October 06, 2007

Richardson's Iraq Stances Loses Him SC Co-Chair

Bill Richardson's proposal for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq has won him accolades from the anti-war left and in the blogosphere, but it lost him a key supporter in South Carolina today. State Representative Fletcher Smith of Greenville County, formerly a co-chair for Richardson's South Carolina campaign, announced this morning that he is endorsing Joe Biden instead.

Smith told NBC News/National Journal that he became concerned about his support of Richardson after hearing the Governor advocate for a six-month timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.

"Those of us who have had some idea about military evacuations understand that you cannot redeploy troops, or take troops out, or evacuate them within a six-month period of time," he said. He noted that Richardson's plan could bring about the same morale-damaging image evoked when Americans were airlifted from Saigon in 1975. "We do not need a Vietnam-style evacuation," he said.

While Richardson has called for immediate withdrawal from the region with no residual troops, Biden has acknowledged that his three-way partitioning plan for the state will require a US military presence in the region for many years.

Smith called Biden's plan to divide Iraq into three regions as "the only rational approach" to ending the war, and cited the success of that proposal in the Senate as a major reason for his decision to endorse him for president. "He is the man at the right time, with the right approach, to lead our nation out of this morass."

Smith, who is a member of the state's Legislative Black Caucus, represents Biden's eighth legislative endorsement in the state, and his third from an African-American in the South Carolina statehouse. Smith said that neither Richardson nor Biden have raised money on the representative's behalf. [CARRIE DANN]

Posted at 08:29 PM

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