Governor Bill Richardson

The Republican Party loves to point out when one of our state leaders is losing points in popularity. Our Governor has had a hard year. He ran for president and admittedly came in fourth. With all of the negative press for the republicans people are beginning to ask so what has our governor been doing for New Mexico lately?

He has spent more time away from our state but that has not been all bad because it has giving our Lt. Governor Diane Denish an opportunity to show that she will make a good governor in 2010.

Lately he has been working with the Mexican government--including President Felipe Calderon and other top officials--to find a solution to the spiraling drug violence on our mutual border.

As a result President Calderon has deployed some 3,000 troops and federal police to the border region and has shown a solid commitment to solving this dangerous situation.

Our governor has always had an interest in diplomacy and when families ask him to step in he has always responded to the needs of people in trouble. We all understood that fact when we supported him for governor. So has he kept up with that activity?

He just completed a trip to meet with both Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to try to win the release of American hostages held by Colombian rebels since 2003.

As is often the case with these negotiations, the results were not immediate--but he believes there was real progress made toward freeing the American hostages.

Now that he is back he is also supporting our candidates for the November elections and will be of great help in fundraising for those candidates.

Democrats must be careful to not let the Republican Party attack our party leaders just because they are not running for reelection this year. Those leaders are supporting our candidates and deserve better treatment. Governor Richardson never made any secret from day one that at some point in his career that he would be looking for a federal position but we in the state of New Mexico have also benefited from his name presents on the national stage of government.