Not The News: Typecasting

If voice and content choice mean anything, the following three paragraphs tell much about why the world's contempt is aimed not just at the Bush administration but also at American voters for refusing to take seriously their role in enabling their government to do what it does.

The text is from the introduction to the current U.S. politics issue from Inside Mexico, a free monthly written by, for, and for the most part about Americans living or visiting Mexico:

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"At T minus 14 months, elbows are flying and campaigning is red hot! It's all good for political junkies who can't get enough of John McCain's freefall, Hillary Clinton's cleavage or Mitt Romney explaining that what he said wasn't really what he said.

"Race, religion, gender and family histories are big. Democrats may choose a woman, an African-American or a Mexican-American, the bona-fide chilango Bill Richardson, while Republicans mull a Mormon or multiple divorcees.

"Believe us, it doesn't get any better than this. It's been decades since a U.S. presidential race has been so wide open, unpredictable and fetchingly cast. It's a racy, page-turner of a campaign and Inside Mexico is watching every cliffhanger, climax and anti-climax for you."

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I've read teasers less cheeky in tone for Playboy's anniversary issues. Hey, it's voting season. Let's party!

Seeing it all as gossipy entertainment is, of course, the media norm, including in Mexico. On request, I submitted to Inside Mexico a short essay mentioning that point, among others. The piece was apparently too weak in the cleavage department to make it into their U.S. politics issue, so I reproduce it here:

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What We Talk About When We Talk About U.S. Presidential Candidates
BY KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT

You hear it said, and not always in jest, that the world at large should be eligible to vote in U.S. presidential elections. It’s the world at large, after all, that feels the effects — for better or worse.

Nobody understands those effects better than Mexicans. Their economy is in lockstep with their northern neighbor. About 10 million of them live in that neighbor’s territory — some legally, some not so legally, all at the mercy of the U.S. political winds. And, lest we forget, a history of southward-directed U.S. transgressions is fresh in the Mexican mind.

So Mexico clearly has a stake in who becomes the next U.S. president.

And now here comes the 2008 vote. Given its unprecedented relevance for Mexico, Mexican citizens on both sides of the border will be involved as never before, scrutinizing the candidates’ positions, analyzing policy proposals’ implications for Mexico, and influencing their much-coveted ethnic brethren, the Mexican-American voters.

What's interesting about the paragraph you just read is that almost none of it is true. It seems true. Maybe it should be true. And it will undoubtedly be presented as true by a breathless Mexican media.

But if you talk to pollsters — that is, folks who actually measure how the population thinks rather than cling to set assumptions about it — you get a different picture. The average Mexican citizen, like the average citizen anywhere, has enough to think about without dissecting the details of another nation’s political battles.

That same average citizen can also be forgiven for believing that from Mexico’s point of view, it won't matter much who wins.

“There's a fatalism at work but it’s a sophisticated fatalism,” says Dan Lund, president of the Mund Americas public opinion research firm in Mexico City. “It’s not a bad way to look at the world.”

Roy Campos, president of Consulta Mitofsky and probably Mexico's most prominent polling professional, puts it more concretely. “They don't know or care what a Democrat or a Republican is,” he says. “The United States is the United States, period.”

Which is not to say there’ll be no buzz here around the contest. Televisa and TV Azteca, the network duopoly whose programming is seen in both countries, will make sure there is. A national election campaign — here or there — is big-time television. It’s the World Cup and Miss Universe combined, and it lasts for a year. It’s going to get milked for all it’s worth.

“The stake that Mexico may have in the election will get overhyped and abused by Televisa and TV Azteca, especially by the anchors, with their pompous superficiality,” Lund says.

Thus the U.S. election will be seen here as one big TV show. That means character over content, type over policies. “Hillary or Obama will be very attractive to the Mexican media, but it will have nothing to do with their positions on anything,” Campos says. “One’s a woman, one’s a man of color, and that will be the story.”

