More Reaction to the Elections. Also, the Incredible Lightness of Calderón's Popularity

Here's the editorial from El Universal:

Felipe Calderón began his term with a cornered presidency. First the PRD and later the PRI opposed him from Congress. After yesterday's elections, this divergence will be even greater. Only now it will be the PRI, allied with the Green Party, that aside from limiting the decisions of the federal government will set the national agenda.

The citizenry spoke loudly in the ballot boxes, marking a distance of around eight points between the deputy votes of the PRI and the PAN. Is this a rejection of the PAN for the economic crisis? The consequences of the military combat of organized crime? The campaign that centered on drug trafficking? The reasons could be many. What is certain is that it was a negative vote against the party of the federal government.

The PRI returns, but it doesn't seem to be for its own virtues, for any change in its nature, but rather because of the errors and rejection of the PAN and the PRD. Whatever the case, having remained relatively patient and tolerant before the attacks of the national PAN leadership assisted it.

For its part, the PRD support plummeted, not because of a campaign labeling it a danger for Mexico was orchestrated against it, nor because it was persecuted by any government. The party responsible for its fate was the worst of its enemies: perredismo itself. The leftists will have to think about regarding their pettiness and divisions having been punished by the voters yesterday.

Three years of difficult relations between the legislative and executive branch loom. Meanwhile, Mexicans arise with good and bad news: at last, the mid-term electoral process is over; unfortunately, starting today, July 6, the presidential election of 2012 begins.

A couple of things: most of the analysts I've seen have been careful to paint the loss for the PAN as a rebuke to the party more than a rebuke to Calderón. Leo Zuckermann said on Televisa last night that while Calderón maybe didn't do a great deal to bring votes to the PAN, his popularity helped prop up the floor for the PAN. He also wondered how bad the results would have been if an unpopular leader had been in power during a seven or eight-point economic contraction and a crime wave without recent precedent. He mentioned talking to French journalist who said in such a situation in his nation, the governing party wouldn't have gotten out of single digits.

I don't really know what to make of Calderón's popularity. It seems to be built on the belief that he is honest where many of his colleagues are corrupt, but, Zuckermann's hypothetical notwithstanding, it has no salutary effect on his party whatsoever. There was a similar dynamic during the Fox years in that the president was personally popular even while his party wasn't. Will this be a semi-permanent tendency of Mexican politics? If so, what does that tell us about the Mexican electorate? Hmmmmmm.