[StJacques]

"Rosales claims to be ahead in the polls in his home state of Zulia, Venezuela's most populous state. . . ."

And I am solidly convinced this is true. Zulia is the one Venezuelan state in which neither the state legislature nor the Governor's chair is held by Chavistas.

We actually could have something to get excited about in the near future. Saturday could change a lot of things in Venezuela.

Of course, if Arizona Carolyn is right, the big change may be that Chavez decides to take Rosales out.

[conservative in nyc]

According to Wikipedia, Zulia has a weird political system where if the governor is from one party, the other party controls municipal government, which leads to competition to do things better (or sometimes spend more on pork barrel projects). People are moving to its largest city, Maracaibo, even from Caracas.

I'd expect a fairly large turnout in Caracas for Rosales - he claims to be leading in some outlying areas of Greater Caracas.

[Arizona Carolyn]

Let's pray I'm wrong.