Academics, print columnists and the chattering classes on late-night television will inject some substance. But they’re not widely read or heard, except by each other. And many tend to fall into the trap of overplaying the personal.

“When Bush won in 2000 it was viewed here as historically important because of his supposed closeness to Mexico, based on his having a Mexican sister-in-law," Campos says. “Personal things were given more importance than actual policies.”

A more recent example: In the critical weekly Proceso, the usually brilliant writer/director/journalist Sabina Berman characterized the U.S. Congress’s failure to pass the immigration reform bill as “like saying [they] don't give a damn about 12 million illegal immigrants.”

Alas, too many don’t. But the bill’s fate was actually sealed by liberal Democrats who considered it too punitive. In other words, it failed because a significant segment does indeed give a damn.

In Berman's piece, though, as in so many others, the struggles of a divided nation trying to come to grips with an out-of-control situation are ignored in favor of the standby applause line: “They don't like us.”

While we’re on the subject, a U.S. candidate’s immigration stance may not be the deciding factor in his or her popularity in Mexico. Obviously, a candidate who opposes walling the border and supports legalization will be looked on more kindly here, but that won’t be the end-all and be-all.

“Immigration is not a make-or-break issue at the popular level in Mexico,” Lund says, referring to its impact on how the U.S. presidential candidates are judged. “The media will paint it that way, but calling it that is to fall into the most superficial of arguments.”

Insofar as it tilts at all, Mexico has historically tilted toward the Democrats — a case of a country that was once social-democratic leaning toward a party that was once social-democratic. The rise of the market-minded National Action Party, with its ideological ties to the Republicans, changes the picture, and you can expect PAN politicians to back (tacitly, of course) the GOP candidate. But that’s not the same thing as saying that those who voted for Calderón will prefer a Giulani or a McCain. It doesn’t work that way.

If there’s a unifying issue influencing Mexico’s perception of U.S. candidates, it is war and peace. In general, Mexicans, like most of the world, are genuinely horrified at the Bush administration’s military adventurism. They are also loyal to their nation's historic policy of non-intervention. “My reading of Mexican public opinion is that this is a society that is against war,” Lund says.

For the most part, however, Mexicans will approach the U.S. election as a spectator sport — exciting and important, but ultimately somebody else’s ballgame. “Once the candidates are known next year, I’m going to do a survey asking people to name each one’s party," Campos says. "And they’re not going to know.”

Now, if you're an American bewildered by Campos’s prediction, take the following quiz:

1. What's the name of the Canadian prime minister? 2. What's his party affiliation? 3. Who did he defeat in the last election?

How’d you do?

Random Readings Redux: Dismissed

A year and a half after its publication in Spanish, an English version of "Mexican Messiah" is scheduled for release this month. It's by George Grayson, the American "Mexicologist" who studies this country from afar. The original came out in the spring of 2006, by which time the issue in the presidential election was not which of the three major candidates the voters would ultimately prefer, but whether enough supporters of Andrés Manuel López Obrador would be scared away from voting for him. As it turned out, enough (barely) were.

Grayson's role in fomenting the fear was a minor one, if any contribution can be considered minor in an election decided by half a percentage point. The major threats invented by the fearmongers were Hugo Chávez-envy, latent authoriarianism, potential violence and a general, miscellaneous "danger" lurking within the candidate. Grayson, along with Mexican historian Enrique Krauze, created the complementary "Messiah" scare, essentially branding López Obrador with a Christ complex.

Grayson and Krauze's Messiah ploy was no more or less insidious than the other anti-AMLO scare tactics, but it alone had a decidedly ivory tower tone to it. It asked us to accept that supporters of the other candidates were acting with free will, while AMLO's core following was being duped by a charlatan. If the major business organizations supported Calderón, they were acting intelligently in their own best interest. If the poor supported AMLO, they were falling for a Messiah. Oh, those colorful, innocent poor people!

