Are WE Smart Enough to Elect Bill Richardson?

The Vice-Chair of the Whatcom Democrats and I went down to Seattle on Thursday to see Gov. Bill Richardson. We listened to his stump speech along with about a hundred other Democrats from around the state.

Seattle Times chief political reporter David Postman covered his speech on his "Postman on Politics" blog.

There were articles about Gov. Richardsons visit in the Seattle Times, the Seattle PI, the Tacoma News Tribune, and a condensed little AP piece up here in the Bellingham Herald .

A little later in the afternoon, a few of us bloggers had the chance to talk to Gov. Richardson for about half hour. The others have written about it here, here, here, here and here.

I've mulled over what Richardson laid out in his speech and how he answered our one on one questions. I went back and reviewed meeting with him last July . What came across to me was that he's honest and thoughtful, no inflexible talking points, no canned answers, no triangulating. The guy I talked to last Thursday was the same guy I talked to last July; there's been no a focus-group driven make-overs. He's a politician to be sure, but he's no phony.

He's able to confidently talk about the full range of national and international issues because he has full spectrum political experience... and he has a sense of humor:

Check out his website and see if you don't agree that he's got the experience and the right kind of policies to be the next President.