Mexico City Happy with Marcelo

Marcelo Ebrard maintains an approval rating of 61 percent according to El Universal, within a few points of his highest all-time rating. With his lack of support within the PRD relative to AMLO, I don't think that means much with regard to 2012, but he has done an admirable job in Mexico City, and were performance the most important factor, he'd be well on his way to the nomination.

Oddly enough, Mexico City denizens overwhelmingly point to insecurity as the top problem in the city: 60 percent named that as the number one blight upon society, with just 7 percent saying unemployment, which came in second place. While not to trivialize the security problems that do exist there, Mexico City, despite its reputation of being survivable only for the toughest of the tough, is not a particularly unsafe city, especially by Mexican standards. The DF has not, for instance, had a murder rate above 10 per 100,000 residents in the past decade. Juárez's, in contrast, has not dipped beneath 100 since 2007. While Mexico City's robbery numbers are high, the figures for rape and kidnapping are likewise not particularly eye-popping. Yet the perception of oh-so-dangerous Mexico City, perpetuated in part by an endless series of movies that portray DF as Spanish for "gritty", persists.