Outsiders, Stay Outside!

Earlier this week, El Universal ran a front-page feature on the various figures from athletics and entertainment who are lending their faces to the campaigns. Whatever your opinion of the wrestler Atlantis speaking out for the PAN (with or without his mask, I wonder), it would be nice if a prominent someone from business or movies or sports or some other sphere didn't have to limit his or her contribution to a couple of TV spots and a vote. Perhaps this isn't the best way to make the point, because I don't think Mexico is losing a whole lot by not having Diego Luna as a PRD deputy (although people who've seen Criminal would probably argue that movie fans would gain were Luna otherwise occupied), but, with the country navigating its way through a global financial crisis and a recession, wouldn't now be a good time to shelve the career politicians in favor of, say, a banking exec? An economist? An entrepreneur? Unfortunately, as Ricardo Raphael wrote last week, "if you aspire to stand as a candidate for deputy, either you are a good friend of the parties’ principal leaders or you file away your desire to participate to use in a better moment."