Mercury, god of commerce, in the Capitol Rotunda
The days of the Commerce Secretary being some guy that no one can name are over. Yesterday Obama announced Bill Richardson as his nominee for Secretary of Commerce. There are reports some Latino groups are miffed that after voting for Obama in droves, the President-Elect did not name Richardson to the pearl post: Secretary of State.
And of course, the media are chomping on the alleged rift and perpetuating the erroneous claim that Commerce is somehow a low-profile, low-prestige post.
Well, that’s crap, and everyone needs to take a lude. First, the Department of Commerce does quite a bit, and second, we should all sigh in relief that Richardson — a skilled politician and statesman — will be at the department’s helm.
Commerce oversees — in part — trade, business development, and statistical activity for the federal government. This means Richardson will have the International Trade, the Economic Development, and Economic and Statistics administrations in his charge. All three of these organizations are going to be critical to ensuring everything from national security to economic recovery. Trade issues are always in play when foreign aid and alliances are the focus. As we heard ad infinitum during the presidential campaign, communities are in trouble and business development is key to economic recovery and growth. The decennial census is coming up in 2010. The 2000 census had many innovations, namely the expansion of racial measures, and the increasing complexity of American demographics requires inspired measurement refinements. We need a presidential administration and a secretary that care about meaningful statistics.
With the economy in the tank and our international relations in shambles, Richardson is going to have to work exhaustively with the State Department, Treasury, and Obama’s Economic Recovery and Advisory teams, of course, in addition to performing his regular duties. (Commerce oversees the Patent and Trademark Office, which is a major player in medical research, especially with respect to gene patents. Patenting the human genome is going to have to be addressed if we are going to effectively deal with exorbitant drug and health-care costs.)
I’m glad Richardson will be in this post. I admit, I wanted him at State; Hillary never blipped on my radar for the post, but I warmed to Richardson as Commerce Secretary much more quickly than I did Hillary at State. Richardson is a workhorse, exceedingly capable and intelligent. He can make Commerce a critical force operationalizing Obama’s platform.
If you never cared about Commerce before, today is not too late to start.
(Oh, and I totally agree with Obama: Richardson should’ve kept the beard. I hope he grows it back.)
UPDATE: The NYT editorial today outlines the crisis the 2010 census is in due to neglect (shocking!) by the Bush Administration. January 20 can’t come soon enough.
(Oh, and I totally agree with Obama: Richardson should’ve kept the beard. I hope he grows it back.)
I dunno, without the beard he’s got a kind of cool Graham Greene thing going on.
Posted by James F | December 4, 2008, 3:30 pmyou are correct. he definitely looks like greene.
the beard, though, had a hip element to it (for a politician that is … the threshold for hip is necessarily much lower for them.)
Posted by didionsmommy | December 5, 2008, 8:04 amBeards are good. More men of wealth, power, and prestige should grow them; that will make them more fashionable, and fewer of us will get told to shave by bosses, girlfriends, etc. Richardson should grow his beard back, and Obama should grow one too.
As to the substance of Bill Richardson, I’d propably have voted for him in the primary (Kucinich was actually preferable on two of my key domestic issues, he’s a pacifist which makes him anathema on the other two) if he hadn’t dropped out. And really, that whole “dropping out of the primary” thing… I’d love to see the parties institute rules that once you’ve begun seeking the nomination, you aren’t allowed to quit – or maybe just state laws that once placed on a ballot, a person can only be removed through death or other such permanent disqualification.
Anyway, as you say, Commerce is a big deal… it just stays out of the limelight.
Posted by Steve | December 5, 2008, 5:26 pm