Opportunity
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) 2003-2011
Bill Richardson was considered a "Rock Star" by the time he mounted a run for Governor of New Mexico.
His past jobs included Congressman, Ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. Secretary of Energy.
His childhood in Mexico was, to use his word, dichotomous.
"My father was a Republican. He didn't hate Democrats but he was a very strong Republican. I grew up in Mexico, so I wasn't exposed to American politics and I remember early-on being enormously attracted to John Kennedy. I just thought he was so cool. But my father did instill in me a sense of duty. He made a special trip to the United States for my birth. He wanted me to be an American. My mother was Mexican. So I grew up in a dual language household," he said.
Richardson had just entered his teens when President Kennedy and his wife paid a visit to Mexico.
"And he knelt before the statue of the patron saint of Mexico, despite his bad back and bad knee, and it was a huge moment in my seeing the power of symbolism in politics. And I remember when he died, it was in math class and I remember the math teacher going out of the room and coming back and she was crying and she said President Kennedy has been shot and class is dismissed. That was a big moment in my recognition of the importance of politics."
Richardson's first love was baseball and by the time he was finished with his undergraduate studies at Tufts University, he was ready to hang up the spikes - but what next?
"I was heading into my senior year at Tufts without any direction. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was a baseball player and my baseball career was ending. And I decided I wanted to run for president of my fraternity and move the fraternity in a different direction from beer drinking and into more activities with helping kids - a direction that was more socially conscious."
His win against the seated vice president caught him by surprise.
"Don't assume you're gonna' lose if you're facing an incumbent. If you're a resurgent candidate, a reform candidate, if you do it right, you win. I remember finishing my term as president and enjoying politics and quite frankly enjoying power and it was then that I decided that I wanted to go into public life."
And so Richardson decided to attend the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. His childhood in Mexico, his bilingual upbringing and extensive travels might serve well for a career in international diplomacy.
"I was a decent student, nothing extra but my last year as president of the fraternity I did not know what I was going to be doing. When I applied to Fletcher. I barely got in, I was on the waiting list," he admitted.
Fletcher fed his hunger for a life in public service.
"What was pivotal in my early development was going on one of those trips from Fletcher to Washington to see how the Congress worked and how politicians dealt with constituents. And I remember sitting in the Senate listening to Hubert Humphrey speak, who had no reason to talk to us, we were a Massachusetts school, but he just loved to talk to kids and I remember him talking about public service and Africa and how inspiring it was and that really turned me on."
It was at that moment that Richardson decided on a life in politics. He knew then that he would run for office but he had a serious problem.
"I had no base. I couldn't be a congressman from Washington DC or Massachusetts or Mexico City. If you want a political career you better go somewhere that you can get elected," he advised himself.
In the early 1970s Richardson landed a job in the State Department as a congressional relations person for Henry Kissinger.
"I was like his servant. Ironically, he didn't even remember this, as I said, I got a job by chance, going to a bunch of congressman, sending my resume. I knew nobody. A professor at Fletcher sent a letter to every member in the House, the only one that answered was Bradford Morse who said, 'okay Bill, you can come work for us but it will be an unpaid internship - us being a liberal republican group called the Wednesday group.'
"They liked my work. They hired me full time. Then Kissinger, then I went to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where Hubert Humphrey was the chairman but the guy that helped me was a Senator from Wyoming by the name of Gale McGee.
Senator McGee became an advocate for the young Richardson.
"He and Humphrey were on a sub-committee, Foreign Relations and I knew I had to move someday to somewhere I could get elected."
Richardson accepted a job as Executive Director of the New Mexico Democratic Party.
"My wife was very upset - I was getting paid nothing for this job."
Other than the lack of pay, it fit the bill. New Mexico has a large Hispanic population and its geography placed it near his family in Mexico. Perhaps here, he said, he could build a political life.
