I’ve taken a job with the Iowa Democratic Party, so I can’t blog independently anymore.  I’m going to try to recruit a few more front-page writers to take over for me.  If you’re interested, shoot me an email or just leave a comment.

Here’s the audio, once again!

Drew Miller (DM):  How about your favorite regular joke?

Bill Richardson (BR):  Regular joke?

DM:  Yeah.

BR:  Ok.  Two friends, great baseball fans, in the last few days of their lives, said, “you know what we’re gonna do?  We’re both old.  We’re gonna visit every major league baseball park, because we love baseball.”

So they did that – they went to every park, national league, american league.

One of the two, before he died, he was about to die, he said, “You know, I just wondered, I’m gonna die, I wonder if I can still play baseball and watch baseball in heaven.”

And his friend said, “Well how do you know you’re gonna go to heaven?  You’ve been a good man, you’ll go to heaven, but I don’t know the answer.”

So he dies, right?

DM:  Mmm hmm.

BR:  The friend.  So the lone friend, the other guy, he’s home.  It’s been maybe a month.  His pal has been dead a month.  He’s depressed, he’s starting to feel bad, he can’t live without his friend.  Both bachelors.  He’s sleeping one night, when all of sudden there’s this image, of the friend up above.

He calls out to his friend who is still alive.  “Hey, guess what?  I’ve been dead a month, there is baseball in heaven, and I am in heaven.  I play second base.”

“Well that’s great news!”

And the guy says, “Yeah it’s great news.  The great news is yes, there is baseball in heaven.  But you’re pitching on Tuesday!”

(laughter)

BR:  Was that pretty funny?

DM:  (laughter) I get it.

BR:  (To staff) Was that pretty funny?  You’re fired if you don’t think so.

I tell that joke sometimes.  I point to people in the audience, and I say, there’s the case of this guy (inaudible), let me tell you a story about it.

Is that pretty funny or what?

Staff:  It’s a good one.

BR:  Well who asked you?

DM:  Do you still get out to a lot of baseball games?

BR:  Yeah I like baseball.  We have a triple-a baseball team in New Mexico.  It’s called the Albuquerque Isotopes.  I try to get out, you know I watch at night, one of my favorite programs, after unwinding I light up a cigar and I watch ESPN.  You know just a summary of all the games – baseball, football, basketball – whatever they have.

[Break for him to ask staff about the details of the upcoming event and about food.]

DM:  One of the things that – I’ve been to a lot of different Presidential Candidates’ speeches, and you’re definitely putting a lot more emphasis on international issues in general and especially Sudan.  What do you think we should be doing as a country?  If you were President right now what would you be doing to try and help deal with the situation in Darfur?

BR:  I would push very hard for first the UN peacekeeping troops.  They have a very limited number and the President of Sudan is not allowing UN troops, so I would push dramatic international pressure for UN peacekeeping troops, instead of African Union troops.

Secondly I’d get some of Sudan’s donors, like China that supplies their oil to put pressure on Sudan to come to the peace table, to stick by the ceasefire I negotiated, to engage in a peace process, to bring the rebels in and give them a sharing of power, and to basically stop the killing, stop the gender-based violence, stop the Janjaweed, protect the humanitarian workers.

I mean this is one of the great tragedies of the world.  Instead, Bush’s policy, generally he says the right thing, and we’ve got a special envoy there, we just gotta be more engaged.  We’ve got to pressure the UN.  This is an area where the UN is the negotiator, and we’ve gotta push the UN to get more engaged in the peace process, with their special envoy, to push for peace.  This is an ideal US/UN conflict – we should provide the UN with the resources to do it; with the leadership.  We’re not doing it.

DM:  What would you say is the most ambitious thing you’ve succeeded at, and also what is your most ambitious plan that ultimately you weren’t able to achieve?

BR:  The biggest success I believe I’ve had was, in New Mexico, improving New Mexico’s economy, creating 84 thousand new jobs, cutting taxes, and having a surplus.  I think that’s the key accomplishment.  They’re good high-paying jobs in a state that has been one of the poorest in the country.

The biggest disappointment I have is in the last session of my legislature not getting a minimum wage bill approved.  And it was my fault because I was too hasty.  I didn’t prepare properly.  I didn’t get the legislature to – I didn’t prime them properly; I didn’t consult with them properly.  We had the votes, but we missed a real opportunity.  Now we’re trying to get it done this year, in fact at this very moment.  It looks good but it cost a year – we could have gotten this done a year ago.  I could have improved the lives of thousands of people, and I didn’t do it because I was just too aggressive and didn’t consult people.

DM:  You talk about tax cuts a lot for what you’ve done in New Mexico, and I know you reduced the income tax by almost 50%, but from what I read it almost sound like you had increased a lot of taxes and fees too, and maybe even so that that the net income, or net government revenue was actually higher afterwards from the changes in the tax code and cigarette fees and that kind of thing.  Do you think that that might present some challenges in a general election, kind of the same way that Republicans said that John Kerry voted for 300 different tax increases and that kind of thing?

BR:  No, because if you look at the Forbes Magazine and the Cato Institute and the Wall Street Journal they acknowledge the tax cuts – that they’re real, that they’re solid.  You know the cigarette tax I signed, I didn’t propose it.  It was an increase just to bring parity to our state with other surrounding states.  We use it for cancer research.  No, that’s – Republicans drum that up.  I did for instance eliminate the tax on food, and the tax on medical equipment and doctors and nurses; there was a gross receipts tax.  To pay for that there was just a general statewide increase in what is called a gross receipts tax, by one half of a percent.  That one was an increase, but the others are net tax decreases.

Brad Frevert:  Gov, I’m gonna need you to read this about the host before we head in.

BR:  Are you coming in here?

DM:  I’ll be in for a little bit, yeah.