Hispanic Heritage Impacted Richardson’s View of Gonzales

ABC News’ Teddy Davis Reports: Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, the White House hopeful who would be the nation’s first Hispanic president, acknowledged once again during Thursday’s South Carolina debate that the ethnic heritage he shares with Alberto Gonzales led him to take longer than any of his 2008 rivals to make up his mind about whether the Attorney General should resign.

"Did it affect that he was Hispanic in what I said? Yeah, it did, and I said so," said Richardson. "I think the American people want candor. They don’t want blow-dried candidates with perfection. That was the reason I held back. I did call for his resignation. Maybe I was last, but I wanted to give him a chance to explain his position. He didn’t do it, and I called for his resignation."

In addition to acknowledging the influence of their shared ethnic heritage, Richardson told NBC’s Brian Williams, the moderator of Thursday’s debate, that he initially reserved judgment because he wanted to wait for Gonzales’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

In a post-debate interview with MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson, Richardson, who is the son of an American father and Mexican mother, was asked whether Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., could have gotten away with saying something similar about African-Americans.

Richardson never directly answered.

"I’m just being honest," said Richardson. "I don’t have a bunch of consultants. I speak from the heart."