Saturday, July 28, 2007

Governor Richardson meets Shirley's Restaurant

The breakfast crowd at Shirley's Restaurant on Pleasant Street, Claremont, N.H. certainly took notice when the large and impressive man in a dashing Navy blue blazer strode into the small country restaurant at 10 AM this last Saturday in July morning. Dan, the owner, introduced Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico, a Democrat, to the 40 or so locals and a smattering of press and aides.

I was there to record Richards for the Eagle Times' N.H.-2008 podcast series I host for the Twin State Valley Media Network that publishes the Eagle Times and three other newspapers in New Hampshire. Because this was my first live recording in this series of conversations (usually done over the telephone because of the difficulties of scheduling in a fast moving campaign) with Presidential hopefuls for the 2008 election, I thought I'd pass on some of my impressions.

The Governor is an imposing personality, he filled the small restaurant. But he is very approachable and exudes a "come up and touch me, I am for real" feeling. He speaks in small sentances and has an introductory speech that is short and bulleted--so one gets the idea that he has thought out what he wants to do, and gives it to you in small enough pieces to make it easy to absorb and formulate questions.

His experience (Congressman, Energy Secretary, U.N. Ambassador, Diplomat & negotiator, and of course--Governor) gives his agenda depth and substance. I particularly liked his rock- hard stance against Al-Qaida and the equally hard stance about the importance of re-building ties with the world's Muslims.

Richardson spoke for about 15 minutes and then answered questions for about 20. He could have gone on for much longer. There was clapping (two issues that got a lot of applause were his pledge to "follow the Constitution" and to make his Vice-President "part of the Executive Branch") and laughter at his applause lines. EG: "I am pleased to report my performance-ratings in New Mexico are going up, I asked my wife why that is so, and she explained it was because I am out of the State!"

I am not surprised the Governor's N.H. poll numbers are looking up--he is closing on John Edwards who is currently #3 in the Democratic line-up. You'll enjoy my conversation with Governor Richardson, it should be posted next week. Appreciate your comments.

2 comments:

Louis J. Cassorla said...

Sarwar, wanted to mention that it's "John Edwards", not "Don Edwards". I was at the Claremont event this morning. My take on it is at The Repeal Of Gravity Blog [http://www.repealofgravity.com/blog]. I came away pretty impressed by Richardson's substance.

Sarwar said...

Louis, thank you very much for that correction. The N.H. Primary is a very special tradition; personal campaigning doesn't get any more personal than the event at Shirleys.