"It was either here or California, where I was born and I thought I probably had a better chance in New Mexico because it's smaller. I lost my first election and they called me a carpetbagger but I almost won. I worked very hard. I went everywhere."
Redistricting created an opportunity for the would-be Congressman and he won his second race for public office.
It was a very tough primary. I beat Tom Udall who is now the U.S. Senator. I beat a judge who was being backed by the current governor. What had helped me was I had run before." Richardson didn't win a majority of the Hispanic vote that year.
"What made me the victor was I got almost 90 percent of the Indian vote. I have always credited the Navajo.
United States Representative Bill Richardson served 15 years in Congress. He eventually rose to Deputy Majority Whip where he began to work closely with then President Bill Clinton who tapped Richardson to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations and two years later appointed him U.S. Secretary of Energy. When the Republican's won the White House, Richardson went to work for Kissinger's strategic consulting firm.
The September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, he said, inspired him to return to a leadership role.
"When I decided to come back, it was nine-eleven and I decided my gosh, these are hugely important times and I miss it. Some of my friends were saying, come and run for governor."
Elections, Richardson believes, are slaves to opportunity.
"Many times you run for what is available. In politics you can't have long-range plans. If you do, they are eventually not going to work. You have to have the eye of the tiger, the fire in the belly and be ready to run at any time. Pick your spots and then you gotta' get lucky."
He said that he had always toyed with the idea of someday running for Governor but his love for foreign policy gave the idea back-burner status.
"But then after my years in congress, after the U.N. and after Secretary of Energy, I wanted to have an executive experience."
Despite his success as a public servant he came to realize that he had never managed anything.
"Being a governor - you set the agenda - you can build schools. Especially in a small state you can be a major player and do some things."
The playing field in 2002 was wide open after eight years of Republican leadership.
"People wanted a change. I started out, not being the front runner, pretty close to that, and deep in my mind, I have to confess I thought, maybe if I do a decent job as governor, maybe I'll run for president."
His opponent in the Primary was Gary King, the son of a former governor. After Richardson won at the state's Democratic Convention, King dropped out of the race.
"I was the favorite but when you're in politics you never take anything for granted. I worked like Hell. That year I set a world handshaking record. I had advantages, but I worked my ass off. There were 600 convention delegates, and my objective was to keep both candidates running against me from getting the 20 percent, to keep from getting on the ballots."
His Republican opponent was John Sanchez.
"I ran against a pretty attractive Hispanic candidate. The Republicans were grooming this guy. They just hired this guy, Alex Castellanos, a Republican consultant, to work for my opponent and I was expecting a negative barrage, which did come, but we pre-empted it by going negative early. My opponent was a roofing contractor and he hadn't paid his taxes or his bills, it wasn't personal."
His success as a national politician meant that fundraising would not be a problem.
"I had a very good grass roots organization. In every rural county we had team captains. They hadn't developed social media - there was a lot of mail and one of the things I thought was very important was small radio media - and we bought up the small radio media. For six bucks you could go for 30 seconds and I've never neglected in my runs for office rural areas and the best way to reach them, still, is small radio."
When would-be candidates ask Richardson his advice, his reply is simple:
"The fact that you're asking me means that you're thinking about it and you want to do it. I say the best answer to you is 'do it, just do it.'
He said it's important to be prepared to lose the first race and accept the consequences that come with the loss.
"Secondly, take a gamble, don't operate with the traditional 'wait your turn.' If there is an opening and if you have a message, if you have that desire to campaign, do it.
"The third thing is that public service is a noble call. You can make a difference. You can help people. It is ego satisfying. Just make sure your family situation is good enough to do this."
His final word of advice is on the inevitable: fundraising.
"It's a debasing activity but you have to ask people to give you money. First they don't want to do it. They may not like you. You have to be able to take the abuse of people saying no to you."
Win or lose, Richardson said, "one of the most satisfying moments of your life is when you look up at the board and see all these thousands of people that voted for you."
