

Needles? For what? He didn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI am going to assume this was Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s endorsement of a national needle-exchange program, in which addicts turn in used needles for clean ones,\u201d Simon wrote. \u201cSuch a program would be very expensive and very controversial, since some view a government needle exchange program as abetting illegal drug use. But it is an issue that needs serious discussion. Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> really didn\u2019t help with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

A non-scientific poll of readers of the liberal blog Daily Kos<\/a> had Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> finishing fifth with 4 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n

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

Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> did a better job of answering the questions that were asked than he did during the last debate, but at times his answers (needles) still didn\u2019t make sense. The problems that plagued him during the first debate \u2013 wild hand gestures, lots of sweat and funny facial expressions \u2013 were absent from Thursday\u2019s debate.<\/p>\n

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

Some of his answers elicited moderate applause from those in attendances, but some left people silent.<\/p>\n

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

Hillary Clinton<\/a> and Dennis Kucinich<\/a> shone once again. Kucinich? Let\u2019s face it \u2013 he\u2019s not going to win the race, but he\u2019s a strong debater. He has the ability to come up with spontaneous, intelligent and witty answers that Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> lacks.<\/p>\n

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

Obama was very strong, as were John Edwards<\/a> and Joe Biden<\/a>. Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> did better than Chris Dodd<\/a> and Gravel.<\/p>\n

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

As I\u2019ve said before, debates aren\u2019t Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s strength, and they aren\u2019t going to be his path to winning the presidency. If he can hold his own, as he\u2019s barely managed to do in the last two debates, his campaign should probably be happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s first debate performance was a nightmare. His second was better, but he was still dogged by a penchant for sticking to talking points even when that meant not answering questions, which was just awkward. He improved again in Thursday\u2019s PBS debate on issues affecting black America at Howard University, which you can […]<\/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-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","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=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}