Richardson admits Nevada caucuses critical to campaign

SPARKS -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Thursday it is "critically important" that he do well in Nevada's Jan. 19 caucuses if he's to have a shot at winning the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Richardson also said the amendment Sen. Hillary Clinton is pushing to de-authorize the war in Iraq is something he has advocated since January.

"It's critically important I show strength in my own region," Richardson said.

"It doesn't mean I have to win, but I have to be a major player here," said the former congressman and energy secretary under President Clinton.

Richardson shook hands and chatted with residents in English and Spanish on Thursday at the Sparks Hometown Farmers Market, east of Reno.

He planned a stop today in Elko, a longtime Republican stronghold, after opening his northern Nevada campaign headquarters in Reno.

"I share the same Western values," he said Thursday on the way to the market, where he told potential voters he likes to hunt, listen to country music and watch boxing.

"I've dealt with issues that are important to Nevada," he said, including renewable energy, water, agriculture.

"I've got a plan to relieve traffic congestion in Las Vegas. I've dealt with public lands issues as a member of the House Interior Committee. On nuclear waste, I have stood very strongly with Nevada to keep the waste from being buried here both as a congressman and as secretary of energy."

Richardson said he has been steadfast in his opinion that all U.S. troops, including "residual troops," should be pulled out of Iraq by year's end.

"The Iraqi war policy is collapsing and our troops are at risk. They have become targets," he said.

Richardson said he first called in January for the kind of proposal Sens. Clinton, D-N.Y., and Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., have introduced in the Senate to repeal congressional authorization for the war.

"I believe you can build a national movement around it, because the current strategy of cutting funds and timetables and benchmarks has produced nothing but a blank check for the president to continue his policy," Richardson said.

He advocates a diplomatic initiative aimed at producing reconciliation talks among the three groups in Iraq toward a "partition of Iraq and a coalition government" with an all-Muslim peacekeeping force.

Richardson, who is Hispanic, issued an apology earlier this week for a comment he said was intended to be a joke with talk show host Don Imus on his syndicated radio program on March 29, 2006.

Imus jokingly said one of his staffers suggested Richardson was "not really Hispanic."

Richardson replied in Spanish at the time that if the staffer believes that is true, then he is a "maricon," which the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said means "faggot" in Spanish.

Richardson said he has the strongest record among all the candidates on gay rights issues. He said in the statement this week that in the Spanish he grew up speaking, "the term means simply 'gay,' not positive or negative."

"It was a playful exchange between me and Don Imus that was not intended to mean anything, but if I offended anybody, I apologize," Richardson said Thursday.