This New York Times article on Bill Richardson is long, but worth your time. Here's the key point about the man whom staffers call "the guv":
Polls show Mr. Richardson having the support of roughly 1 in 10 voters in Iowa, and about the same in New Hampshire. He has raised a healthy $5.2 million in the July-to-September quarter, just $2 million shy of former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. And that money is translating into additional resources here in Iowa, where he now has 75 workers on the ground - about half the number of campaign workers Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois have - and 15 field offices, again about half the number the front-runners have. One reason for Mr. Richardson's showing has been the $2 million he has spent on a series of humorous television advertisements that are popular in Iowa and have been broadcast 4,000 times, according to Advertising Age, a trade publication. They also have had nearly 220,000 hits on YouTube.com. In what has become a campaign classic, Mr. Richardson deftly establishes his biography - former energy secretary, former United Nations ambassador and negotiator with dictators - in a series of mock "job interviews" before a bored potential employer who, while munching on a sandwich, remains decidedly unimpressed.
People like to vote for a candidate whom they find warm, approachable, and funny - and who also happens to be of their party and aligned with them on the issues. I'd say so far Hillary Clinton has done the best job showing Democratic voters that she is warmer and more approachable than they may have thought originally; clever and occasionally funny; and also seems responsible and ready to be president. Barack Obama, though, comes across as overly serious and boring. Edwards hasn't yet taken off and his campaign seems headed for trouble. Maybe we'll get to January and dovish voters who want to leave Iraq but also want a candidate to whom they can relate will say, Why not "the guv?" Here's my favorite Richardson ad, by the way: