You Have to Hand It to Record-Setting Politician

New Mexico’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Bill Richardson, put his right hand on ice after eclipsing a political handshake record set in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Richardson’s new mark of 13,392 for an eight-hour period, with a Guinness World Records official standing by, went well beyond the Roosevelt record of 8,513 handshakes set at the White House. Richardson divided his handshaking between the New Mexico State Fair and a tailgate party outside the University of New Mexico.

As it happens, Richardson broke the record only for politician handshakes. The overall record for glad-handing, Guinness representative Stuart Cloxton said, is held by Yogesh Sharma of India, who set a record of 31,118 handshakes in January 1996 at a trade fair.