Gov. Bill Richardson’s name is showing up on a lot of lists these days as a potential Cabinet member should Sen. Barack Obama win the White House. One of the most popular prophecies is that Big Bill will be the next secretary of state, but he’s also popped up as a possible secretary of interior and even a climate czar.

Not bad prospects for a guy who has said more than once that as governor of New Mexico, “I have the best job in the world.”
During his ill-fated run for the presidency, Richardson said he wasn’t interested in the VP slot. But since dropping out of the race in January most New Mexicans have figured he wasn’t long for the state. Richardson seems to have a picked a winner when he started backing Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Late last week Politico.com posted a list of Obama staff and Cabinet contenders, and put Richardson at the top of the short list for secretary of state. Behind Big Bill were Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

The Associated Press today has a story that says Obama is expected to fill his top slots from three pools of candidates, including “Democratic governors midway through their second and final terms in office” and “former top appointees of Bill Clinton’s administration.”

Does that list bring anyone to mind? Richardson is cited as a potential secretary of state. Other governors include Arizona’s Janet Napolitano as a possible attorney general, Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas to head up education, commerce, energy or health and human services, and Pennsylvania’s Ed Rendell at energy or transportation.

High Country News, a small but influential western environmental journal, says Richardson has been talked up in some circles as potential secretary of interior, while the environmental Web site Grist.com has Richardson at the top of its list for climate change czar — along with Nobel Prize winner Al Gore and Terry Tamminen, one of California Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger’s key aides.

It’s starting to seem not a matter of if Richardson will leave behind “the best job in the world” for another, but when.