Between Jokes, Book Plugs and Bear Hugs, Richardson Says Bush Administration Energy Policy "Not Sensible"

By GIL BRADY, Staff Ink-Stained Wretch

JACKSON, Wyo. (CT) — Until he arrived last Tuesday, it was the ever-urbane Eliot Spitzer’s day to bask in the land of the sinking hot western sun. But when Gov. Bill Richardson strode across the high valley ranch grass here, where Mr. Spitzer had been patiently sipping a beer and chatting up awestruck big-money donors, even the guest of honor noted the damp necks turning to watch the larger man in the navy blazer entering the big white tent.

“OHMYGOD, there he is!” One young and darkly exotic for Wyoming damsel, who had been wondering aloud just minutes earlier if New Mexico’s governor would arrive as promised, said with a blush of gushing embarrassment as Richardson ambled in.

Spitzer’s sprucely-dressed mob of five or so, who had been relentlessly peppering the famous Wall Street gangbuster about whether the SEC had gotten its act together, suddenly went dumb as Richardson pressed a swarm of eager palms, two chesty body men in tow, and then posed for a brief photo-op with the slim man destined, in poll after poll, to be The Empire state’s next governor.

But it would be old hand Texas Democrat Ben Barnes, a former Lone Star state political prodigy, who, at 21, became a state rep and then youngest Texas house speaker, ruling that chamber through the 60s and more so as lieutenant governor till the early 70s, who drew the only high-powered bear hug from the formerly laid back governor. Thus suggesting, with a single squeeze, that nobody embodies the notion of hidden potential energy better than Bill Richardson at a standard-issue political quickie.

“It’s so good to see you! How the hell are you?” One or both men appeared to say while clenched palm-to-nape before the open tent flap framing the caterer’s truck.

Barnes, now a big-time money man and one of only eight players to find John Kerry over $500,000 for his failed White House run, played barn-storming author Tuesday, signing free copies of his political memoir “Barn Burning Barn Building” for a slew of giddy, if sometimes dimly aware of whom they were schmoozing, "Spitzardson" groupies.

During the 2004 presidential race, Barnes raised hell when he went on "60 Minutes" and repeated his controversial, oft-disputed and widely reported claim that, as Texas lieutenant governor in the late 60s, he had “personally interceded” with Texas Air National Guard officials to get George W. Bush into the Guard and presumably out of the Vietnam War.

In his speech, which ranged between jokey gregariousness and sober seriousness, before about 125 ranchero-fabulous attendees, natty East Coast cheerleaders, local Democratic officials and western Democratic honchos, including fellow Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montanna, Richardson sang the praises of his long-time Texan buddy before endorsing Barnes’ book.

“There’s also another giant here from Texas. Now in New Mexico, Texans have a little too much power over our state,” Richardson said, pausing to savor a flinty wine-scented chuckle or two from the audience. “But this guy is the epitome of great government. And he has a book out there. No, I don’t have a percentage. Ben Barnes, former lieutenant governor and speaker of the Texas house. Please give him a big hand!

Richardson warmed up the lively mix of well-heeled Cowboy-state-loving New Yorkers, tipsily-oogling locals and Democratic Party leaders by reassurring them that Spitzer's "55-point" lead over his rival made him a sure winner. "In fact, why are we here?," he joked

After complementing Spitzer's record of prosecuting Wall Street wrongdoers and plugging Barnes' tome and, perhaps, stirring some dormant passion among long-pining Texas Democrats, Richardson, who has not ruled out a White House run in 2008, discussed America’s energy crisis and did not pass up taking a swipe at the Bush administration’s policies and Big Oil’s priorities.

“I think the Bush administration has not invested in renewable technologies and clean coal,” Richardson said when asked for clarification. “The talk is good. But the incentives aren’t there. And I believe that what is important is a sensible energy policy that reduces our energy dependence on foreign oil. [About] 75%, right now. We should drill in America. We should drill more for natural gas, but we should also invest in new renewable technologies and clean coal. And we’re not doing it.”

In his opinion, Richardson added, Washington policymakers and American oil companies needed to refocus their efforts back home.

