I was impressed with Richardson on Meet the Press

[question everything]

He has specific ideas for specific issues. He is not trying to evade issues or prior comments. Like every one else, he admits that he changes his mind when conditions change, that he made errors.

Later, on CNN, Blitzer interviewed Bloomberg about hybrid cars in New York, who said that, like Arnold S (I will never get the correct spelling) they are not going to wait for Washington to decide about lowering car emissions. That all they do in D.C. is "talk."

And, for me, it just confirmed the notion that we really want a President with an executive track record like a governor, a mayor, a CEO, a general. Someone who does not just "talk" - even though I do admire individuals who are great debaters, who can articulate their ideas.

But candidates with executive track records have demonstrated their ability to implement plans of actions based on resources available and, when conditions change, to modify their plans.

Yes, I know, the current President is hardly an endorsement for electing a former governor, but clearly this is someone who coasted through life on the name "Bush" and on his "charm."

[skipos]

1. I like Richardson, and he is picking up steam.

He has been cracking into the double digits in some state polls.

I don't agree with him on everything, but I think he would be the best President.

[tridim]

2. Honestly I wasn't impressed at all

and I have been impressed with him in the past.

I am impressed with Gore on Cspan2 however.

[Traveling_Home]

3. Some disabled in NM are less than impressed

From ADAPT
============================

What's up with Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico and also a candidate
for President of the United States?
After signing into law the Money Follows the Person in New Mexico Act last
year and receiving much fan fare, credit and gratitude from the national
disabiltiy community, Governor Richardson is now quietly trying to weasle
out of his previous commitment.

Below is a press release issued today by the Disability Coalition regarding
the failure of the New Mexico Human Services and Aging & Long-Term Services
Departments to implement the Money Follows the Person in New Mexico Act.

THE DISABILITY COALITION
A Coalition of Persons with Disabilities, Family Members, and Advocates
P.O. Box 8251
1720 Louisiana NE, Suite 204
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504-8251
Albuquerque, NM 87105
Telephone or fax: [phone]
[phone] Fax: [phone]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, May 24, 2007

CONTACT: Jim Jackson, Protection & Advocacy System, 505-256-3100 or
505-261-7145
OR: Gil Yildiz, Independent Living Resource Center, 505-266-5022 or
505-331-9401
Disability Advocates Protest Richardson Administrationbs Defiance of State
Law
Medicaid money will remain tied to nursing homes, not home-based services

SANTA FE, NM b A coalition of disability advocacy organizations is
protesting the decision of the Richardson Administration not to comply with
a state law intended to help seniors and people with disabilities live in
their own homes instead of nursing facilities b even though the program
would save the state money.

The Money Follows the Person in New Mexico Act, sponsored by Rep. Ed
Sandoval (D-Albuquerque) and passed unanimously by the state legislature in
2006, allows individuals in institutional care to use Medicaid funding to
live in their own homes instead. The governor signed the bill into law in
March of 2006.

A group has been meeting monthly since then to advise the Human Services and
Aging & Long-Term Services Departments on how to implement the Money Follows
the Person (MFP) program. However, at the groupbs meeting earlier this
month, Carolyn Ingram of HSD's Medical Assistance Division said that the
state would not allow Medicaid monies to move from nursing homes to
community services, despite the mandate of the law. Ingram said her agency
fears increased costs if the law is implemented.

Advocates for persons with disabilities have appealed to Governor Richardson
to reverse the decision, noting in a letter to him that ignoring the law
will extend the time that people stay on waiting lists for services. "People
with disabilities have a right to live in their own homes, and they can do
so with appropriate supports and services," said Gil Yildiz, executive
director of the Independent Living Resource Center. "MFP would save money
for the state because community services are less expensive than
institutions. This should be a win-win situation for both the state and the
disability community."

Yildiz noted that many other states already have MFP programs or will soon
begin them, since they are being strongly promoted by the federal Medicaid
agency. In Texas, nearly 11,000 people transitioned out of nursing homes in
the first five years of their MFP program, and the number of people in
nursing homes was reduced by 10 percent, according to Marc Gold of the Texas
Department of Aging and Disability Services. Texas saved 50% on the cost of
long-term services for these individuals by letting them move from nursing
homes to community settings.

"We were concerned that planning was taking so long, but it never occurred
to us that they would just refuse to comply with the clear mandate of state
law," said Jim Jackson, executive director of NM Protection & Advocacy
System, an advocacy center for persons with disabilities. The advocatesb
letter to the governor notes that they feel they have been "misled or simply
lied to" in the planning process. "The program is being throttled by
bureaucrats before it even gets started," Jackson said.
-30-


-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Sent: Sun, 20 May 2007 2:51 pm
Subject: Money Follows the Person


Greetings,

Why is Governor/Candidate Richardson refusing to implement Money Follows the
Person in his home state of New Mexico??

