Richardson Drops Out

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat, officially ended his presidential bid earlier today.

After finishing in fourth place in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Richardson pretty much ran out of money and was not seeing enough support in Nevada--a state with a high Hispanic population--where he had high hopes.

Two questions come to mind from this announcement:
1.) Who do his supporters vote for now?
2.) Could we see him as the running-mate of the Democratic nominee?

The first question is tricky.

The Hispanic community--especially in Nevada, the next state to vote--on the whole seems to love Hillary Clinton for what she did as first lady. She helped out the impoverished and many minority families during that time.

But other Richardson supporters might go for Obama. Richardson said that he could get out of Iraq the fastest. His supporters might flock to Obama because his plan is the most similar to Richardson's.

My guess is that Hillary will get most of Richardson's voters, but it won't really make too much of an impact in the states to come--except maybe in Nevada.

The second question is easy.

Yes. Richardson would make an incredible running-mate. He has foreign policy experience, where he was the ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton and has met with world leaders, friend and foe, across the world.

He is also Hispanic. I know this is a blunt statement, but it's really a very important point to bring up when discussing this topic because he is so popular among them.

With the support of the majority of the Hispanic community, the Democrats could potentially carry previously red states such as New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada, where Bush barely won in 2004. That's almost 20 electoral votes right there--the same amount as Ohio.

The only real problem is that he did not rally much support in the early primary states. But that's not really his turf anyway. He should be high on the list of the nominee's potential running-mates.