Richardson Wins Cowchip of the Year

New Mexico Governor and Democratic presidential wannabe, Bill Richardson wins the Albuquerque Journal's 2006 Cowchip of the Year Award.

We call them cowchips— the inadvertently dumb, the blindly arrogant and the sweetly bizarre human foibles that pile up on the figurative barn floor during the course of a year and, when it comes right down to it, really make the world go 'round.

And in each of the 22 years we have been chronicling these stinkers, one cowchip appears that is bigger, steamier, more fragrant than the rest.

This year it goes to frequent cowchip contributor Gov. Bill Richardson, who mounted a 64-minute-long run for the presidency late in the year, saying "I am running" on national TV at 4:22 p.m. and at 5:26 p.m. saying that wasn't what he meant.

Technically it wasn't a run for the presidency; it was a stumble. It was how we like our political campaigns— short and sweet— and it was oddball enough to win the 2006 Cowchip of the Year Award.

AIMS AT HEAD, SHOOTS SELF IN FOOT

Gov. Bill Richardson, who has teased out his maybe-I'm-running-for-president- I-probably-will-but-I'll-tell-you-for-sure-later schtick for nearly two years, slipped up during an interview on the FOX News Channel and moved from the conditional verb tense to the present tense, saying, "I am running ..." Within 104 minutes, his office had issued a statement saying his quote had been taken out of context and he was still only maybe running— and he'd say later whether he was for sure.

Come on, we all know Richardson is running.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Cross-posted from California Yankee.