Super Marcelo

Jorge Chabat is on the verge of some extreme effusiveness in discussing the mayor of Mexico City in a column titled, Super Marcelo?:

Until now, Ebrard has avoided a total break with López Obrador, maybe with the hope of the latter agrees to support his candidacy, something that frankly seems very far-fetched. Of course, Ebrard has the option of yielding to AMLO's candidacy, confident that he can win the presidency, which, according to polls and the proportion of the vote won by the PRD in the past elections, and even by all of the left, also seems very far-fetched. As such, everything seems to indicate that the only option that the mayor of Mexico City is is to seek the candidacy of the PRD, which seems more or less viable, and then seek the support of the PAN for a common alliance, which seems much less viable. Certainly, at the end of the day, we will be able to negotiate something who whoever is the candidate of the eventual PAN-PRD alliance for the presidency, with the hope that the alliance candidate wins, and Ebrard remains position for the candidacy in 2018.

Marcelo Ebrard is frankly in an uncomfortable position, in which he has little room to maneuver. Nevertheless, he has demonstrated himself to be an exceptional political animal. If he comes out of this backdrop politically strengthened, even if he doesn't win the presidency, he will have proved his political capacity. Now, if despite all of the obstacles, Ebrard manages to construct a viable presidential candidacy and win the elections, he will without a doubt end up in the category of legends of Mexican politics. We will soon see what kind of wood Ebrard is made of.

This is striking most of all because it takes quite seriously the notion of a presidential alliance in 2012, something I wouldn't have thought possible. It looks a lot easier in print than it possibly would in reality, but the fact that serious people are taking it seriously means it's perhaps not as unlikely as I'd assumed. And I'm not sure Ebrard's political instincts are quite as perfect as Chabat suggests (he remains hopelessly hemmed in by AMLO's ambitions, and he would need a mountain of lucky breaks to get anywhere near the presidency), but the reference to him as a potential political legend is unusual; most Mexican analysts are very shy with compliments.