According to an AP report, Democrat Bill Richardson is dropping out of the race after a pair of finishes out of the money in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Aside from asterisk candidates Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, it leaves the Democrats in a three-way race between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards. But given Edwards’ weak showing in New Hampshire (just 17%) and the star-power his two opponents have, it’s probably a matter of time before Edwards pulls the plug too. Likely it will be after Super Tuesday on February 5th.
Like Kucinich, Richardson was stridently anti-war, calling for an immediate pullout in Iraq as a key issue.
While the official announcement is set for tomorrow, I’m thinking that Richardson will be leaving the race and endorsing Hillary since he’s a former member of the Clinton Administration and loyalty is paramount among those folks. While a 5% share like he got in New Hampshire doesn’t seem like much, don’t forget that if Richardson goes on the stump for Hillary, he’s one who can get identity votes for her as a Latino and has other political bonafides as a governor of a border state (New Mexico). In fact, getting out of the way this early just may be a setup for a Hillary/Bill ticket.
Another factor in that possible strategy is the possibility of flipping New Mexico to the Democrat column as President Bush eked out a 6,000 vote win in 2004 out of about 750,000 cast. Putting Richardson on the ticket could also put other states with heavily Latino populations in play.
On the GOP side, pundit Robert Novak is weighing in on the future of Mitt Romney, saying that if Romney doesn’t overcome John McCain in Michigan, his campaign is finished. Novak writes:
A loss for Romney in Michigan, which now looks likely, will eliminate him…Romney’s second loss puts his well-financed campaign at death’s door.
For many Republicans, Romney was simply the “electable conservative.” Once he lost to Huckabee, that title vanished.
Myself, I think Romney will survive at least until Super Tuesday. As several other candidates who have lost have stated, we’ve only seen two states vote so far and Romney did win the majority of delegates in Wyoming. If he keeps pulling off close finishes while others take turns at the top, we may have a brokered convention.
Michael,
What’s your opinion on the relative importance given to states like Iowa and New Hampshire in the primary process? Iowa I get, if it were a true primary instead of a caucus, since its “heartland”. But New Hampshire? They had 500,000 votes total and they’re deciding the fate of the country? I’ve never been comfortable with this.
Jeff
You’re in luck…I posted about this very thing early last year.
Thanks, Michael! Interesting thoughts, hopefully we’ll see some sort of meaningful reform along those lines.