I reviewed the Spanish-language version of "Mexican Messiah" on May 14, 2006:

Mesías Mexicano
By George Grayson
Grijalbo (2006)

REVIEWED BY KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT
The Herald Mexico


It’s been said that Andrés Manuel López Obrador has allowed himself to be defined by his enemies. That’s surely true, and to his detriment. How else could his presidential hopes have come down to whether he’s “another Lula or another Chávez,” as though the question were remotely legitimate?

But it’s not just his rivals who create an AMLO that suits their purpose. Somewhere along the way the PRD candidate has become fair game for whatever defining character note that anybody, enemy or not, chooses to aim in his direction. Thus we can be told on the same day, sometimes by the same person, that he’s a manipulative demagogue and a naïve idealist. That he’s a throwback to the past and a harbinger of Mexico’s future. A bewildered rube and a shrewd pragmatist. A radical reformer and an enemy of reform. An advocate for the poor and a tool of capitalism. A fascist and a communist. A populist and a Keynesian. The nation’s hope and the nation’s peril.

One reason for the free-for-all is that AMLO is so atypical of today’s Mexican politicians. He doesn’t talk like the others, think like the others, campaign like the others, or even live like the others. Since he doesn’t fit any familiar mold, people assign him a mold from the past, or create a new one for him.

George Grayson’s contribution to the “What is López Obrador, Really?” sweepstakes is explicit in the title of his new book. While agreeing with other definers that AMLO’s approach includes populism, nationalism, leftism and corporativism, Grayson contends that the PRD candidate “is in fact a political Messiah.”

What does that mean? It means, according to Grayson, that López Obrador operates with the “conviction that he incarnates a project of redemption.” What project is that? It’s the project of “a savior ready to rescue the humble masses from the lying politicians and the neoliberal schemes that favor the rich.”

If you detect a not-so-subtle irony in those descriptions, you’re onto something. Grayson’s presentation of AMLO’s ideas is an extended exercise in the skillful weaving of accurate paraphrase with a mocking tone. If his intent is to steer the reader — without ever really saying so directly — toward the notion that this candidate may not deserve to be taken entirely seriously, then it’s a successful technique.

Grayson’s critical biography had been eagerly awaited (at least by me) as a potential corrective to the ever-expanding line-up of love-him-or-hate-him AMLO books piling up at Sanborn’s. Grayson, a professor of government at William & Mary College in Virginia, is considered one of the foremost U.S. authorities on Mexican politics and society, and has been for many decades. That puts him in a position to deliver what we’ve needed — a well-researched, fact-filled, fully footnoted, thoroughly indexed biography in English of the most consequential and least understood human being in Mexico today.

Now we have it, except for the “in English” part. “Mesías Mexicano” has only been published in the Spanish translation. That’s too bad, since monolingual Anglophones bored with “fiery leftist” and “populist” as handy AMLO definitions are denied an alternative mask for him — “Messiah.”

The author insists that he’s using the label “in a descriptive mode, not a pejorative one.” I don’t believe that for a second, and I doubt I’m really meant to. Calling a candidate for president a “Messiah” is not a neutral observation. Since nobody can really be a Messiah, promoting yourself as one — or in this case having somebody else do it for you — has to mean that you’re either a manipulator, a fraud, terminally naive or simply deluded.

Grayson’s task, then, is to justify the pejorative label, and he goes about it with vigor. For example, AMLO’s mission to rescue the people from the current economic strategy is, we’re told, comparable to Jesus’ role as spiritual liberator. Also, López Obrador lives frugally, “as Christ did.” AMLO “has imitated Jesus’ practices of speaking in parables.” In fact, his campaign motto — “The poor come first, for everybody’s benefit” — is a “modern interpretation” of Luke 6:20, “Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.”

We also learn that the influence on AMLO by the speeches of salient figures in Mexican history — Morelos, Juárez, Madero — is “very similar to how the prophets guided Jesus.”

