Richardson making push towards 2008

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has been busy over the past seven days.  During the weekend he appeared in New Hampshire and yesterday he spoke in Washington D.C. in front of The International Association of Firefighters -- the first group to endorse John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race.

In New Hampshire, he called for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the beginning of  2007.  But in both places, Richardson distinguished himself from other Democrats by using the term "new progressive."

"I consider myself a new progressive," the New Mexico Governor said on the stump in New Hampshire. "I believe in private enterprise with fairness and social justice."

In D.C., he said roughly the same thing in his stump speech, but put an edge on it that might give Democrats a reason to vote for a Governor in 2008 rather than a U.S. Senator.  "States have been fulfilling the promises that Washington makes," he said.

Within the last few days there was a post in the Hotline Blog about the recent Southern Republican Leadership Conference.  The GOP in attendance were asked to vote which Democratic candidate they thought stood the best chance of winning in their state (remember, these are just southern states we're talking about).  According to the results, Hillary Clinton was first (23.8%), John Edwards (20.1%) chimed in at second, Mark Warner was third (15.0%), but Bill Richardson was way down in seventh place (4.5%).  Al Gore, who announced late yesterday that he would not run in 2008, got 7.8% of the vote and was in fourth place.