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 Editorials | Issues | January 2008 
Richardson Quits Democratic Race
 365Gay.com
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 |  | During his ill-fated campaign for the presidency he said that if he were elected president he would refuse to accept the position of Honorary Chair of the Boy Scouts of America because of Scouting's ban on gays. |  | | | |
Santa Fe, New Mexico - New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson who has been generally supportive of LGBT civil rights but ran afoul of the community over a comment about nurture versus nature has dropped his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Richardson had one of the most wide-ranging resumes of any candidate ever to run for the presidency, bringing experience from his time in Congress, President Clinton's Cabinet, in the New Mexico statehouse as well as his unique role as a freelance diplomat. As a Hispanic, he added to the unprecedented diversity in the Democratic field that also included a black and a woman.
But Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama dominated the spotlight in the campaign, and Richardson was never able to become a top-tier contender. He accused his rivals of failing to commit to bring troops home from Iraq soon enough.
He portrayed his campaign as a job application for president, and ran clever ads that showed a bored interviewer unimpressed with his dazzling resume. The commercials helped fuel his move to double-digit support in some early state polls, and advisers argued he was poised to move past former vice presidential nominee John Edwards for the role of third-place challenger.
But he was not able to build the momentum and came in a distant fourth place in Iowa and New Hampshire. Richardson didn't get quite 5 percent in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday and came in with just 2 percent in the Iowa caucus last week.
Richardson was born 60 years ago in Pasadena, Calif., after his American father sent his Mexican mother there to give birth and erase any doubts that his son would be a U.S. citizen. His father was an international banker from Boston, and Richardson spent his childhood in Mexico City before being sent to boarding school in Massachusetts, where he was a standout baseball player.
After graduating from Tufts University in 1971 with a master's degree in international affairs, Richardson worked first as a congressional aide and then for the State Department. He was a staffer for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he decided to leave Washington in 1978 to launch a political career.
Richardson settled in New Mexico partly because of the state's large Hispanic population, and he won election to the House. Richardson is a master negotiator, and put his diplomatic skills to work to rescue Americans held hostage abroad. He earned a reputation for a mix of patience, toughness and cultural sensitivity that served him well on mercy missions from North Korea to Cuba to Sudan.
President Clinton recruited Richardson to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, then secretary of Energy two years later.
He was easily elected to two terms as governor but will be forced from office by term limits in 2010.
Richardson, like other Democratic candidates, has specifically targeted the LGBT vote. But during last August's Democratic Presidential Forum sponsored by Logo television, which owns 365Gay.com, and the Human Rights Campaign Richardson in response to a question said, that he believed that sexual orientation was a choice.
He later apologized saying he had misunderstood the question.
"Let me be clear - I do not believe that sexual orientation or gender identity happen by choice," Richardson said in a statement at the time.
"But I'm not a scientist, and the point I was trying to make is that no matter how it happens, we are all equal and should be treated that way under the law."
Richardson has a record of being generally supportive of LGBT issues, although he opposes same-sex marriage, preferring civil unions instead.
In 2007 Richardson recalled the New Mexico legislature to deal with several bills including domestic partner legislation that died when the session ended.
In 2003, he issued an executive order providing state employees, both gay and straight, with the option of providing their partners health insurance through domestic partner coverage. Under the order, domestic partner coverage is not available to employees after they retire, while spousal coverage is provided.
Last year Richardson was the keynote speaker at a major event in Los Angeles sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign.
During his ill-fated campaign for the presidency he said that if he were elected president he would refuse to accept the position of Honorary Chair of the Boy Scouts of America because of Scouting's ban on gays. |
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