According to his cabinet secretaries from the Human Services Department and
the Aging and Long Term Services Department, he intends to ignore the New
Mexico statute he signed into law on March 8, 2006.

As the candidate for President, his MFP stance so far, will make it
difficult to explain to the disability community locally and nationally. We
are looking to him for proactive leadership now and in the future to remove
the institutional bias in the Medicaid system. People with disabilities want
choice and dignity to live in the community now!

Governor/Candidate Richardson, please reconsider and check in with your
cabinet secretaries. Are they leading your state or are you?

If you want to know more about what the disability community is interested
in, please answer the questionnaire sent to you jointly by ADAPT, the
National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), AAPD, etc.

Thank you for taking action!


Gil Yildiz
Executive Director
ILRC

[chimpymustgo]

4. I was NOT impressed. He was back-tracking and hemming and hawwing.

Sorry, I thought he was pretty bad.

[loyalsister]

37. He refused to sign in at first

ADAPT had to push hard in NM. He does not have a very good reputation on this issue.

I liked some of what he had to say. But it really bugs me that his face seems to lack expression.

[merh]

5. He is one of them in sheeps clothing

He has sat comfortably in the corporate pockets and only crawled out when he ran for gov.

He is DLC, he talks the talk and has for some time. He is so gifted at it that you don't realize he is talking the talk.

He prevented/opposed the New Mexico recounts in 2004.

Oh, and he didn't call for Gonzo's, resignation because he had to stick by his fellow Hispanic. Would that have been acceptable to you if GWB used that reasoning to refuse Rummey's resignation "we need white men in power, we have to stick together"?

Please look closer into Richardson's corporate alliances, don't be fooled by the talk he doesn't talk.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

7. How many times did he say "I had to make a living"?

[merh]

9. Yeah, I'm sure he had trouble finding work

standing in line at the soup kitchens must have been so hard for him. :sarcasm:

[Elwood P Dowd]

8. Also, he is a huge supporter of corporate free trade & outsourcing deals.

He was all over CSPAN and CNN pushing NAFTA, GATT, WTO, MFN and all the other fake free trade deals when he was a congressman. You couldn't tell him from Newt Gingrich or Dick Armey back in the 1990s.

[Greyhound]

24. As Governor, he outsourced all of the state's call centers to India.

Doesn't matter if he laid off all those people that had relatively stable, secure employment, or if citizens can get an intelligible answer to their questions, as long as it's cheaper and coming out of a different account.:eyes:

[dsc]

25. I presume you had a link for that

it is the first I heard of it.

[Greyhound]

29. 2003 go find it yourself. n/t

[dsc]

31. Why on earth should I?

You made this charge. You have the responsibility to back it up. Do your own homework instead of asking others to do it for you. So again, are you just making crap up, too lazy to back up what you say, or are you going to step up to the plate?

[Greyhound]

32. Ostensibly you want ot know the truth of the matter, if not, I couldn't care less.

I'm not in the business of making up your mind on any candidate, even DK. In my experience most here have already made their decisions and simply want to prop-up or knock down the other guys.

If you want to know you'll go find it, otherwise you are just a waste of my time since you'll just find some other thing to distract.

Again, I don't care, I didn't reply to you anyway.
:shrug:

[dsc]

33. Your post was profoundly disingenuous and that is being kind

Upon doing your work for you, I found that 42, that would be all but 8, states were involved in this outsourcing which was due to EFT not Richardson or any other governor's doing. Incidently the report I read suggested that even the other 8 likely had some outsourcing they couldn't prove it though. But bottom line you are close to lying when you state in your post that Richardson outsourced jobs. Incidently, this wasn't a trivial amount of effort to do your homework.

[question everything]

19. He was honest and he said that he just wanted to give Gonzo

time to testify in front of Congress.

I think that he said what many think about their own "tribes" but do not express it loudly.

I was amazed at some letters in TIME attacking Romney because he is Mormon. And, of course, Bush won twice because he is "a Christian man" whatever that means in that context.

And many will vote for Clinton or for Obama because the candidate is a woman, or an African American.

Most of us, who are do not belong to a minority group cannot appreciate the sense of pride when someone manages to break out and to rise to the top, and this is what he said.

And, I suppose, we are so used to people talking with confidence about everything... and then have to back track - all of them - that we see it as a weakness when someone hesitates a bit, saying that he is only human and admits for past mistakes or for not expressing himself clearly the first time.

After all, we have a president who does not think that he has ever erred, who speaks with confidence about two sides of the issue without losing a breath.

