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Felipe Calderón and the right stuff
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Race
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| Contributor | User 13 |
| Last Edited | User 13 Jan 29, 2006 03:09pm |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Sunday, September 18, 2005 09:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Felipe Calderón's convincing victory over Santiago Creel in the first leg of the National Action Party's (PAN) three internal primaries ranks as the most unsurprising surprise of the presidential pre-campaign.
True, most of us had gotten used to Creel as the PAN front-runner. Helped first by his position as President Vicente Fox's highly visible interior (Gobernacion) secretary and then by a ubiquitous media advertising campaign, the former pro-democracy activist steadily led other PAN pre-candidates in voter preference polls.
His star, however, clearly fell over the summer. Some blame his declining popularity on the image-damage inflicted by his retirement eve fire sale of gaming licenses, with many going to potentially helpful media corporations. Others think his campaign's failure to take off, despite its advantages, didn't sit well with the PAN faithful. The guy just wasn't turning on the voters.
But the main reason for Calderón's upset of Creel was the nature of the voting. Unlike the United States, where anybody can vote in a primary simply by choosing a party while registering, Mexican voters have to go out of their way to affiliate themselves with a party. Only the few who choose to do so either as second-tier adherents or more active militants can vote in the PAN primaries. The nomination is a members-only affair. |
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