I saw late Friday night that the A.P.’s Nedra Pickler was reporting that Bill would announce today.  Of course, La Pickler as the source didn’t inspire the sort of confidence I normally might have felt.

So I was gratified to awaken this morning to the following headline in the "Braeking News" section of the Santa Fe New Mexican:

7:21 am: Il:t’s officia Richardson’s in the race

[Yes, typos in original.  I guess the Webmaster was so excited s/he forgot about spell-check.] 

Over the last two weeks, I’ve had a fairly substantial number of people ask me whether he’s running - and if so, when he’s going to announce.  I’ve told them the same thing I tell everyone else:  No, I’m not part of his inner circle; I’m not even at its fringes.  No, I have no "inside info," just the evidence of my own eyes and ears and my own take on his personality.  And with all those disclaimers, yes, I’m sure he’s running, and I think he’ll announce within [X] period.

Damn, I’m good!

Actually, a lot of state pols, flacks, and ops - including many who are far more in the loop than I - have believed this for a long time.   But I have to say that I truly believe one of the reasons that he made the decision to go for it is because of the massive grass-roots "Draft Bill" movement that has sprung up around the country.  Washington4Richardson is the first that came to my attention, and courtesy of Ken and Emmett, I learned of a whole country’s worth of "Draft Bill" sites.  They’re all blogrolled at right; if you are (or think you might become) a Richardson backer, go show ‘em some love and thank ‘em for everything they’re doing.  (And if you run a site that I’ve missed, leave me a note in the comments; I’ll get you blogrolled.)  Special thanks, though, are due to Ken and Emmett, who have done an incredible job of popularizing this effort beyond their home state.  Looks like the focus of our February Meetup’s changed a bit, huh, guys?