Richardson Brings Two Cultures to the Presidential Race

WASHINGTON — "I'm from Mexico."

Those are among the first words presidential candidate Bill Richardson uttered to his future wife, Barbara, when he was a student at a an elite prep school in Concord, Mass.

Although he was born in Pasadena, Calif., Richardson grew up in Mexico City, speaking fluent Spanish and playing baseball in a little league. At his father's urging, he reluctantly left home to attend boarding school in the United States when he was 12. His mother cried and little sister Vesta clasped his legs, begging him to stay at home.

"Here I was ... the dark-skinned boy from Mexico among a bunch of fair-skinned kids from cities like New York, and Boston and Chicago," Richardson recalls in his autobiography, "Between Worlds: The Making of an American Life."

Now the Democratic governor of New Mexico, Richardson is vying to become the first Hispanic president of the United States, bringing an unprecedented knowledge of Latino culture to the race.

Although some kids called him "Pancho" because of his olive complexion, Richardson found success at Middlesex School, where he was a star pitcher and dreamed of playing pro-ball like his idol, Yankee great Mickey Mantle. He later attended Tufts University, his father's alma mater, and fell in love with politics and the art of negotiation.

Since then, a lengthy career in government and international diplomacy has taken Richardson to hotspots around the world and into the inner-sanctums of the Clinton administration, where he served as United Nations ambassador and secretary of energy.

Mickey Ibarra, who worked with Richardson at the White House and is a longtime friend, said that Richardson is gregarious, enjoys "a great cigar," and is "a fun guy to be around." He also said Richardson "is on the move all the time" and that his humor gets him in trouble once in a while.

Ibarra, who now runs his own lobbying firm, Mickey Ibarra & Associates, also said that colleagues often teased Richardson for looking disheveled.

"He had a heck of a time looking pressed and all put together. ... He was often described as an unmade bed," Ibarra said, with a laugh. "He was never overdressed."

Ibarra also called Richardson "a leader," "a trailblazer," and "clearly qualified" to be president.

The prospect of a Latino in the White House has attracted interesting allies.

Lionel Sosa, a longtime consultant on Hispanic voter outreach who worked on President Bush's two presidential campaigns, is now supporting Richardson in part because of his Mexican background.

Sosa said that Richardson is a "very smart man" who has "the ability to be practical" and is the only candidate who has the experience to negotiate in the Middle East.

"He is a diplomat. That's what we need right now. We need people who can reach out, who can understand other cultures. ... He has proven to be able to do that," Sosa said.

In a recent interview, former Mexican president Vicente Fox also praised the New Mexico governor, calling him "an excellent man."

"I mean, he's so Mexican in his interior, I like him a lot," Fox said, on CNN's Larry King Live.

Richardson's ties to Mexico almost made him ineligible to be president.

His mother — Maria Luisa Lopez-Collada — traveled to California shortly before his birth. The trek was mandated by Richardson's father, an American banker who wanted his children to be born on U.S. soil. The Constitution limits American presidents to "natural born" citizens.

Richardson — whose full name is William Blaine Richardson — describes his father as a well-connected and generous businessman and a "rock-ribbed" Republican who received calls once in a while from former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom he met while in college.

In his autobiography, Richardson disputes an interpretation by some friends and colleagues that his father was emotionally abusive.

"He was stern and demanding and a strong disciplinarian who could reduce me to tears when I wanted to do something and he said no. But he never laid a hand on me or abused me emotionally," he said. "And what he taught me, by accident or by design, vastly outweighed his shortcomings."

Richardson grew up in a well-off Catholic household where the family paid homage to both American and Mexican cultures — making hot dogs on Fourth of July and also celebrating Mexican Independence Day on Sept. 16.

"My father was very proud of his American son and my mother was very proud of her Mexican son and I grew up honoring both the United States and Mexico and the language and culture of each country," he said.

He credits the unique upbringing for building the foundation for his diverse career accomplishments, which include:

— Two-term governor of New Mexico. First elected in 2002. Re-elected with almost 70 percent of the vote.

— Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, where he oversaw a Democratic takeover of the majority of the nation's governorships.

— Member of Congress, 1982-1997.

— Secretary of energy in the Clinton administration.

— U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, where he gained high marks for his tenure. In that post, he interviewed and offered a job to intern Monica Lewinsky at the behest of the White House, therefore becoming involved in the scandal that led to President Clinton's impeachment.

— Negotiated the release of two U.S. contractor employees in Iraq in 1995. The visit included an intense meeting with former dictator Saddam Hussein, who first stormed out of the room after Richardson inadvertently offended him by crossing his legs and showing him the dirty bottom of his shoe, according to an account in Richardson's biography.

— Also traveled to North Korea, Sudan and Cuba to help win freedom for captives.

— Returned to Sudan earlier this year where he persuaded Sudanese President Omer Hassan Al Bashir to agree to a 60-day cessation of hostilities in the Darfur region.

— Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times.

Richardson's career has not been without controversy. He was blamed for security lapses at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which happened under his watch as Energy Secretary.

In addition, political operatives point to what the Albuquerque Journal calls his "hands-on style of connecting with people" as a potential problem.

In 2005, questions were raised after photos at a groundbreaking ceremony showed Richardson with his hand near the rear end of his lieutenant governor, Diane Denish. Denish said that Richardson had never touched her improperly but that "physical teasing" is "one of the challenges of this governor."

More recently, Richardson admitted that a story he told about being drafted by a Major League baseball team in the 1960s was not true. A state newspaper had challenged the claim after finding no evidence of it. Richardson said that he believed he had been drafted after talks with scouts but was mistaken.

Richardson has not made it to the top tier of the Democratic pack of candidates, leading to much speculation that he is positioning himself for vice president.

Nathan Gonzales, an analyst at the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, said that Richardson's Mexican ethnicity and his ties to the Southwest could help a Democratic ticket in key states with large Hispanic populations, including New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada.

But Thomas Mann, a longtime political analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said that Richardson does not strike him as a natural choice for vice president.

"As governor, he likes being in charge. As a diplomat, he relished freelancing. I think he would find the secondary role constraining and uncomfortable," Mann said. "And the ultimate Democratic presidential nominee might see that as problematic campaigning and governing."

Ibarra agreed that Richardson might have some trouble taking a number two spot and that he should not be counted out for the top position.

"Each cycle, there's been a surprise and this is a cycle like no other," Ibarra said. "Bill Richardson could be the surprise."

Richardson's wife of 35 years, Barbara, agrees.

In a video posted on Richardson's campaign Web site, she tells a group of female voters in Las Vegas that no other candidate of either party has accomplished as much as Richardson in his 25 years of public life.

"Don't let anybody tell you ... that this race is a foregone conclusion and that's it's over," she said. "It's not."

On the Web:

Richardson for President: www.richardsonforpresident.com