Seeing the writing on the wall, Richardson campaign worked for the party

By Tashena Brown

There was a buzz on the floor among delegates on nominating night: “Where was the Richardson campaign?”

No one put his name in play that night, October 30.

It seemed odd at the time. Richardson had received some votes from delegates earlier that week. But, as campaign manager Brandon Brown explained, Richardson lacked name recognition, resources and momentum.

Still, there were 2 votes from Alaska and all of Arizona’s 25 votes, plus 26 from California, 6 from Pennsylvania and 17 from Texas.

However, these promised votes were not going to be enough.

The rules allowed one delegate from a state to stand up and move for Richardson, the Democratic Governor of New Mexico, to enter the race in earnest. All he needed was six delegates to second the nomination. But, Brown said, he and the Richardson campaign could see that wasn’t going to happen.

Mock Presidential Election director Rick Hardy speculated that perhaps the Richardson campaign saw the writing on the wall.

“Everybody knew the rules -- that they had to be nominated from the floor and if you don’t get out there and walk the floor, you’re not going to get anybody to nominate you from the floor. So the people who did work on the floor did get their nominations. I thought he would do better, but he didn’t.”

MPE associate director John Hemingway said not all students understood just how much campaigning it takes to get “promised” delegates to deliver their votes.

“They think they can make a deal and just walk halfway,” Hemingway said. “They can simply request, but it’s up to the delegates.”

Brown said the Richardson campaign decided to be pragmatic on nominating night. Contacted the weekend after the election ended and asked if his campaign had just “quit,” Brown bristled.

“We as our party did not quit,” he said. “We didn’t have the same resources or the name recognition of the bigger names. Quitting while you’re ahead is not the same as quitting.”

Brown says the Richardson camp realized by day three it was time to choose the best candidate from the Democratic Party’ s choices.

And that’s what they were busy doing instead of nominating their own candidate.

“Ultimately, I feel we got the right two candidates for the election—Obama and Edwards,” Brown said. “We all came together. The ultimate goal was to defeat the Republican Party by any means necessary.”