I had lunch with a longtime supporter of Governor Bill's the other day, who upon reviewing the Guv's press of the past few weeks, deadpanned: "Joe, the honeymoon is over." Indeed it is. The latest piece from the AP's respected Santa Fe Bureau Chief Barry Massey takes the Guv to task for not disclosing who paid for a recent trip Bill took to Reno, Nevada. Here's the Massey lead:

"Gov. Bill Richardson is refusing to disclose who paid for his trip to Nevada this week to attend a conference on oil and natural gas. Billy Sparks, the governor's communications director, said Tuesday that the state didn't pay for Richardson's transportation Monday to Reno, Nev., to deliver a luncheon speech to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission.But Sparks said that's all he could confirm and would not disclose who footed the bill for the trip." Read the entire story:

http://www.sfnewmexican.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=7&ArticleID=34457

The Guv is not going to be able to play hide and seek with an increasingly skeptical and probing press corp. Any trip he takes is going to be under scrutiny. There were few secrets in Santa Fe years ago. There are even fewer in this wide-open media age. Earlier the AP's Massey penned a report on Bill's costly use of state helicopters and planes to get around the state. That was on top of the Washington Post report detailing his 115 mph trips in his SUV. My lunchmate wondered if Big Bill and his staff are aware of the image damage that is being done. "This is stuff people remember" he opined." And, he warned: "New Mexico politcs can get very tough very fast." He's got that right.

The guv hired a bunch of newspaper and TV people for administration jobs when he took over and some joked that he was trying to "buy off" the press. But now some wonder if the Big Guy's guys actually believed that. As Bill's buddy put it to me: "They seem stunned now that the bees are beginning to sting."

A notable postscript: When you tangle with the Associated Press, you are toying with your national image. The tough Massey pieces are running in newspapers across America.