Richardson Joins Obama's call for Clean Campaign

In his speech to the DNC Winter Meeting yesterday, Governor Bill Richardson yesterday echoed the call by Barack Obama on Friday for a clean campaign for the Democratic Nomination.

On Friday, Obama called for an end to the negative campaigning, saying that the real enemy are those in the White House and the Republicans.

Richardson took a similar line yesterday, going as far as calling on the DNC to pass a resolution banning negative advertising against fellow Democrat candidates for the nomination.

It's a clever strategy by both Obama and Richardson. Obama was the victim recently of an attempt to smear his name, regarding his schooling in Indonesia for a couple of years. Some reports suggested that the smear came from the Clinton campaign, although this was denied.

As Obama's campaign gathers momentum, there will be a temptation by some to begin attacks on him, either directly or through whisper campaigns. Obama and Richardson's calls will now see any of these attacks being viewed with a degree of scepticism.


As Obama said, politics these days is treated with a big degree of cynicism. His call for it to move away from being just a game, will do him no harm over the next 12 months.