Bill Richardson was considered a "Rock Star" by the time he mounted a run for Governor of New Mexico.
His past jobs included Congressman, Ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. Secretary of Energy.
His childhood in Mexico was, to use his word, dichotomous.
"My father was a Republican. He didn't hate Democrats but he was a very strong Republican. I grew up in Mexico, so I wasn't exposed to American politics and I remember early-on being enormously attracted to John Kennedy. I just thought he was so cool. But my father did instill in me a sense of duty. He made a special trip to the United States for my birth. He wanted me to be an American. My mother was Mexican. So I grew up in a dual language household," he said.
Richardson had just entered his teens when President Kennedy and his wife paid a visit to Mexico.
"And he knelt before the statue of the patron saint of Mexico, despite his bad back and bad knee, and it was a huge moment in my seeing the power of symbolism in politics. And I remember when he died, it was in math class and I remember the math teacher going out of the room and coming back and she was crying and she said President Kennedy has been shot and class is dismissed. That was a big moment in my recognition of the importance of politics."
Richardson's first love was baseball and by the time he was finished with his undergraduate studies at Tufts University, he was ready to hang up the spikes - but what next?
"I was heading into my senior year at Tufts without any direction. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was a baseball player and my baseball career was ending. And I decided I wanted to run for president of my fraternity and move the fraternity in a different direction from beer drinking and into more activities with helping kids - a direction that was more socially conscious."
His win against the seated vice president caught him by surprise.
"Don't assume you're gonna' lose if you're facing an incumbent. If you're a resurgent candidate, a reform candidate, if you do it right, you win. I remember finishing my term as president and enjoying politics and quite frankly enjoying power and it was then that I decided that I wanted to go into public life."
And so Richardson decided to attend the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. His childhood in Mexico, his bilingual upbringing and extensive travels might serve well for a career in international diplomacy.
"I was a decent student, nothing extra but my last year as president of the fraternity I did not know what I was going to be doing. When I applied to Fletcher. I barely got in, I was on the waiting list," he admitted.
Fletcher fed his hunger for a life in public service.
"What was pivotal in my early development was going on one of those trips from Fletcher to Washington to see how the Congress worked and how politicians dealt with constituents. And I remember sitting in the Senate listening to Hubert Humphrey speak, who had no reason to talk to us, we were a Massachusetts school, but he just loved to talk to kids and I remember him talking about public service and Africa and how inspiring it was and that really turned me on."
It was at that moment that Richardson decided on a life in politics. He knew then that he would run for office but he had a serious problem.
"I had no base. I couldn't be a congressman from Washington DC or Massachusetts or Mexico City. If you want a political career you better go somewhere that you can get elected," he advised himself.
In the early 1970s Richardson landed a job in the State Department as a congressional relations person for Henry Kissinger.
"I was like his servant. Ironically, he didn't even remember this, as I said, I got a job by chance, going to a bunch of congressman, sending my resume. I knew nobody. A professor at Fletcher sent a letter to every member in the House, the only one that answered was Bradford Morse who said, 'okay Bill, you can come work for us but it will be an unpaid internship - us being a liberal republican group called the Wednesday group.'
"They liked my work. They hired me full time. Then Kissinger, then I went to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where Hubert Humphrey was the chairman but the guy that helped me was a Senator from Wyoming by the name of Gale McGee.
Senator McGee became an advocate for the young Richardson.
"He and Humphrey were on a sub-committee, Foreign Relations and I knew I had to move someday to somewhere I could get elected."
Richardson accepted a job as Executive Director of the New Mexico Democratic Party.
"My wife was very upset - I was getting paid nothing for this job."
Other than the lack of pay, it fit the bill. New Mexico has a large Hispanic population and its geography placed it near his family in Mexico. Perhaps here, he said, he could build a political life.
