Handicapping The New Media Candidates: Bill Richardson

Bill Richardson is a funny guy, and he seems to have an upward trajectory lately. He's also engaged in New Media.

Take, for instance, Richardson's ads. They are not strictly New Media, but they've been rolled out on YouTube and his campaign website. He's been releasing parts of a new ad campaign for about a month now in which he is interviewing for the job of President. The latest one, in which he details his environmental credentials at some length, works in many ways, although I'm not sure they're all intended.

One take seems to be about how silly questions in job interviews can be; the query here is about what kind of tree Richardson would be, if he could.

The other take is a shot of self-deprecating humor, centered around how Richardson has the Democrat disease of overexplaining his position, or (especially in the debates) getting off on a tangent. These tangents often contain a bunch of useful information, but are only partially related to the original question. Either way, you learn about his background, see that he likes to talk with his hands, and know he has a sense of humor.

His website has a very recent story from the Des Moines Register, following his meeting with their editorial board, and the details from the meeting make it sound like Richardson is funny, and relaxed, if not a little more personable and real than people usually like their presidential candidates to be.

...And his sense of humor comes through loud and clear.

For example, he said he would have more house parties than any other candidate. With one stipulation: "Does meeting two people count as a house party?" he asked.

As evidence of his ability to work across the aisle in Congress, he said, "I got 40 percent of the Republican vote in New Mexico. I don't know what they were smoking, but I did get that."

And when he was told he couldn't go off the record during the meeting, he replied: "It's an announcement of somebody endorsing me. You can't hold that, for Christ's sakes? OK. Then I won't tell you."

His website has a lot of the networking / netroots stuff built in. Richardson has a huge resume. He already has a lot of good ads, and I guess his sense of humor and personable demeanor lend themselves to that. Even if his star is on the rise in Iowa (and it is, a bit), you won't see anyone calling Richardson "calculating" in these early days. He's got other concerns: as he is apparently prone to joking, he's still working on letting Hispanics know he's Hispanic.