Right about here, the reader recalls his or her freshman composition teacher warning of metaphors stretched past the breaking point. But Professor Grayson is just warming up. We get seven more applications of the AMLO-Messiah analogy, scattered broadly across the credibility spectrum. And all this is just in the introduction. Then they continue throughout the book, with even the chapter titles staying on theme (“A Child is Born in Tabasco,” “Savior or Crucifier”).

You got to hand it to the good professor. I don’t think the plenary session at a Baptist preachers' convention could come up with as many biblical references as Grayson does in the context of a thoroughly secular politician’s life story. But rather than bolstering the thesis that AMLO is running a messianic campaign, the cumulative effect of so much gratuitous scripture strains the author’s credibility, not to mention the reader’s patience.

The problem is more than just overkill. Much of the book suffers from a terminal case of dismissiveness. A candidate running on an anti-poverty platform will always be accused of irresponsible populism (and now of messianic tendencies) by “realistic” critics who, remembering the Perons of the past, reflexively associate promotion of the poor's interests with pandering to the poor's vulnerabilities. But is it entirely out of the question that López Obrador’s expressed priority of government intervention to lift the poor is not a ploy to tap into the electorate’s spiritual unconscious but a well-thought-out political proposal he considers appropriate for a nation whose every problem can be traced to poverty and economic inequality? Can’t his platform be discussed on its own terms?

Grayson does dedicate the last three chapters to policy discussion, which mostly consists of setting up AMLO’s proposals (mercifully reduced from 50 to 11, and of course called “commandments” and presented in “Thou Shalt Not” language) like bowling pins to be knocked down. Fair enough. He’s certainly not the only observer who has doubts about this candidate’s character, and who considers his proposals to be mostly unworkable. Besides, by now the reader knows where the author is coming from.

For the record, “Mesías Mexicano” isn’t just another AMLO-phobic tract. It is, after all, a critical biography, and the patient, forgiving reader will come out of it with a much better idea of who Andrés Manuel López Obrador is, as well as what George Grayson thinks of him. I especially liked the early chapter on AMLO’s boyhood and family history.

Readers will appreciate the several charts and timelines that clarify some of the more Byzantine topics of Mexican politics, such as the background of the desafuero and the PRD’s internal factions. Relatively speaking, this book is no less detached than any of the other AMLO bios out there, all of which seem to be either hagiographies or diatribes. The research, detail and sourcing in this one give it an advantage. You just have to sort the information from the attitude.

If you’re still in the mood for metaphors, you can think of Dr. Grayson’s work as a pretty decent cut of steak with a half-quart of ketchup poured over it. The ketchup, unfortunately, is what the author seems to care about most, and it's what he means to smear the candidate with.

Not the News: Show Time

I recently finished a short piece that may or may not run in an upcoming issue of Inside Mexico, the English-language monthly. It looks at how the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign will play out here in Mexico.

In researching the article, I spoke to several media and public opinion professionals who offered some counterintuitive observations on how U.S. elections are traditionally viewed here and how this one is likely to be seen.

But one unanimous prediction was hardly surprising: The candidates will be portrayed in the media — and seen by most people — as types, as stock characters, as soap opera role players.

That's already happening, and not only on commercial television. I'm thinking of a piece by the serious journalist Martín Moreno, in the August issue of Nexos, a higher-than-the-usual-brow monthly.

In what he calls "a tale emerged from the African darkness," Moreno pens a brief introduction to Barack Obama, "the black senator who wants to be president." (The assumption is that not many Mexicans have heard of the man, which is not far from the truth, according to the pollsters.)

How many times do the words "black" and "Africa" appear in the brief article? More than two dozen. How many times is a Barack Obama political position mentioned? None.

Ah, but there's more. Standing in the way of the "black man with the face of a child," we learn, is "the beautiful, talented and astute Hillary Clinton."

Memo to central casting: Great work!

This storyboarded take on the candidates will be standard fare on Televisa and TV Azteca next year, but Nexos reminds us that the pointyheads too will tend to subordinate stances to types.

