Bill Richardson, the nominee for Secretary of Commerce, has a long resume full of international diplomatic service and both legislative and executive experience here at home, including, of course, Governor of New Mexico.  He is, certainly, an honorable public servant with an impressive career. Why, then, does he talk like a man who doesn’t expect to be listened to? 

Perhaps he developed the habit when he was running for president, and losing out to Senators Clinton and Obama.  That alone is enough, maybe, to give one an inferiority complex. 

Richardson played baseball as a young man, and there’s an old kerfuffle about whether or not he was drafted for the majors (he wasn’t; he thought he was, he says).  Maybe that set him back a bit in the alpha male stakes.

And he was indirectly involved in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.  As Bill Clinton’s U.N. Ambassador, he offered her a job on his staff, which she declined.  There was some suggestion of palming her off, and maybe that’s where the aggrieved air developed.

Whatever the source, Bill Richardson as a speaker combines great ease and comfort at the podium, and a strong natural ability to connect with the audience, with a mild inferiority complex. 

It shows up in his gestures.  He tends to make them quickly, and they disappear just as quickly.  That gives his words an apologetic accompaniment, as if he were throwing the words away along with the gestures.  And what gestures he uses tend to be the staple of Bland Politician Speak – the “remote control” gesture (hand pointing forward with the thumb instead of the pointing finger) and the “It’s as big as a breadbox” gesture (hands on either side of the stomach, raised briefly in the air).  Neither of these are strong, confident gestures. 

Indeed, overall, there’s a kind of blandness about Richardson’s gesture vocabulary which undercuts his message.  My hunch is that he’s been pleasing too many people too long.  He needs to connect with something and feel passionate about it again.  Maybe in his new rule of Secretary of Commerce, he’ll find passion in saving the country’s business infrastructure.  We certainly could use the help.