"It was either here or California, where I was born and I thought I probably had a better chance in New Mexico because it's smaller. I lost my first election and they called me a carpetbagger but I almost won. I worked very hard. I went everywhere."
Redistricting created an opportunity for the would-be Congressman and he won his second race for public office.
It was a very tough primary. I beat Tom Udall who is now the U.S. Senator. I beat a judge who was being backed by the current governor. What had helped me was I had run before." Richardson didn't win a majority of the Hispanic vote that year.
"What made me the victor was I got almost 90 percent of the Indian vote. I have always credited the Navajo.
United States Representative Bill Richardson served 15 years in Congress. He eventually rose to Deputy Majority Whip where he began to work closely with then President Bill Clinton who tapped Richardson to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations and two years later appointed him U.S. Secretary of Energy. When the Republican's won the White House, Richardson went to work for Kissinger's strategic consulting firm.
The September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, he said, inspired him to return to a leadership role.
"When I decided to come back, it was nine-eleven and I decided my gosh, these are hugely important times and I miss it. Some of my friends were saying, come and run for governor."
Elections, Richardson believes, are slaves to opportunity.
"Many times you run for what is available. In politics you can't have long-range plans. If you do, they are eventually not going to work. You have to have the eye of the tiger, the fire in the belly and be ready to run at any time. Pick your spots and then you gotta' get lucky."
He said that he had always toyed with the idea of someday running for Governor but his love for foreign policy gave the idea back-burner status.
"But then after my years in congress, after the U.N. and after Secretary of Energy, I wanted to have an executive experience."
Despite his success as a public servant he came to realize that he had never managed anything.
"Being a governor - you set the agenda - you can build schools. Especially in a small state you can be a major player and do some things."
The playing field in 2002 was wide open after eight years of Republican leadership.
"People wanted a change. I started out, not being the front runner, pretty close to that, and deep in my mind, I have to confess I thought, maybe if I do a decent job as governor, maybe I'll run for president."
His opponent in the Primary was Gary King, the son of a former governor. After Richardson won at the state's Democratic Convention, King dropped out of the race.
"I was the favorite but when you're in politics you never take anything for granted. I worked like Hell. That year I set a world handshaking record. I had advantages, but I worked my ass off. There were 600 convention delegates, and my objective was to keep both candidates running against me from getting the 20 percent, to keep from getting on the ballots."
His Republican opponent was John Sanchez.
"I ran against a pretty attractive Hispanic candidate. The Republicans were grooming this guy. They just hired this guy, Alex Castellanos, a Republican consultant, to work for my opponent and I was expecting a negative barrage, which did come, but we pre-empted it by going negative early. My opponent was a roofing contractor and he hadn't paid his taxes or his bills, it wasn't personal."
His success as a national politician meant that fundraising would not be a problem.
"I had a very good grass roots organization. In every rural county we had team captains. They hadn't developed social media - there was a lot of mail and one of the things I thought was very important was small radio media - and we bought up the small radio media. For six bucks you could go for 30 seconds and I've never neglected in my runs for office rural areas and the best way to reach them, still, is small radio."
When would-be candidates ask Richardson his advice, his reply is simple:
"The fact that you're asking me means that you're thinking about it and you want to do it. I say the best answer to you is 'do it, just do it.'
He said it's important to be prepared to lose the first race and accept the consequences that come with the loss.
"Secondly, take a gamble, don't operate with the traditional 'wait your turn.' If there is an opening and if you have a message, if you have that desire to campaign, do it.
"The third thing is that public service is a noble call. You can make a difference. You can help people. It is ego satisfying. Just make sure your family situation is good enough to do this."
His final word of advice is on the inevitable: fundraising.
"It's a debasing activity but you have to ask people to give you money. First they don't want to do it. They may not like you. You have to be able to take the abuse of people saying no to you."
Win or lose, Richardson said, "one of the most satisfying moments of your life is when you look up at the board and see all these thousands of people that voted for you."