Yes, it's noteworthy that the two likeliest Democratic candidates are a woman and a man of color (though two standard-issue white men -- the underrated John Edwards and the belatedly appreciated Al Gore -- could shift the scenario suddenly). And it's true that come this time next year, the coded racist or sexist (as the case may be) attacks coming out of the Republican camp will be as galling in their ruthlessness as they'll be impressive in their creativity.

But race and gender are subtexts in the Democratic pre-campaign. Obama is not the "black candidate" that Nexos makes him out to be. In fact, it's still an open question if he'll get the majority of the black vote in the primaries.

Ask a typical American to define Barack Obama in one word and the answer won't be, "He's black." It will be, "He's different." Ask them to sum up Clinton and you won't get, "She's a woman." You'll get, "She's Hillary."

The differences between Obama and Clinton have nothing to do with birth circumstances, and everything to do with what most Mexicans have indicated they care about.

Obama, for example, was anti-war when anti-war wasn't cool. Clinton supported the war from the outset, turning against it only when public opinion told her to. Even now she doesn't question the morality of that blatant aggression, only its failure.

Clinton called Obama naive for ruling out a nuclear attack against Al Qaeda. Obama, generously, didn't call her a monster for not ruling it out.

Clinton jumped all over Obama for proposing to tone down the absurd, self-defeating sanctions against Cuba, and for making the reasonable suggestion that the United States should try talking with its adversaries. To Clinton, moving away from policies that haven't worked for half a century shows inexperience.

Should the media choose to inform instead of entertain, Mexicans might become aware that there is a candidate next door who basically agrees with their criticism of the United States and wants to change things accordingly.

As author and Georgetown history professor Michael Kazin put it recently, "Only an Obama victory will show the world that Americans have rejected the arrogant, inept policies that destroyed the broad support the U.S. received after the attacks of 9/11"

One would think that that's what Mexicans and Americans both want. But is it good television?

Arts & Minds: Turandot, Big-Time

On the eve of its 100th anniversary, the Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires packed up tons of equipment and scenery, several hundred performers and a swarm of technicians, and deposited the entire load in Mexico City's Auditorio Nacional for a four-day run of Turandot, beginning tonight.

No small feat, even for one of the world's great opera houses. In fact everything about this production of Puccini's gorgeously gloomy posthumous tragedy, originally performed in an outdoor stadium last fall (Argentina's spring), is outsized. That includes the cavernous auditorium itself, big enough to hold several Bellas Artes theaters. Intimacy will necessarily yield to spectacle.

The singers, for example, will have to be miked, but that’s an impurity that doesn't seem to bother those involved with the production. "The demand on the singers is exactly the same," says artistic director Marcelo Lombardero. "They'll be singing just as if they were in a theater."

It's the sound technicians, not the singers, who have the most work to do. One task is getting the words heard in the back rows without overdoing the amplification. "We have to find the level that's most like the natural human voice," Lombardero says. "It's not going to be the same as it would be for Iron Maiden."

For José Luis Duval, the Guanajuato-born tenor with the lead male role, being miked is the least of the performers' problems. "We're doing four Turandots in four days, so we need to stay healthy and rested," he says. "Most of us came up from sea-level cities in Argentina and Italy to Mexico City, with its contamination and altitude. That's a much bigger challenge than two little cords pinned on our clothes."

The cast and crew is mostly Argentinean, but the two leads are not. Duval is Mexican, and soprano Cynthia Makris, who plays the Chinese princess Turandot, is American. So is musical director Stefan Lano, who has been with the Teatro Colón for 15 years, as a guest conductor and then musical director. He's also working in Mexico on a project of Argentine Criollo music to be performed at Bellas Artes later in the year.

Lano has conducted for the San Francisco Opera and the New York Met, but he's just as happy working in Latin America, thank you. "They're not quite as judgmental, not quite as prejudicial," he says. "In the United States I've had agents telling me I need to let my hair grow so my image would be more like a conductor."

