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WASHINGTON - Democratic Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico announced today he was taking the first step towards a 2008 presidential bid that would make him the first Hispanic to sit in the White House.
"I am seeking the nomination because I believe I can do the job," Richardson, 59, told ABC's "This Week."
Richardson, who was elected to a second term last year after a long career in Washington jobs, said he planned a campaign focused on a broad array of issues, not just those affecting the Latino community.
"I wouldn't run as a Hispanic candidate. I would run as an American proud to be Hispanic," Richardson said.
Richardson entered a growing field of people running for the Democratic nomination.
To underscore his status as an underdog in the race, his announcement was overshadowed on the Sunday news shows by talk of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announcing her own exploratory committee on Saturday.
Richardson served as a member of the US House of Representatives and as United Nations ambassador, diplomatic trouble-shooter and energy secretary under President Bill Clinton. He said that experience plus his years as governor of New Mexico would serve the country well.
"The next president must be able to get us out of Iraq, must be able to restore America's international standing, the next president must be able to make us energy independent, must be able to make schools better, to create jobs ... to get that done you need real life experience," he told ABC.
Richardson was to file his official papers on Monday to set up the presidential exploratory committee, which allows him to raise money and hire staff.
While Hispanics make up a major voting bloc in the Democratic party, Richardson said he would stress his experience and his role as a governor -- a fertile ground for presidents in recent years -- as well as being from the West, where Democrats have been growing in political power.
But he still trails in polls that usually show Clinton, who is trying to be the first woman president, and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, who would be the first black president, leading the others.
Richardson said the country was ready to elect someone other than a white man, adding, "I believe this country is a very tolerant, positive country."
Other Democrats who have said they are running or have formed exploratory committees included Senators Joseph Biden of Delaware and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, the party's 2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards, Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack.
But Clinton clearly dominated the political talk on Sunday, one day after she announced she was in the race.
Biden on Fox News Sunday that she was "incredibly formidable" and "the odds-on pick right now."
But he said it was early in the campaign and others had a chance to get their views better known.
"Hillary Clinton is going to have to make her best case," he said.
"And there's a lot of us out there that are known but in a sense not known, and we're going to make our best case. And I don't think Hillary's best case versus mine or Barack's or anybody else's necessarily trumps us."
On the same show, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, the "most formidable pair of politicians in America" and said she "has a six-out-of-10 chance or better of being the Democratic nominee."
Gingrich has been mentioned as a possible Republican candidate and he reiterated that he would wait until September to decide whether to jump.
The Republican field is about as crowded as the Democratic campaign with Senator Chuck Hagel saying on Sunday he would announce his plans "soon."
- REUTERS
