Vice President Bill?

RIO RANCHO — Despite the fact that Bill Richardson apparently isn’t even on the radar for a spot on a Barack Obama ticket, Washington, D.C., insiders like his chances, according to a recent poll.

The polling firm StrategyOne commissioned a poll of 400 described "Washington, D.C., policy makers and shapers" and "elites" and the poll shows that Richardson is one of the three leading candidates for the spot of vice president under the Illinois senator.

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden led the pack with 17 percent of the Democratic Beltway insiders, while Richardson had 16 percent. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton finished in third with 10 percent. They were all outstripped, however, by "Don’t Know/Refused," which had 18 percent of the respondents.

Republicans were even more bullish on Richardson, giving him 19 percent of the support. Biden fell back to 14 percent, while Clinton was virtually the same as with the Democrats, with 9 percent of respondents believing she would be on the ticket.

The poll was of 400 D.C. elites, and was evenly split among Democrats and Republican respondents. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percentage points and a 95 percent confidence interval.

Some of the results in the poll were surprising.

A pollster with StrategyOne, Sparky Zivin, said the most surprising thing on the Democratic side was the lack of consensus among respondents. "There really is no conventional wisdom at this point on who Obama plans to pick," Zivin told the New Mexico Independent in a phone interview. "Which was surprising to me given how late in the election cycle we are right now."

Richardson got a boost from those who consider themselves "very liberal," according to Zivin.

"He actually did best among folks here in D.C. who consider themselves to be on the very liberal end of the political ideological spectrum," Zivin said. "So 28 percent of people who identified themselves as very liberal thought Richardson would be Obama’s pick.

Among Republicans, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney ran away with the front-runner status. Among Republicans, 40 percent of respondents believed he would be Arizona Sen. John McCain’s pick for vice president. Democratic respondents agreed, with 42 percent of respondents telling SurveyOne Romney would be the pick.

Zivin says he was surprised by the poor showing of Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who finished fourth behind Romney, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Independent Democrat from Connecticut. Lieberman had a spot on the ticket under Al Gore in 2000 when the Gore/Lieberman ticket lost to the George W Bush/Dick Cheney ticket.

The respondents were picked to ensure the most "elite" and connected individuals were those polled. First, SurveyUSA looked at "Areas that have a high concentration of individuals who max out on political contributions on an annual basis." From there, the group further weeded out individuals by ensuring they worked in politics in D.C. — from current or former employ in the executive branch, to members of the media to those who work for political campaigns.

"To give you an example of the level of seniority we have here, about 21 percent, so about one in five people in our survey have attended a national political convention, the nominating conventions for president," Zivin said.

"That’s a pretty senior group of folks."

The poll was conducted July 12-14, perhaps showing why Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius are not higher on the list; none of those on the reported short list of candidates polled above three percent among either Republican or Democratic insiders.

Either way, we have to wait a little bit longer for Obama to make up his mind. Marc Ambinder, a prominent D.C. political blogger, wrote, "Based on discussions with high-level Obama aides, I do not get the impression that Obama has made up his mind yet. These aides do say that Obama is narrowing his choices."

Other analysis shows Richardson is not on the radar.

On a front-page post of the influential Democratic blog Daily Kos, Trapper John handicapped the chances of different names being floated around as potential spots below Obama on the ticket. Nowhere is Richardson mentioned in the post. In fact, Trapper John goes out on a limb and says the best choice is former Minority Leader Tom Daschle, with Sebelius and former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn as other likely possibilities.

In the 600 comments that the post spawned, some wondered why Richardson was no longer in the discussion and others were openly hostile of the possibility of a Richardson spot on the ticket. One commenter wrote, "Richardson is a poor campaigner and his case of foot-in-mouth disease is much worse than Biden’s."

Another comment referred to Richardson as "a gaffe machine."

Meanwhile, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, a polling analysis blog, attempted to look at the potential vice presidential choices using a numerical analysis.

I took the average of all approve/disapprove and favorable/unfavorable polls I could find on these candidates in 2008. Only the most recent survey from any given polling firm was used. Where no polls were available in 2008, I used the most recent one I could find. Then, I compared this approval average to the partisan ID advantage (or disadvantage) of that candidate’s party in 2004 exit polling. Subtracting the approval average from the partisan ID index gives us what I call the candidate’s power rating. Essentially, this is the extent to which the candidate is able to defy gravity and run ahead of the political demographics of their state.

Richardson came in third to last using this simple analysis, finishing below Sebelius, Bayh, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, Biden, Kaine and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd. Richardson, however, did finish ahead of Clinton and Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel.