About Secret History

Commentary on Latin America.
Mostly about Mexico - but not always.
Designed to encourage readers to learn about
the apparently "secret history" of 500 million people
spread across two continents
- but not always.
You can always count on a little snark.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Technocrats vs. Dinosaurs - in the PRD


This morning's Excelsior has Jesus Ortega, head of the PRD, taking another step back from AMLO. "He has his plans, we have ours." Hmmm.... Well, it seems those plans will include wunderkind Marcelo Ebrard, of whom Ortega says:
“Marcelo ha hecho su mejor esfuerzo; está haciendo un gran trabajo y con buenos resultados, que ayudarán para la votación nacional.”
Well, Marcelo has a soap star wife, Mexico City in his pocket, and Calderon-Zedillo nerd chic going for him already, and it seems that the leadership of the PRD has found its attempted antidote to AMLO fever - already on the decline. Unlike Cardenas, however, I'm not sure we'll see a protracted period of public dormant reflection and back-room wrangling before bowing out - dollars to donuts AMLO makes a fight out of PRD nomination and attempts to make a (failed) third party stand. Of course, predictions are like the old saying "if grandma had different plumbing she'd be grandpa."

And a final note on that nerd chic ... my bet is that Mexicans might be more willing to climb in with the seminarian looking boy than the cacique (consider Labastida!). Then again, that doesn't explain Fox, who had bar room bad boy written all over his face like a set of M13 tattoos. So I'm making my calls early - 3 years in advance. Alberto Cardenas vs. Marcelo Ebrard, with Marcelo coming out on top if AMLO puts a lid on it. Tune in July of 2012 so you can make fun of how horribly wrong my early picks went.

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