[Marxism] Did Lopez Obrador drop the ball?

["Colin Brace" <cb@xxxxxx>]

An acquaintance in Mexico City writes:

"At this stage in the game, I think [Lopez Obrador] is SOL. He didn't handle the
situation correctly -- left it too long, failed to communicate his
claims. Didn't make his case to public opinion. Massive public
relations / social communications failure. Is this --
http://www.lopezobrador.org.mx/actas/ -- really the best they can do?

This was an entirely likely outcome. No contingency plans in place?
Was it really a good idea to have his hand-picked candidate for DF
Head of Govt schedule his wedding to some leggy vedette the Sunday
after the election (forcing him to abandon the demo early, and with
the cost in political capital that reports on the sumptuous society
wedding had?)

He should have had, one week after the event, much better evidence to
present at the first mass demo. The way feelings were running, on the
wed/thurs/fri after the election, half the country was ready to take
to the streets. But he failed to follow through and now, I think, a
lot of his supporters have resigned themselves to defeat. Personally,
my take is that his case hasn't been helped by some of his more
messianic attitudes in recent weeks -- too much the demagogue, not
enough the statesman. Which is part of his image problem: his policies
are not the way-out left ideas of ChÃvez, as he is
frequently accused of, but his *style* comes across as being similar.

And talking of statesmen raises the question: "where's CÃrdenas?" Why
is his support from other (more established, respected, "moral
leadership") sectors of the party so lukewarm? And the corollary of
that is: buggered if I'm going to march in support of the likes of
Ebrard & Camacho SolÃs if CÃrdenas (padre e hijo) can't be bothered.

Feelings are still running high -- stories about cars with bumper
stickers (for both sides) getting their lights smashed out, etc -- but
there simply isn't the feeling of mass mobilisation that we had, for
example, back in '88. Either that's because this time the middle
classes (who are more likely to do car caravans, candlelit vigils,
mass turnings off of lights at 20h00, etc, all the crazy shit CÃrdenas
got us to do way back when) all voted for CalderÃn, or it's because
the PRD simply was unable to get its message out. My vote's for the
latter.

--
 Colin Brace
 Amsterdam
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