That would be a shame. Lano keeps what's left of his hair cropped down to near-nothing, and with his sharp-featured long face and unignorable glasses, he's a younger version of Paul's grandfather in Hard Day's Night, if Paul's grandfather could conduct Wozzeck, Salomé, Bomarzo and Jonny Spielt Auf.

Lano isn't a big fan of the simultaneous translation from Italian into Spanish that will be seen on a video screen during the Turandot performances, but accepts its appeal to the public. "I'd prefer it if the whole world were polyglot," he says. "Musicians generally have an ear for languages, and I pride myself on speaking many languages poorly."

Truth is, Lano's Spanish is very good — confident and fluid, with Argentine coloring and a hint of the Boston Brahmin. He's put it to good use.

"I walk around Mexico City a lot and talk to people, and they are just lovely," he says. "From what you read in the U.S. press or the sound bites you hear on MSNBC or CNN, you'd never believe there's a country of such high culture across the border."

Given the Teatro Colón's track record, I can comfortably recommend this Turandot, sight unseen, for those who live in Mexico City or will be visiting in the next several days. The performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday are not sold out as of this writing, and there's talk of a fifth date on Sunday if the demand is there. Tickets are available at the usual places — Mix-Up, Liverpool, the Auditorio Nacional box office, and Ticketmaster (55 5325 9000 or www.ticketmaster.com).

Capital Account: Full speed ahead

The Ebrard administration's recent "Green Consultation," which arranged for Mexico City residents to vote on 10 city proposals for improving the environment, has been criticized as a window-dressing exercise aimed only at manufacturing support for projects already roaring down the tracks.

To which the only reasonable response is — so what if it was?

The news value here is that a Mexico City mayor is finally trying to do something about the capital's unlivable condition. None of the previous city administrations, including recent PRD governments, paid much attention to the environment, beyond mouthing the obligatory homages and presiding over feel-good events. Ebrard is actually changing priorities, and trying new approaches.

But even the baby steps he's proposing will face opposition from the Calderón administration, which still has purse string and limited administrative powers over the Federal District. The feds are already blocking a debt-restructuring plan that would finance a laundry list of proposed D.F. reforms, as the PAN continues the same strategy it used during the D.F. mayor vote in 2006 — painting the PRD as fiscally irresponsible in its management of the capital.

The sniffiness between Marcelo Ebrard and Felipe Calderón would exist under any conditions. The PAN doesn't want to go on forever ceding the DF vote to the PRD, and will naturally do its best to prevent its rival from getting credit for governing well.

But fertilizing the ill will is Ebrard's refusal to publicly recognize Calderón as president, even declining to appear with him or have their picture taken together. As the world knows, most of the PRD and its supporters are convinced that Calderón's 2006 victory was tainted, to put it mildly. Ebrard, unlike fellow PRD governors in Zacatecas, Michoacán and other states, has stuck to the strategy of denying Calderón's legitimacy. He has the local popularity to get away with it.

In a practical sense, the issue is silly. Other than missed photo-ops, nothing official is done differently as a result of Ebrard not "recognizing" Calderón, whatever that means. It's a statement of principle, a posture. It has no procedural effect.

But the Calderón administration’s capacity to undermine Ebrard's environmental reforms, or any other project for that matter, is very real. Given the palpable antagonism, Ebrard can be forgiven his little dog and pony show in the form of a "Green Consultation." Whatever helps get the job done . . .

Predictably, seven of the 10 ideas got 90+ percent approval from the "voters." One proposal, to make it official policy to target transportation funds toward mass transit (Metro, Metrobus, bus system) rather than automobiles, fell just short at 88 percent approval.

The 90+ percenters were:

* Replacing all existing microbuses with newer and more efficient vehicles.

* Requiring all new buildings to include green spaces with trees on the rooftops.

* Obligating all taxis to use clean alternative fuels or hybrid cars.

* Upping the penalty for building illegally in protected areas or destroying forest land.

