AMLO's New Program

He released a new 50-point plan for Mexico yesterday, sparking the following reaction from Ciro Gómez Leyva:

Of course Felipe Calderón's war against crime had to be classified as "stupid", but he took care to talk about a gradual withdrawal of the army and the marines. Of course he proposed a change of the political economy, but what he proposed was a "welfare state". Of course he criticized the media, but not with the ire that is his custom. And he promised television for Carlos Slim and mobile phone access for Televisa.

It could be said that he played to his audience as always: shots at Elba Esther Gordillo, "we will clean the government of corruption", "we will lower the price of gas"...But I am fixed on the phrases that demonstrate the difference. It was no longer "first the poor" but rather, "everyone will be taken care of, everyone will be respected, but preference will be given to the poor and the disenfranchised".

López Obrador is serious. He knows that speaking only to his most loyal, he won't get very far.

That's why, I believe, he spoke yesterday like he hasn't in more than seven years.

I suppose there are two big questions regarding the AMLO candidacy: Will, as Gómez suspects, AMLO refrain from accompanying a relatively moderate program with way-too-strident framing of said program? And, assuming he does, will the public that was irritated by and unsupportive of his reaction to the 2006 loss be willing to give him another shake? Even if the answer to the first is yes, which I don't take as a given, I suspect that the answer to the second will be no.