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Party at the bullring

By Jeremy Schwartz | Tuesday, September 12, 2006, 12:31 PM

President-elect Felipe Calderon celebrated with his party people on Sunday at a packed Plaza Mexico, Mexico City’s main bullfighting ring (47,000 capacity). It was the first major public gathering of Calderon’s National Action Party since the July 2 election, and his followers celebrated with, well, not quite abandon, but with a certain happiness cut with a heavy dose of relief.

But on a day dedicated to celebrating his come-from-behind electoral victory, Calderon sounded suspiciously like his archrival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Calderon has expropriated Lopez Obrador’s major campaign theme — combating poverty — and made it his own in the name of national reconciliation.

“I am personally engaged with the issue of poverty and the millions of families who still live in poverty,� he told his mostly un-poor audience.

Calderon’s embrace of the issue highlights Lopez Obrador’s largely unspoken victory in the past week. Even as his more moderate supporters have defected his protest movement and he receives daily ridicule for his plan to form a parallel government, Lopez Obrador, the anti-Al Gore, has succeeded in forcing his opponents to recognize his anti-poverty agenda.

Whether Calderon will do more than give lip service to poverty still isn’t clear. But Lopez Obrador has shown that by not going away quietly, he’s been able to influence events in ways the Democrats of post-Florida 2000 could only dream of.

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Comments

By dave

September 12, 2006 9:49 PM | Link to this

Quite right! Fight the good fight! Never say die, nor even sine die.