* Restricting the routes and hours of large cargo trucks passing through the city.

* Constructing 500 absorption wells to capture and treat rainwater that would otherwise be lost among the sewage runoff.

* Overhauling the garbage collection system by creating a central authority.

It should come as no surprise that the two proposals that went over poorly were the only two that would demand personal sacrifices. One would require all vehicles not to circulate one Saturday each month. The other would make school bus use obligatory for public school students. Those two ideas received 74 percent and 66 percent approval ratings respectively. Given the stacked nature of the poll, that victory margin amounts to a defeat.

Commentary: School for Scandal

There are lots of losers coming out of last week's Baja California gubernatorial election.

One is the foreign press, who can no longer punch up their prose courtesy of a billionaire gambling tycoon with questionable ties, an apparent history of exotic-animal smuggling, an unmistakable stench of corruption, and a penchant for quaffing liquid blends of animal members, rattlesnakes, scorpions and other protein sources.

Another is Jorge Hank Rhon himself, scion of a once-feared political clan whose patriarch, the late Carlos Hank González, famously summarized seven decades of PRI rule with the immortal words: "A politician who is poor is a poor politician." Jorge Hank managed to ride his own wealth, abundant connections and intimidating presence to the top of Tijuana's municipal government, but fell a full 7 percentage points short of the Baja California governorship on August 5.

A third loser is Roberto Madrazo, the Godfather-voiced PRI dinosaur whose personal political career ended on July 2, 2006 with his party's disastrous election performance. Madrazo was singularly responsible for the calamity, first as party head and then as presidential candidate. Now even a behind-the-scenes role seems out of his reach, given that his gallo, Jorge Hank, with whom the fatherless Madrazo literally grew up, has gone down.

Even before the 2006 debacle, Madrazo had promoted Jorge's brother Carlos Hank for the PRI candidacy in the 2005 State of Mexico governor's race. He struck out there as well when outgoing governor Arturo Montiel managed to secure the nomination for his protégé Enrique Peña Nieto. Thanks to an embarrassingly incompetent campaign by PAN candidate Rubén Mendoza Ayala, and an unseemly personal smearing of the PRD's Yeidckol Palevnsky, Peña Nieto won handily. His name frequently comes up now as a likely presidential candidate in 2012, an election that the PRI, despite everything, may be in a very good position to win.

Yet another loser: The good people of Baja California, who were subjected to another idea-free farce of an election. Hank used his residual control of the Tijuana police department to prevent PAN get-out-the-voters from operating in that largest of BC cities, while the PAN, in the words of one prominent public opinion analyst, waged a campaign that "was heavy-handed enough to have possibly crossed some electoral law lines."

Governor-elect José Guadalupe Osuna Millán was also able to use the preferred PAN technique of emphasizing security and his rival's threat to it. Unlike the Calderón 2006 presidential campaign, however, he didn't have to resort to lies about his opponent in order to stoke the fear. All he had to do was let Hank be Hank.

The big winner? No contest. It's Elba Esther Gordillo, the Dragon Lady of caricatures and head of the huge teachers union who recently had herself appointed leader for life (or, as later "clarified" under pressure, until 2012, whichever comes first). After splitting from the PRI over a nasty feud with Madrazo, Gordillo threw her weight behind Calderón in 2006. Given his miniscule margin of victory, hers was no small contribution, and she hasn't been shy about calling in her chits with the new president ever since.

Gordillo worked behind the scenes for Osuna in Baja California, inspired perhaps not just by her new pro-PAN leanings but also by another chance to hurt Madrazo, via Hank. In the final days of the campaign, when it looked likely that Osuna would win, Gordillo flexed her muscles and went off on Calderón's education secretary, Josefina Vázquez Mota. "Josefina doesn't know anything about education," Gordillo told El Universal. "The only one who knows is me."

