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Opinion: Bill Richardson’s creative spin

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We have to give Bill Richardson credit for trying to make the best of a bad situation -- and attempting to expand the political vocabulary.

The traditional saying is that there are ‘three tickets out of Iowa’ -- meaning that a presidential candidate who does not finish first, second or third in Iowa’s caucuses might as well mail it in. Richardson ran fourth in Thursday night’s Democratic contest ... and insisted that being part of the ‘Final Four’ was good enough.

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Richardson, in his bid to become the nation’s first Latino president, worked Iowa hard. He won some good press with some early ads that used wry humor to tout his credentials (the so-called ‘job interview’ spots). During the summer, he showed some movement in the polls. But eventually, he became one of the afterthoughts in a race dominated by the intense jockeying among Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

Richardson got crushed in the caucuses, garnering only 2% of the vote. But that put him slightly ahead of Joe Biden and Chris Dodd (who responded to their poor showings by folding their tents). And it was enough for him to pledge to carry his White House quest on to New Hampshire.

With Richardson lacking an iota of momentum, we eagerly await how he will parse the results in the Granite State’s Tuesday primary.

-- Don Frederick

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