Monday, June 29, 2009

Campaigns End, Endorsements Begin

With the formal campaign period ending yesterday, some analysts are offering their readers endorsements or suggestions. Macario Schettino implored Mexicans to vote for the PAN, for the Beltrones wing of the PRI, or for the New Left in the PRD, so as to construct a ruling coalition that can put the revolutionary regime to bed. After considering and discarding the null-vote option, Ricardo Raphael somewhat surprisingly decided on the PRD. He acknowledged the party's flaws, but said that the PAN and PRI's intimate relationship with business interests disqualified them.

4 comments:

jd said...

If I were Mexican I'd go with Raphael. The AMLO wing has mostly lost the fight within the PRD, and it wouldn't be good for anyone to see the PRD fall too far before the PRI (especially) and PAN show any signs of reform zeal. Even if it means voting the same way as the Jornada stable of columnists *gulp*.

pc said...

Believe it or not, I don't think I've thought about who I'd vote for during the entire election until you wrote that. I really have no idea, and I'm glad not to be in that position. (Now I sort of know where the null voters are coming from.) I would be more inclined to support the PRD once the break with AMLO is final. I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see some sort of rapprochement after the election.

Are the Jornada guys endorsing the PRD more than the PT?

jd said...

I don't have the stomach for the columns too often but I have a morbid fascination with John Ackerman. He gives basically equal love to PRD/PT/Convergencia.

When I do dive in it's more often to read the foreign conspiracy theorizing. Yesterday there was (shock!) a piece about Luis Posada Carriles. It's premise was relatively rational - the Obama admin is just waiting for him to die - but then jumped to the idea that obviously he's not being extradited to Venezuela because of the secrets he'd reveal about the CIA. The notion of confronting the idea that maybe the US is wary of the impartiality of the Venezuelan justice system (let alone its prisons, which make Mexico's look like Augusta National) didn't even occur to the author. The Posada situation does stink, but for chrissakes, deal with the issues already.

pc said...

If conspiracies were a sport that guy would be its Ali. Nothing is ever what it seems. It's even more frustrating because, as you've said, he's pretty good on unpacking legal minutiae.