AP: Richardson spends day in the life of Las Vegas caseworker
By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY
June 7, 2007
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson glimpsed life as a single dad and social worker Thursday as part of an influential union's plan to bring this year's crop of presidential candidates down to earth.
Richardson was the second Democrat to take part in the Service Employees International Union "Walk a Day in My Shoes" campaign. The union, which in Nevada represents health workers and public employees, has made shadowing a member at home and on the job a prerequisite for its coveted presidential endorsement. The union hopes the experience will give candidates insight into issues important to its members.
The shoes on Thursday belonged to SEIU member and child services caseworker Mark Fitzgerald, a supervisor at a children's shelter, father of a teenager and foster father of a toddler.
Fitzgerald said the work left him little time to think about politics.
He's a registered nonpartisan who doesn't plan on participating in Nevada's second-in-the-nation presidential caucus, he said. He researched Richardson on the Web before letting him into his home.
"The baby didn't throw any food at him so that was good," Fitzgerald joked about his 8 a.m. kitchen table breakfast that started his day with the underdog candidate.
Once hurdling the baby gate, Richardson, who does not have children, cooed at Fitzgerald's 18-month-old foster son and asked Fitzgerald about the worries in his busy life.
Fitzgerald, 46, said he worries as much about his clients' lack of a resources as his own concerns. He makes about $90,000 a year, he said. He and his 17-year-old son, Dewey Fitzgerald, have good health care, a pool and like to travel.
Richardson asked Dewey about his political beliefs.
"Mostly when my friends talk about politics we talk about the war. And personally I'm in favor of staying, so I don't know what your view on that is," the teenager told the candidate.
Richardson, who has said he would start ending the war on his first day in office, moved briskly to other topics. "What other issues would you like to see a president focus on?"
The both agreed on art education in schools.
From there, the governor, Fitzgerald and a trail of four vehicles carrying union and campaign staff, and media headed off to work.
The governor accompanied Fitzgerald on a home visit to a dusty, hardscrabble neighborhood in east Las Vegas.
A father of five children had been reported to county authorities for hitting his 3-year-old son. The father, a Mexican immigrant and nightshift worker at a dry cleaners, had been removed from the home.
He now would only be allowed back with supervision, Fitzgerald told the man through a translator as the presidential candidate sat wide-eyed and silent on the couch in the couple's sparsely furnished living room.
"We all make mistakes," the man said.
Richardson, who is Hispanic, asked the couple in Spanish how they get by.
Did they have health insurance? No. Do you want to join a union? Yes. Did they have day care? A 15-year-old neighbor.
Later, after a tour of a county-run children's shelter, Richardson thanked the union for helping to make sure the presidential candidates know how "real people live." The experience reaffirmed Richardson's belief in a strong social safety net. He said he would now push to lower the income threshold for people to receive government assistance.
During his tenure as governor, Richardson has expanded health care coverage for children, child-care subsidies for parents and early education programs. Still, New Mexico is near the bottom in surveys of child welfare and education. A 2007 Education Weekly report ranked the state last in the nation on an index measuring how states give young people opportunities to succeed.
A 2006 survey of living conditions for children ranked it 48 of the 50 states.
National public opinion polls show Richardson trailing the top tier of Democrats, former vice presidential nominee John Edwards, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
Edwards was the first to spend a day in the life of a union worker when he helped a nursing home assistant on her morning rounds in a facility outside New York City. Clinton, Obama, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden also have accepted the union's invitation. No GOP candidates have confirmed their participation, the union said.
SEIU counts 1.8 million members in North America, and claims to be the fastest-growing labor union the in U.S.