Bill Richardson Vice Presidency

In 2008, both Senator from New York Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator from Illinois Barack Obama had New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson on their shortlist of running mates but eliminated him after his various fraudulent tax returns and scandals surfaced. I'm wondering what he would have been like as the first Mexican-American Vice President, he did serve as Bill Clinton's Secretary of Energy, so having Clinton-Richardson would be the Clinton Administration 2.0. If he serves as Hillary Clinton's Vice President, do you think he could win the nomination in 2016 or would Clinton drop him from the ticket in 2012 because of his baggage?
 
If I recall the Clinton campaign had a lot of ill will towards Richardson after he flipped his endorsement to Obama, so I don't know if she'd pick him.
 
That's true. She'd probably go with one of her swing state allies like Evan Bayh, Ed Rendell, Tom Vilsack, or Ted Strickland or even Wesley Clark because of McCain's military experience. I was only curious because she was considering him until his endorsement of Obama, so perhaps a POD could be Hillary Clinton beating Obama, desperate to court the Latino vote, and/or wanting someone from her husband's administration? His baggage would unquestionably be a liability in 2008 and 2012, so she might drop him in 2012?
 
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Richardson is the classic "slimeball" politician, always with his hand out or in someone's back pocket. It was obvious here in NM he was dirty as hell and honestly he wasn't even that subtle about it - we may not have Daley-era Chicago levels of corruption but it's fairly easy to find on the city/state level.

The details, IMO, were always likely to come out once he was seriously being vetted and that makes him political poison both to the "DC outsider" Obama campaign and to the Clinton campaign which was desperately vulnerable to the "insider" tag.
 
If I recall the Clinton campaign had a lot of ill will towards Richardson after he flipped his endorsement to Obama, so I don't know if she'd pick him.

Well if Clinton wins the nomination he probably would have supported her instead as he only supported Obama once he had a sustained delegate lead and looked very likely to win the nomination.
 
Well if Clinton wins the nomination he probably would have supported her instead as he only supported Obama once he had a sustained delegate lead and looked very likely to win the nomination.

Well I guess it would've depended on the POD, since I still think Clinton could win the nomination after Richardson endorsed Obama.
 
Well yes but most Clinton wins scenarios will use a PoD before that.
Perhaps the PoD could be Hillary Clinton winning North Dakota, North Carolina, Colorado, Kansas, Oregon, Wyoming, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, and/or Idaho contests, more importantly, their delegates.. She won a higher percentage and the popular vote but did not win enough state contests or delegates. Bill Richardson endorsed Barack Obama on March 21st, 2008, and all of the state contests of all of the states listed occur afterward.
 
Perhaps the PoD could be Hillary Clinton winning North Dakota, North Carolina, Colorado, Kansas, Oregon, Wyoming, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, and/or Idaho contests, more importantly, their delegates.. She won a higher percentage and the popular vote but did not win enough state contests or delegates. Bill Richardson endorsed Barack Obama on March 21st, 2008, and all of the state contests of all of the states listed occur afterward.

True, though her chance of the nomination was slim by then. she had a milder version of Sanders's problem, she was winning at the end but couldn't overcome the delegate math. If Obama had screwed up on the Jeremiah wright controversy or she'd done better she might have gotten the superdelegates to defy the pledged delegate count. But all the discussions of a Clinton wins scenario(except my thread trying to get her to win after Super Tuesday) have a PoD before then so probably if Clinton was the nominee it would have been in a situation where Richardson never endorsed Obama.
 
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