Richardson says the speech Obama gave in response to the Rev. Wright smear campaign showed his real leadership abilities and sealed the deal for his endorsement. Richardson called for the negative tone and dirty politics to come to an end and for the party to come together to put forward a positive message. He says he still has enormous respect for both Bill and Hillary Clinton, but in the end, it was the negativity that started to take place after the Texas primary that moved him to move toward Obama.
>From an Interview with Keith Olbermann--- RICHARDSON: "Well I waited because I was just legitimately very torn. You mentioned my ties to the Clintons, my loyalties to President Clinton, my support and respect for Senator Clinton. But, I just realized that if I was going to make a difference, at a time we need party unity, at a time when the campaign was really getting nasty and personal, at a time when Senator Obama responded, I believe, in such a courageous way to a problem in his campaign those remarks by his own pastor I felt that I needed to step in and say that I am backing Senator Obama because I think this man has got something very good about him, something very special." Transcript: http://tinyurl.com/322smm
