SANTA FE, N.M.  Lots of people are calling Gov. Bill Richardson these days, “just to check in.”

Barack Obama calls every three days or so. He called on Friday of last week, but Mr. Richardson was tied up with the Legislature, so he tried again on Monday and left a message on voice mail (“following up from Friday”) before finally connecting with his defeated presidential rival late Tuesday, and then again two days later.

Mr. Richardson took a half-hour call from Bill Clinton on Tuesday and received about 10 others  a typical day  from people calling “on behalf of Hillary”: former cabinet secretaries, mutual friends, elected officials. “Heavyweight types,” Mr. Richardson calls them.

“Barack is very precise,” the governor observed, sitting in his office at the New Mexico Capitol. The Obama campaign rarely pesters him with surrogates. Mr. Obama’s approach is like “a surgical bomb,” he said, while “the Clintons are more like a carpet bomb.”

Mr. Richardson quit the presidential race on Jan. 10 and has since gone from courting voters at the grass roots to being courted himself at the highest levels. He is “genuinely torn” about any endorsement, he said, adding that he might offer one next week or perhaps not at all.