Don't Fall In Love During the Primary

That is advice I am struggling to follow. I know that if I fall in love during the primary season I am very likely to have to support someone in the general election that makes me want to hold my nose. And I certainly have done that enough times so that I ought to learn.

That said, my favorite candidate is finally sniffing the air of "exploratory committee" land. In case you are curious

William Blaine Richardson was born in Pasadena, Calif. His father was an international banker from Boston; his mother was Mexican. He spent his early childhood in Mexico City, where his father worked for CitiBank. As a teenager, he attended a tony boarding school in Concord, Mass., where he was pitcher on the baseball team — a sport he follows closely to this day.

After graduating from Tufts University in 1971 with a master's degree in international affairs, Richardson worked first as a congressional aide and then for the State Department. He was a staffer for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he decided to leave Washington in 1978 to launch a political career.

Richardson settled in New Mexico, partly because of the state's large Hispanic population. In 1980, after only two years in the state, he surprised political experts by coming within 1,000 votes of unseating veteran Republican Rep. Manuel Lujan, who would later serve as Interior Secretary. In 1982, Richardson was elected to the House and then was re-elected seven times.

In 1996, Clinton tapped Richardson to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, where he served until 1998, when he joined the Clinton cabinet as secretary of Energy. He was criticized by Congress during his two years at the helm of the Energy Department for his handling of alleged breaches of nuclear secrets and the botched case against Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee.

He was easily elected governor of New Mexico in 2002 and re-elected in November with 68 percent of the vote. While governor, Richardson has continued to keep a high profile nationally and served as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association as it expanded its ranks with wins across the country.