[merh]

28. You only address his "tribal" defense of Gonzo and you did it

poorly. Talking with confidence is still talking the talk, yet you originally said he didn't. Please make up your mind.

You offer no defense of anything else addressed in my post, you have nothing to say about his defense/support of NAFTA, the recounts of 2004, his sitting on the boards of the oil corporations, don't present a tribal defense and think it flies, it doesn't. And don't post with wonder when you know the truths and why many oppose him.

He talks the talk and walks the walk. He is a repub lite.

[Czolgosz]

34. Not DLC in sheep's clothing; Richardson's been candid about being the least progressive candidate in

the race. After the debate, Richardson said:

"I came out as the most moderate candidate with the clearest position on Iraq," Richardson insisted as he took a slug from a bottle of water. "I'm a different kind of Democrat."

I appreciate his candor even thought I don't share his ideology.

[merh]

35. Moderate is not what he truly is, so there is no candor.

Corporatist would be accurate and he is not the only candidate with a clear position on Iraq, he just thinks his is the clearest. That isn't candor that is disingenuous.

Relative to my "sheep's clothing" comment, that was to the OP that claims that his doesn't talk the talk, he isn't one of them.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. I thought he seemed nervous and evasive. But considering he was getting the

full-Timmy treatment, he could have done much worse.

[Connie_Corleone]

10. I wasn't impressed at all. I thought he was awful.

To me, he seems to exaggerate too much. And I didn't like the fact that he initially gave Gonzales another chance just because he was Hispanic.

[billbuckhead]

14. Exxageration, like when Richardson said he was a pro baseball player

then it turned out he never played pro ball.

[dsc]

16. On the subject of exaggeration

He didn't claim to play pro ball he claimed to have been drafted by a pro team. Instead he was offered a contract and the league he played in claimed, in their program, that he had been drafted. If you are going to claim others are dishonest, don't be dishonest yourself.

[billbuckhead]

18. Here'a bunch of links, let everyone judge for themselves Richardson's veracity

<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/25/politics/main1075650.shtml>
<http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/35485.html>
<http://www.nationalsummary.com/Articles/Campaigns/campaigns__bogus_qualifications.htm>
<http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8E325882&show_article=1%3Cbr%20/%3E>
<http://wonkette.com/politics/bill-richardson/bill-richardson-to-be-first-half+latino-president-230113.php>

[dsc]

20. From your first link

For nearly four decades, Richardson, a prominent Democrat frequently mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, has maintained he was drafted as a pitcher in 1966 by the Kansas City Athletics.

But an Albuquerque Journal investigation found no record of Richardson being drafted by the A's, who have since moved to Oakland, or any other team. Informed by the newspaper of its findings, the governor acknowledged the error in a story published Thursday by the paper.

“After being notified of the situation (by Journal reporter Toby Smith) and after researching the matter ... I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A's,” Richardson said.


Richardson, who was a star right-handed pitcher in high school and played at Tufts University, maintained, though: “I was actively scouted by several major league teams.”


In his statement to the Journal, Richardson claimed that “as a high school player, and later after playing in the prestigious (amateur) Cape Cod League, and during my time at Tufts, I was approached by scouts who offered to draft me, under the condition that I agree ahead of time to sign a contract, if drafted. I could not agree to sign a contract, and therefore was not drafted by any of those interested teams.”

Richardson later developed arm trouble, removing any possible pro career. Before that, he said scouts had told him he “would or could” be drafted.

end of quote

Note what isn't in here. No claims of playing major league ball. You stated, directly, that he claimed to have played major league ball. You then, when I correctly corrected you, claimed I was wrong. Your own link stats exactly and precisely what I said.

[billbuckhead]

21. So will you admit Richardson lied about his baseball career. Yes or No?

[dsc]

22. I don't know if he did or he didn't

My dad was in a similar position and it does sound like the word draft had a different meaning back then. My dad was offered a position in Japan playing baseball and tells me that he would have called that being drafted but he turned it down. So to be honest I don't know if he was genuinely confused or lying. That said, I do know that your claim is flat out false. Richardson never, not ever, claimed to play major league ball. He did claim that he was drafted. He evidently was offered a contract, which he declined. In today's parlance, that would be being drafted, evidently back then it wouldn't have been. I certainly wish he had been more careful in his words.

[jillan]

27. Not impressed either

He waffles too much.

Especially when Russert was asking him about how poorly New Mexico is doing in several areas.

[stevedeshazer]

11. Russert beat the crap out of him

It was painful. A solid hour of nonstop bludgeoning and BR didn't handle it very well. Timmy brought up every single radical right White House generated talking point, and Richardson obviously wasn't ready for it.