"I think there is a place for sensible energy in a new ecological environment,” Richardson said. “There’s plenty of other places we can drill: New Mexico, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma and the Rocky Mountain states—one of the most fertile areas for drilling. The problem with our major oil companies is they’re not drilling in America as much as they should. They’re drilling in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East. And we need to get them to drill more in our country.”

The Clinton-era Secretary of Energy also stood by his opposition to the Bush administration’s desire to drill in Alaska’s Artic National Wildlife Refuge.

Democrats nationwide are seizing upon record oil and gas prices by reviving a populist charge that White House watchdogs such as Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club have leveled before. Critics say that Vice-President Cheney’s 2001 “Energy Task Force,” formerly known as the National Energy Policy Development Group, was unduly influenced by major U.S. oil company lobbyists who, after donating heavily to the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign, wrote White House energy policies from behind closed doors.

To this day, numerous lawsuits and Freedom of Information requests have failed to gain full access to the task force’s activities, which have remained largely classified. Cheney said in 2001 that America could not “simply conserve or ration our way out of the situation we’re in,” according to MSNBC reporter Tom Curry.

But not everything out under the hazy Tetons, whose gray granite spires and peaks appeared dulled from raging forest fires to the north and south, was about high-minded partisan sniping. Asked why a 50-point frontrunner was in Wyoming and whether it was to help raise the profile of local and national Democratic Party candidates, Spitzer said that raising funds was important in any campaign.

“And if I can lend some excitement to some other races that’s wonderful. If I can help Bill Richardson that’s great. Gov. Schweitzer that’s great. These guys are leaders in our national party, they’ve done spectacular jobs and so anything I can contribute, I want to.”

Following a rodeo-style display of trick horsemanship, which culminated when Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer corralled one lean cow before sunset under Richardson's amused gaze, Chuck Herz, a tall, rangy and plainspoken man in a checked cowboy shirt and Democratic aspirant for Wyoming’s legislature, was asked what he thought about the evening’s turnout.

“We in Teton County didn’t do much to get it. But we helped a little. This was really Richard Fields' occasion,” Herz said, referring to ranchowner Richard T. Fields of Jackson Hole Land & Cattle Company, where last week’s fund-raiser for Spitzer was held. “And his organization that put this together. He seems to be a really nice guy, and a really high-powered guy who knows what he’s doing.”

Answering whether he hoped some of the magic from the celebrity Democrats in attendance would rub off on his campaign, Herz said: “I don’t know that we need magic from out-of-state to get our campaigns energized. We’ve got great candidates. Not just me but Hank Phibbs over here and Ben Ellis. I’m very excited about the whole slate that we have.”

Herz, a supporter of Wyoming’s recent two-year repel of the state's food tax to help middle and low income residents here, said that he thought America was “facing some tough realities in our world and in our country and therefore in our state. And we have got to get together and get real in order to address those.”

One example Herz cited as an entrenched political problem was “the kind of divisive politics we’ve had in this country for a while now,” which, he added, did not apply “to the same extent in Wyoming.

"We need to keep it that way in Wyoming,” Herz added. “We are in danger of killing the things we love and I think the people around here know that. We need to preserve those things and not sort of piece meal, gerbel (sic) them away."

Clutching a wine glass and shyly approaching Mr. Spitzer after his speech, Melissa Turley, a first-time politician and candidate for Jackson’s Town Council, was introduced by a friend and received Spitzer’s blessings on her fledgling career.

Wishing her well, New York’s presumptive next governor told the thirtyish, blonde-haired novitiate that “politics was a worthwhile and noble” endeavor so long as one always remembered to do what was right.

While no tally has been released, Democratic Party officials here reported that at least a few $1,000 and even $10,000 donations were given. Whether some or all the money will go into Spitzer's gubernartorial coffers, rumoured presidential warchest, or a portion redistributed to other Democrats has not been decided, according to a Wyoming Democratic Party official.

(Photo Credits: Tetons ablaze; courtsey of Mountainweather; Ben Barnes, courtsey of FOX News; Gov. B. Richardson, courtsey of Hispania News; VP D. Cheney, courtsey of T.Dejak for the AP, NYS Attorney General E.Spitzer; courtsey of IMG/ MSNBC)