Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Late to the Party

Congrats to Josefina Vázquez Mota for winning the PAN primary and to Mexico for having a female candidate from a major party. They beat the gringos to it!

Cordero's nearly 40 percent was a far better showing than I would have guessed a month ago, so it wasn't the perfunctory washout that I had expected, but the PAN's failure to determine a candidate until now still seems like quite a lost opportunity. Peña Nieto has gift-wrapped a number of opportunities to paint him as, by turns, out of touch, unintelligent, immoral, and condescending. Throughout that time, Vázquez Mota's primary concern has been Cordero. If Peña Nieto has shaken the cobwebs off and runs a relatively gaffe-free campaign from here on --clearly, a significant "if"-- then the PAN's best moment to make up ground will have been wasted.

Here's some commentary from Cecilia Soto (who also ran for president for a smaller party in 1994), Ricardo Raphael, and Leo Zuckermann.

No comments: