So I live in New Mexico. Bill Richardson is my governor. I have specific reasons not pertinent to this post, and way too involved to be shared here, to be dissatisfied with his performance as NM's governor. But I think he performed well as Ambassador to the UN, and I am impressed with his performance as a free-lance diplomat in a number of crises since. I think he would be a great choice for Secretary of State (much better than HRC), or even in a reprise role as Secretary of Energy. But Secretary of Commerce? Why? His track record here in NM is decidedly mixed.

Our state has prospered even in recent tough times, not because of any particular strength Bill has shown, but because we have had two very senior Senators (and a few mediocre Representatives) who were great at keeping our federal doggie bowl full.

We have military bases that seem immune to BRAC and national laboratories that have kept decent funding even in the face of sometimes gross mismanagement (like Los Alamos National Labs' problems with custody of classified material). That's not Bill's doing.

We are blessed with a permanent fund and extractive industries that have benefitted from high prices for oil and natural gas. That's not Bill's doing.

Where Bill has been a player, the stories aren't so glowing. Not bad, but zero-sum stuff. We have typical cases, like many other development-hungry states, of big corporations playing for Industrial Revenue Bonds and then skipping when the grass grows greener on the other side. We were supposed to have Tesla, and now it looks like Eclipse is going under. We've held onto Intel, but it's been dicey. One call center after another pops up and then disappears.

Bill has courted Hollywood and entered the state into profit-sharing partnerships with studios. Seems like a big ego-stroke and a chance to brush elbows with some stars. Most of the films aren't what you'd call blockbusters; it looks like the loaned amounts still exceed the revenues to the state (but I'm no accountant, so I don't mind being corrected).

So why Commerce?