Where’s Bill?
The New Mexico press corp (not to mention the New Mexico Democratic Party staff) were texting something frantic when Gov Bill Richardson didn’t turn up on stage for his allotted speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night.
Even the convention staff were under the impression that Richardson would be making a 20 minute speech.
I’d fought for an hour to get to the convention floor for his address and failed because either the Secret Service or the Fire Marshall had closed access (DNC staff said first one, then the other). Finally, I did sneak into one of the press box seats…only to be stuck wondering wtf was going on. No word from the Gov’s office, the state party had no clue either and the other journalists were equally in the dark. I had to bite the head off one specialty publication journalist who asked me to keep my voice down while talking on the phone during Biden’s speech.
Like, he had Biden’s speech on paper in front of him and the video will be on YouTube or C-Span.org almost instaneously. Our Governor had disappeared. That fact shut him up.
A nice Denver-based journalist next to me, who claimed to be a friend of Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s wife, said she’d heard hours earlier that Richardson had been bumped to tomorrow. Could the local press have been the last to know?
Anyway, I’ve now got confirmation from Conchita Cruz, communications officer for the DPNM (recently promoted from press secretary) who dutifully tracked down the info for us, both during and after Biden’s speech. Here’s the quote she gave us from an unnamed member of Richardson’s staff, via text message:
The Governor was asked to speak on the final night of the convention at a larger venue. More details will be available in the morning.
I guess we’re talking Invesco. Richardson’s gotta be so stoked. But we’re also hearing speculation in the blogger tent that Richardson will be speaking much earlier in the day…which isn’t as bad as it sounds. Unless I’m mistaken, people are supposed to show up at 2pm.
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