MARK SMITH MORE COLUMNS Advertisement

Maybe it was simply due to the fact that the venue for presidential wannabe Bill Richardson, chief exec of the great state of New Mexico, was an open-sided pavilion at Honeysuckle Park instead of a utilitarian sheet-metal building minus any character, but there was a pleasant, classical American air to his rally last Saturday, with a distinct whiff of the old-style "come to the speakin'" about it.

Behind him, across a chain-link fence, families watched their kids play soccer while Richardson gestured and asserted his positions on issues as diverse as water and a woman's right to choose.

On the outskirts of the crowd, campaign staffers hung back in their T-shirts and, for the senior staffers, uncomfortably warm jackets. Secret Service agents stood like so much statuary and kept their eyes moving lest Osama's latest video inspire someone to slam a car bomb into the shade.

One observer noticed that SUVs appear to have become the vehicle of choice for vote-getters. The limousine, at least out here, seems to have gone the way of the dodo. Every candidate is growing hoarse from declaring his or her intention to lessen our dependence on foreign oil -- or oil in general -- and be more careful with hard-to-replace energy sources and seek better, renewable, cheaper fuels, yet the standard campaign vehicle is that which guzzles so much gas that you can hardly drive up here from Vegas and then swing over and around to Indian Springs without a fill-up.

Richardson, in any case, has a gentle, good-natured sense of humor that went over well with the five or six dozen voters on hand. When he mentioned his support of the Second Amendment and received applause, he said he doesn't get such a pleased reaction in some other states.

In a reference to solar power, he mentioned that he thinks he's lost about 10 pounds just walking around in the sun out here.

His sharpest humor was saved for Vice-President-at-an-Unknown-Location Dick Cheney.

Cheney, said Richardson, recently refused to abide by a presidential determination that documents from the executive branch should be turned over in one or another probes. Cheney held that he is not a member of the executive branch. Richardson said his V-P will be.

"What is he, a farmer?" Richardson wondered. Then inserting a needle from the past, "Is he a hunter? Just don't get in front of him."

Richardson may have more sheer experience than most of the other candidates, Democrat as well as GOP. He has governed a state and clearly is more concerned about balancing budgets than the squandering spendthrift in the Oval Office, who hasn't seen a spending bill he won't snuggle up with. Richardson has actually done some heavy lifting in foreign policy and negotiated with those warm, cuddly maniacs in North Korea.

What he needs is a recognition of the emotional part of campaigning.

The audience now and then, on cue, set up a howl after this or that remark. Yells about getting out of Iraq. Bellows about shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Outbursts at a less noisy level about bringing back habeas corpus.

But there was no overall rhythm to Richardson's talk, no slow biblical building to a climax that lifts the humid voter out of his torpor and makes it seem that the gates of hell might be successfully stormed behind this candidate.

Some others have it, but their enthusiasm is machinelike, as if it's something they've practiced in front of a mirror with a coach and not a quality that springs naturally from the soul and inner spirit, and promises that this candidate is bringing you on board and taking you somewhere, and however bumpy the ride, like FDR, will get you there.

John and Robert Kennedy had that innate ability, and obviously Martin L. King had it. There are moments when Jesse Jackson has had it. (In the early 1980s I listened to him from outside a window at a large auditorium in the South, and even standing on the lawn 'neath the dogwoods on a thick southern night, his voice, in person, could make your hair stand up). At his best, even Lyndon Johnson could move people, and Bill Clinton could patent his brand. Frankly, if he were allowed to run again, the GOP and all the other Dems would likely roll over and play dead.

Richardson needs to move men and women in a visceral sense, not play the quiet, calm, professional diplomat.

People go to political rallies to either express their support for a hopeful or learn more about one. But it's the candidate who grabs their hearts and hikes their pulses that will come out on top.