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According to the latest poll, at least six other candidates and about 40 percentage points separate Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson.

But to hear it told Sunday in Albuquerque, the 2008 presidential race comes down to just those two names.

"I personally think Hillary will win, but our boy will be right there," Michaelangelo Soho said, walking through Downtown a few hours after Richardson announced his plan to run and a day after Clinton did the same.

"He's going to be hanging on her skirt tails the whole way," Soho said. "Hanging on, swinging this way and that. That's the way I see it, if I were to draw a cartoon."

Over lunch at a McDonald's in the Barelas neighborhood, Herbert Rosenthall, a retiree, said he too saw the race for the Democratic nomination coming down to a two-way affair.

Other candidates would have their moments, but Rosenthall said Richardson has the stuff to hang in.

"I think he's the only one that can really stand up to Hillary in terms of substance and experience," Rosenthall said. "I think he's very viable."

Rosenthall woke up early Sunday to catch Richardson's appearance on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," in which it was mentioned that the governor has consistently garnered only about 1 percent support in presidential polls, including one released last week.

"He was honest about the fact that he's an underdog," Rosenthall said. "But I think he likes being an underdog."

Others, however, weren't so confident he could catch up.

Krystal Loya, eating at a nearby table, said she doubted the country would elect an Hispanic president.

"I think people would sooner vote for an Anglo woman than a Hispanic man," she said.

Still, she believed Richardson would do a fine job. And win or lose, she said, his candidacy would only help New Mexico.

"It will bring a spotlight here and hopefully people will see that this is a good state that's getting better," she said. "That could help bring in jobs and new companies."

Most people said they weren't terribly concerned that Richardson's presidential focus would distract him from the job New Mexicans just re-elected him to do.

"After the Legislature ends, his workload isn't really that heavy," Ed Caplan said outside a performance of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. "After four years, I think he has the staff in place to make sure things run smoothly."

Max Archuleta, eating lunch at El Bandido Restaurant on Central Avenue, seconded most of that. But he said he felt Richardson had waited too long to declare his intentions and missed a chance to get more mileage out of the announcement.

"I think the timing was really off," he said. "People are talking about Hillary, and Richardson is kind of getting left off to the side."

The former first lady wasn't the only thing distracting attention from Richardson's announcement Sunday.

"The Bears are about to score again," Eleanor Archuleta noticed, watching the NFC Championship game on El Bandido's big screen.

If the view of the race as match-up between Bill and Hillary might seem, at the moment, rather on the side of wishful thinking, Soho said that's exactly what a presidential campaign is all about.

"The fact that he's even running demonstrates the importance of believing in things that seem almost impossible," Soho said, stopping with some other homeless men to eat a meal of fried chicken donated by a church group.

"That's an important thing. If you lose that ability, you start to give up."