THE MYSTERIOUS RICHARDSON PETITIONS (and more)

My story about those weird Richardson-for-Senate petitions can be found HERE.

Basically nobody believes they are real and speculation consensus is that it's some kind of political mischief.

One person I spoke to said it might be an attempt to discourage Richardson fans who might want to contribute to Tom Udall's Senate campaign. Of course -- assuming people would believe Richardson is soliciting petition signatures with unsigned letters on plain white paper -- that would discourage Richardson backers from contributing to Marty Chavez's campaign too.

So could it be a Republican plot? I don't see it. It doesn't matter to the GOP if contributions to Democrats in the primary is slowed down. Everyone realizes that no matter who the candidates are, both parties' general election Senate campaigns are going to be ridiculously well funded next year.

One Dem I talked to yesterday said the petitions could be from "some college student" supporting a presidential candidate other than Richardson in an effort to make Richardson look less serious in the presidential race.

Or indeed, could it be from the Richardson camp afterall -- sending out plain-white generic letters as a head-start on petition gathering as part of "Plan B" if the presidential race isn't successful? Not too likely. As one Democrat said, the number of signatures that could be gathered in such a fashion would be minimal.

So who knows? I'm just surprised that whoever did it couldn't come up with a fake letterhead with some cheesy campaign logo to at least make the thing look a little more believabe.

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Also in today's paper I wrote an obit for the late Stretch Boles, who headed the state Highway Department back in the days they were coping with that newfangled Interstate system thing. You can find it HERE.

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For a good, basic description of the arcane ritual known as the Iowa Caucuses, check out Carter Bundy's column today over at Heath's blog.