In case you missed the NYTimes piece on the Richardson endorsement. They managed to get Mr Carville on the record expressing the Clinton campaign's true feeling about what former Clinton administration offical owe the Hillary for President campaign.
Mr. Clinton helped elevate Mr. Richardson to the national stage by naming him his energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations. And Mr. Clinton left no doubt that he viewed Mr. Richardson’s support as important to his wife’s campaign: He even flew to New Mexico to watch the Super Bowl with Mr. Richardson as part of the Clintons’ high-profile courtship of him.
But Mr. Richardson stopped returning Mr. Clinton’s calls days ago, Mr. Clinton’s aides said. And as of Friday, Mr. Richardson said, he had yet to pick up the phone to tell Mr. Clinton of his decision.
The reaction of some of Mr. Clinton’s allies suggests that might have been a wise decision. "An act of betrayal," said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.
"Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic," Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.
Mr. Richardson said he called Mrs. Clinton late on Thursday to inform her that he would be appearing with Mr. Obama on Friday to lend his support.
"It was cordial, but a little heated," Mr. Richardson said in an interview.
Now I think everyone is sick of the gotcha game with surrogate statements, and this is James Carville we're talking about, but those comments really are beyond the pale. They bespeak a sense of entitlement that is plainly undemocratic and a loyalty above all attitude that can only be described as Bushian. If this is what James Carville is saying to the paper of record I can only imagine the private appeals that are being made to all the superdelegates that the Clintons think owe them something.
Carville's comments have also made me reassess Richardson. At first I thought his prevaricating over whether or not to endorse right after his Super Tuesday comments lacked courage, but now I can see it would take a tremendous amount of political hutzpah to stand up to your benefactors within the party especially when they've demonstrated a willingness to threaten and connive their party connections.
My intuition is the Clintons are using similar tactics to prevent a lot of Superdelegates from publicly announcing for Obama, but the thing about threats is they only work if your in a position to carry them out. Once the delegate gap narrows to the point where a 50-100 supers can push Obama over the edge they'll move en masse.