Sorry for the Light Posting

I have been attending to some family matters and have been unable to post the last couple of weeks. Doesn't look like I missed all that much though. Here is what I would have blogged about

• Richardson makes a visit to New Hampshire. This is a good thing- I think he needs to get moving sooner than later
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• Out West, there appears to be some grass root support for the good governor building. The USA Today picked up the story here.
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• More proof Richardson deserves to be the next President: even the White House is apparently appreciative of Richardson's help with North Korea. The AP's story is here.
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• Some new polls out in Iowa and New Hampshire. I am too lazy to find individual links, so just check them out at Pollster. Its way to early for these to matter.
  

Finally, a friend and I were discussing why the main stream media doesn't consider Richardson a top tier candidate. He has the resume, the fund raising ability and the charisma. My friend suggested a simple answer- that Richardson is polling so low that the media has no choice but to call him a dark horse. I disagree. Compare with Mitt Romney- Romney is polling mostly in the single digits in Iowa, New Hampshire and nationally, yet he is generally considered in the top tier. So polls are not solely determinative.

I would argue the answer has to do with markets. Put simply, Richardson is the governor a small western state while Romney is the governor of Massachusetts. The main stream media is so east coast centric it will consider Western candidates as top tier material only in unique circumstances (McCain is such a case- but of course, he is a "maverick"). I think this why Richardson is not considered among the front runners.

I think this phenomenon can be seen not just in Presidential races, but throughout politics. Consider how much more attention the Virginia senate race got than say, the Montana senate race? Why was the media so fascinated with the Lieberman-Lamont race, which never projected to impact control of the senate? It got little press, but the Hawaii democratic primary was fought over many of the same issues. Ever notice the media obsession with racial politics, which is primarily a function of the Northeast-Southeast divide. I saw a great article by Gary Hart on this topic (I'll try to find it later). Why else has no Western candidate (I am not including California) ever been able to win the presidency?