That sounded for all the world like an open challenge, implying that Gordillo expects to be Calderón's top education adviser, officially or unofficially. The irony behind the gambit is that the quality of Mexican public education is notoriously poor not because of finances (per capita education spending in Mexico is well above the Latin American average) but precisely because of the attitude of the union-controlled teachers.

"Time and again they oppose new textbooks, different content, program changes, or pedagogic innovations," writes Sara Sefchovich, an author and sociologist. "The union and the bureaucracy are the principal obstacle to improving education in this country."

Elba Esther's bold, unelected claim to power doesn't make Calderón look good. It's one thing for him to be seen as beholden to the nation's big business interests; he is, after all, ideologically pledged to support them. But to appear in thrall to an openly manipulative union boss is retro at best, and threatens to confirm many of the accusations of Calderón's political enemies. The president would do well to tell Gordillo where to get off, but don't count on it happening. For my money Vázquez Mota herself is more likely to do it than he is.

Arts & Minds: Unreal Catorce

José Cruz has been writing and singing powerfully subtle lyrics for the group Real de Catorce for more than two decades, setting them to music at once familiar for its bluesiness yet strikingly original. He's a co-equal member of the latter-day triumvirate of exceptionally talented Mexican urban poets who deliver their goods from a blues base, a folk tradition, and a rock 'n' roll soul. The other two are Jaime López (who at age fiftysomething seems to be exploring ever more fruitful territory, sounding better than ever in the process), and Rodrigo González (who died tragically in the 1985 earthquake).

But something is wrong. It was evident a year ago when Real de Catorce opened a Mexico City Jazz Festival evening at the Metropolitan Theater for Buddy Guy, one of the last remaining electric blues masters from the old school. Cruz looked distracted, didn't sing well, and never really connected with the crowd. Worse, the current bassist and lead guitarist (the line-up behind Cruz, save for drummer Fernando Abrego, has shifted over the years) hopped around and rockstar-postured like the commercial pop band Real de Catorce had spent 22 years not being. Guitarist Julio Zea took over much of the between-song banter in embarrassing "Hello, Mexico City! We love you!" style. (To be fair, he didn't actually use that cliché, only appropriated its spirit. But he did go out of his way to praise the corporate sponsor of the event, something Cruz would never do.)

It turns out Cruz, at age 52, has multiple sclerosis. He appears in a wheelchair in recent newspaper photos (of which there are not many, since Real de Catorce has always performed below the mainstream media radar). It also turns out that Cruz and the band parted ways not long after that ill fated May 2006 concert, and far from amicably. Cruz now refers to his former musicians as "my ex-friends" and the band members themselves have posted on the Real de Catorce web site (from which Cruz has been banned) a lengthy manifesto accusing him of manipulative behavior, among many other things.

The situation is sad, for Cruz and his loved ones personally, and for the rest of us musically. A 22-year-run of exceptional music that most of the world was never aware of appears to be at an end. Cruz has made some solo appearances, and he's also authored a book of poetry (the translated title would be "From the Alcohol Texts"). But what kind of new career he can put together in his condition is unclear.

Incredibly, the other band members have taken over the name Real de Catorce, and promote themselves as such. This is not unlike Clarence Clemons, Max Weinberg and the rest of the E Street Band separating from the Boss and calling themselves "Bruce Springsteen." Real de Catorce is José Cruz and vice versa. Zea, Abrego and bassist Neftalí López Nava have every right to carry on, and they'll no doubt put together something very good. But they need to do the right thing by forging their own identity and coming up with their own name. How about Real de Quince?

Meanwhile, Cruz and the cumulative membership of Real de Catorce have left us about a dozen CDs, some more compelling than others, but all superb. For the uninitiated, I suggest finding Voces Interiores (1992) as your introduction, for no better reason than it's my personal favorite. It includes "Pago mi renta con un poco de blues," a talking blues with an unexpected chorus, which along with "Azul" (a mournful slow blues with the honor of being the first cut on the first, self-named 1987 album) is the closest thing Real de Catorce ever had to a hit.