Bill Richardson 2008 presidential campaign Bill Richardson 2008 presidential campaign The 2008 presidential campaign of Bill Richardson, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson announced his candidacy on January 21, 2007, for President of the United States on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, by virtue of forming a presidential exploratory committee. Richardson, who is of Hispanic descent, joined a diverse field for the Democratic nomination, which already included an African American in Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and a female in Senator Hillary Clinton of New York and became the first individual of Hispanic descent to mount a nationwide campaign for president. He withdrew from the
2008 Zambian presidential election in the elections. He was unanimously chosen as the party's candidate at a meeting of its Central Committee on 30 August 2008. Accepting the nomination, he expressed the need "to scrub this country and wash it"; he also said that he would refrain from campaigning until after Mwanawasa's funeral. Although he suffered a heart attack in April 2008, Sata said that he was healthy and in good condition. He said on 8 September that he would protect Chinese investments if he was elected, abandoning the hostility towards Chinese investment that he had expressed during the 2006 presidential election campaign. On