A nattily-attired Elliot L. Richardson '41, sitting with legs crossed, pauses over his salad at Boston's Cafe Tremont, looking like anything but a man about to embark on a grueling, and possibly bitter, fight to become a senator from Massachusetts.
"I'm not one of those candidates who sits at the head table and lets all the food go by." Richardson says, introducing his theory of campaign dieting.
Richardson, the best known and most highly respected of the state's few Republicans, may be the most blase candidate ever to seek such high office.
At age 63, Richardson approaches the race from a completely opposite perspective than do his three main Democratic rivals, all reformers in their thirties who are just beginning to gain attention outside the state.
Richardson held a variety of top and middle-level administrative posts in Washington throughout the 70s, and, according to various accounts, even played with the idea of running for President in 1980.
"He could take it or leave it," says one long-time friend. "The Senate seat is almost like a consolation prize."
A Boston Brahmin's Boston Brahmin, Richardson assures voters that he will have instant seniority upon reaching the Senate floor, merely by dint of the many connections he has made serving a number of Presidents--most recently Jimmy Carter--over the past three decades.
Richardson also makes no secret of the fact that officials in the highest circles of the Reagan Administration pushed him to run for the nomination against eccentric businessman Raymond Shamie, after the popular Sen. Paul E. Tsongas (D-Mass.) announced his retirement from politics in January.
Richardson is confident the party establishment is behind him, even though he wavers considerably from the Administration line on a number of foreign policy matters.
"They view with some seriousness the objective of maintaining Senate control," Richardson says. "They think I'm the only Republican candidate who has a strong chance of winning."
But though the Harvard alumnus insists he supports "the main thrust" of Reagan's foreign policy agenda, his campaign takes on a moderate and sometimes liberal tone.
Richardson, for instance, criticizes a nuclear freeze--because it doesn't go far enough.
He calls for the declaration of a new Monroe Doctrine that would bar both superpowers from intervening militarily in Central America, placing a greater emphasis on the United Nations to mediate Thil I World conflicts.
He calls his role in the inconclusive Law of the Sea Treaty one of his greatest achievements, even though Reagan successfully undermined the proceedings.
Though Richardson concedes that he must work hard to appeal to state Democrats--Massachusetts is, of course, one of the strongholds of old-line liberalism--he soft-pedals discord between himself and the Reagan Administration, whose hard-line policies, he claims, are more bark than bite.
His Monroe Doctrine idea, for example, neatly sidesteps the divisive issue of military interventionism, making U.S. military involvement essentially contingent on Soviet good will.
His emphasis on "crisis prevention" leads him to argue that the Contadora group should play a greater role in Central America, that the U.N. Secretary-General should have mediated the Falklands crisis and that the Organization of African Unity should counter the Soviets in Angola.
Richardson has maintained his middle-of-the-road views throughout his professional career, friends say, allowing him to weather the ideological swells in the White House.
His image seems perfectly suited to this particular Senate race where he may be able to hold the middle ground against the more conservative Shamie and Kennedy-type liberals Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Malden). Rep. James M. Shannon (D-Lawrence), and Lt. Gov. John F. Kerry.
"If anyone were looking at the question of what the positions of a Republican candidate would have to be to have a chance of winning, they would have to come up with a candidate pretty much like me, "Richardson says flatly.
But hardline Republicans--backed by a handful of small newspapers that ring the capital--accuse Richardson of opportunism (for waiting until Tsongas dropped out before announcing his own candidacy) and of selling the party up the river (for taking a moderate stance).
Critics also charge that Richardson, who has lived and worked in Washington D.C. for 15 years, would not adequately serve local interests. A recent editorial in the Worcester Telegram dryly suggested, "If Richardson can tear himself away from the Georgetown circuit for Massachusetts, let him pour his energies into rebuilding the Republican party here. Let him throw his support behind an announced Republican [Shamie] who has a realistic change now of election to the Senate."
Shamie himself has launched an attack on Richardson's recent statements on Central America. Richardson said two weeks ago that he might well have joined the rebellion against" the Salvadoran government before the rebels received Cuban and Soviet Backing.
Shamie charged that Richardson's contention that the U.S. caused the rebels to ally with the Communist bloc is "naive."
Richardson dismisses the latest slew of Shamie challenges as a "gimmick," and says he has no intention of altering his campaign to account for the flame-throwing Republican.
Yet, the almost patriarchal Richardson--who was a candidate for Harvard President in 1952--is still dogged by the charge that he would not take the job of senator seriously.
After all, Richardson had already reached the apogee of political influence when, as Attorney General during the Watergate scandal, he stood up to President Nixon and resigned rather than fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.
Personal Impact
Richardson, after expounding on the merits of reasonable argument, says simply, "It's fair to say that I would be likely to have a larger impact as a senator that I have as a private citizen."
Richardson's biggest asset--his status as the quintessential insider--might be his biggest liability as well. Friends say Richardson never took pride in his role in the "Saturday Night Massacre," and he disappointed many who wanted to make a hero of him by refusing to condemn Nixon.
The Boston Observer, in a recent piece on Richardson, contends that he was a Nixon apologist until the bitter end. The article quotes Nixon Administration staffer Charles Colson as saying of Richardson, "When we needed somebody to say George McGovern was a scatterbrain, Elliot went right our and swatted him."
Yet, friends--and aides say that Richardson's "Saturday Night Massacre" legacy is the one most firmly implanted in voters' minds, and the one that gives him credibility with Bay State independents and moderates.
But Richardson himself notes that the Cox incident may hurt him in the nomination fight, especially with ultra-conservative party regulars.
The candidate's relaxed confidence may have good cause. In recent polls he runs well ahead of Shamie and his Democratic rivals, and he has been a well, known figure state-wide since some of his opponents were finishing college.
Even if he does nothing but chat over salad. Richardson will be the force to contend with in this crucial Senate election.
Richardson promises he will play politics with all comers, adding, "I've always been a good counter-puncher."
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