The Daily Background

I just got an email from Joaquin Guerra, Bill Richardson’s director of online outreach. Let’s recap for a second. Earlier today, I had written:

Evidently Bill Richardson, or at least somebody from his campaign is driving a Hummer around New Hampshire as part of the campaign’s motorcade. Ben Smith has a photo that somebody snapped as it left an event presumably today. I’m pretty disgusted… there were already some questions about Richardson’s connections to the oil industry, and his recently-but-abruptly-divested investments in major oil corporations (which he said was because there was nothing wrong with “wanting to make a little money”), but this pretty much seals the deal for me. He may have a great resume and great foreign policy experience– good, let him be a Secretary of State or re-appoint him as Amb. to the UN or something, but let’s not have another guy sympathetic to Big Oil in the White House.

Ouch. That was pretty harsh of me. About a half hour later, I found a New Hampshire blog with a couple more photos of the Hummer and sent it off to Ben over at the Politico who is now linking to it.

Anyways, back to the update. Guerra tells me that Richardson hasn’t ever ridden in the Hummer, and that it was not part of the motorcade and that it actually belongs to a supporter. By the way, Richardson’s staff gets an A+ for contacting me (I had contacted Santa Fe Protective Services earlier but they hadn’t replied), and nipping this whole thing in the bud. And yes, I was being totally unfair earlier- Richardson certainly doesn’t deserve to be ruled out in anybody’s mind just because a supporter follows around his motorcade in a Hummer.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog