Monday, March 19, 2012

Odd Choice. And Yet, Oddly Fitting.

Evidently, Enrique Peña Nieto's favorite president is Adolfo López Mateos. The latter had the fortune of leading Mexico during global boom years, so economic performance was quite good during his time in power, and he's also from Mexico State, the only president (until December, at least) able to make that claim, according to Excélsior. (Although I can't help but wonder: was there not a single of the dozens of forgotten presidents in the years after independence who were from Mexico State?) Nonetheless, his administration strikes me as one of the most vanilla of the twentieth century. Given some of the disasters to set up shop in Los Pinos, that is admirable enough, but still, it seems roughly akin to an American president claiming Ford or Coolidge as his model.

Then again, a vanilla effort from here on in is good enough to get Peña Nieto into the presidency.

2 comments:

Mexfiles said...

Odd indeed. Lopez Mateos did have a playboy image, but is remembered as an intellectual from a family of intellectuals. And being as "left as possible under the Constitution" in his own words.

pc said...

The intellectual part definitely doesn't quite fit with EPN.