I like Richardson a lot, but this was definitely not his finest hour. He was evasive and far too conciliatory to Tim the Swine.

Richardson's responses reminded me of when Michael Dukakis was asked what he would do if his wife was raped and murdered by Bernard Shaw. If you are old enough to remember, Dukakis answered that he opposed the death penalty. Instead, he should have been outraged at the line of questioning and thrown it back in the interviewers face.

Richardson didn't fight back as he should have, and let Timmy the Corporate Minion pound him into pulp.

To say the least, this will not help Richardson and one can only hope that because this was Memorial Day weekend, very few people saw this public corporate lynching and Richardson will come back wiser and feistier than he showed this time.

That was flat-out embarrassing.

[Red Knight]

23. It was ugly

I wonder when Russert will offer that treatment to one of the Republicans. What did Richardson do to Russert anyway, kidnap his family? Jeesh. That was rough.

And then Russert has the gall to say something like, "I'm just trying to be fair and give you a chance to respond to these things."

Uh...gee, thanks for small favors, Tim.

I am no Richardson fan. But this was brutal.

[ellenfl]

12. speaking of the sunday morning shows . . .

does anyone else see artie johnson impersonating elmer fudd whenever jeff sessions (r-al) is on camera? just wondering.

re richardson, he has the best credentials but i lost some regard for him after watching him on mtp this morning. he's just not doing it for me . . . not like edwards (or gore!). on the other hand and in spite of his diarrhea of the mouth, i can still be impressed with biden, who straight talks pretty much every time i have seen him.

ellen fl

[Sapphire Blue]

13. Not so much, but if...

... Henry Gibson & Ernest T. Bass had a love child, it might be Jeff Sessions.

[ellenfl]

17. henry gibson! that's who i was seeing in my mind's eye, not artie.

(hey, i got the same show!) henry gibson doing elmer fudd. you don't see that?

ellen fl

[Gidney N Cloyd]

26. "I Hate Alabama Nazis!" :-)

http://www.polarblairsden.com.nyud.net:8090/superherowonderwomanpilot003.jpg

[Evergreen Emerald]

15. I thought he did a great job: Timmie appeared to be nit-picking

Timmy-boy would not give up even when the question was stupid--and answered. "you got his date of birth wrong, will you apologize." I thought Timmy-boy came off as creating the most meaningless controversies.

Contrast this interview with the others: Timmy-boy let McCain (and Cheney) blather on and on their right-wing talking points with only cursory questioning.

Richardson handled the stupid questions well. He came across as reasonable, intelligent, caring, and human. When time insinuated that he had changed his position from 1988--I just laughed. It was an interview done by one with an agenda and that agenda does not include getting to the truth of who Richardson is.

[peaches2003]

30. And you wonder why we get what we get

Americans are basically idiots when it comes to who we elect and why. The Rethugs always goes back 30-40 yrs to something a candidate said and pulls it apart until it is unrecognizable and people vote on that. BR was offered a baseball contract as a kid and the league has said he was 'drafted'. Maybe in those days every player offered a contract was called 'drafted'. It isn't like BR outright lied and said he was a pitcher and never had even played. (Like Bush said he was in the NG yet never was seen.) And this is what people will decide 'character' on? Then Timmy says BR says he is a Bosox fan, yet liked Mickey Mantle. Is that true, BR, and why did you like Mantle???

BR should have asked Timmy if he wanted to talk 2008 issues or 1950 baseball? And then walked out.

Is this country nuts???? That's how we end up with a Bush in the White House instead of someone with a living brain who can put a sentence together.

[slank]

36. Let's just say he's not a brilliantly clear thinker

He's not exactly a brilliantly clear, sharp thinker,

but compared to the manure that comes mangled out of Bush's mouth he is a comparative genius.

I thought the moderator was pretty pressing (rough?) on him, but that is good, that is how you separate the wheat from the chaff.
I can't say i was impressed, at least not in a good way.
He doesn't seem to have studied or taken a clear stance on some (many?) issues.
He is waffled all over the place about illegal & legal immigration.

He starts making a statement then jumps to something else, right in the middle so you (& perhaps he) have no idea of what his train of thought really is.

Bush & the Neoconmen have been very certain, & certainly wrong.

I get no sense of a clear delineated path he is going to pursue. Which might be better than a bad path or direction. I am hoping for the visionary with splendid vistas on the future & near genius ability & energy to get gritty practical details organized & implemented. oops, California Pipe Dreaming Again.

He seems like a likable pompous arse, but he's still a pompous arse IMO.

He's way better than Bush because he still has his soul intact, i think, But i sure the frig hope for better than this.