Midterm vote has a message for Vicente Fox

The Dallas Mourning News ^ | 07/11/2003 | Ruben Navarrette

[Paleo Conservative]

Midterm vote has a message for Vicente Fox

07/11/2003

By RUBEN NAVARRETTE / The Dallas Morning News

Television talk-show host Dr. Phil has a cocky refrain for guests who fess up about some assumption that didn't hold up or a plan that went astray.

Thought you could gamble away the family vacation money and replace it before anyone noticed?

Dr. Phil will ask with a smirk, "How's that working for ya?"

The guest I want to see in the hot seat is Vicente Fox. The Mexican president caved in to nationalism and stood on the sidelines after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Later, Mr. Fox used Mexico's temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council to oppose the U.S.-led war with Iraq. All this, he seems to have assumed, would score points with the Mexican electorate.

"How's that working for ya, Vicente?"

A piñata

It's not working very well. In fact, Mr. Fox's party turned in a convincing impersonation of a piñata this week in Mexico's midterm elections. The National Action Party – PAN in Spanish – lost about 50 of its 202 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the Mexican version of Congress. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, whose 71-year grip on the presidency Mr. Fox broke in the 2000 election, strengthened its majority by adding between 15 and 20 seats, up from 207. The big winner was the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, which doubled its seats to about 100. The big loser: participatory democracy. Nearly 60 percent of eligible voters didn't cast a ballot.

Many of those who did vote appear to have punished Mr. Fox and the PAN for what they see as the president's failure to provide jobs, grow the economy and improve the lives of average Mexicans.

"The PAN hasn't kept its promises," Maria Guadalupe Godinez, a Mexico City small-business owner, told The Washington Post. "In fact, it's gotten worse."

Pocketbooks

Other Mexicans insist they voted their pocketbooks, registering disgust over a sluggish economy and even, in some cases, expressing a preference for the devil they knew over the one they still are getting to know. In this case, the more familiar devil is the PRI, whose one-time standard-bearer Carlos Salinas de Gortari – the former Mexican president – looted Mexico of an untold fortune before taking up a self-imposed exile to Ireland.

"When we were with the PRI, we knew they robbed us," Maria Teresa Nolasco, a grandmother and homemaker, told The New York Times. "But at least there were more jobs. We lived better."

It's sad when a people are so desperate, or have grown so dependent, that they are willing to choose outright thievery over unemployment and recession. It's also highly instructive – at least for Mr. Fox. The Mexican president should learn something from his party's recent humiliation. He should see that there are few votes to be found in thumping your chest at the United States. While Mr. Fox enjoyed a momentary bump in popularity in standing up to los americanos, it quickly evaporated.

Mr. Fox's anti-American gamble was a complete bust. One may not be able to go so far as to say his posturing hurt him with Mexican voters, but it sure didn't help him. Nor was he helped by the perception that he cared too much about polls, popularity and public opinion.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, a lawyer in Guadalajara told me how he thought Mexico should stay out of the war between the United States and Osama bin Laden. A few weeks later, after Mr. Fox had missed the opportunity to stand up and be counted, the lawyer was saying how disappointed he was that his president hadn't at least stood on principle. That would have been the manly thing to do, he said.

Anyway, many Mexicans seem to be coming around to the realization that their situation is unique. They don't have the luxury of taking pleasure in the misery of friends and neighbors. Not with nearly $10 billion flowing into the Mexican economy each year thanks to Mexicans living in the United States. When the U.S. economy suffers, as it has since the Sept. 11 attacks, those Mexican workers feel the pinch along with everyone else. And then so do their families back home. And then so do Mexican leaders.

There is one final lesson, reserved for whoever succeeds Mr. Fox: Fighting is useless. The marriage between Mexico and the United States has to work. Divorce is not an option.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is an editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News. His e-mail address is rnavarrette@dallasnews.com.

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/columnists/rnavarrette/stories/071103dnedinavarrette.a19ef.html

[Paleo Conservative]

This editorial ran in the Corpus Christi Caller Times with the title:

Opposing the U.S. carries a high price at home

Fox opposed the U.S. at every turn, and his party paid for his actions in the midterm elections.

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[livius]

There was a good article about Vicente Fox in yesterday's WSJ (by my favorite columnist, Mary Anastasia O'Grady). It said, basically, that he had blown it. Mexicans voted for him because they wanted reform, and he has done nothing but kowtow to the PRI (Mexican equivalent of the Dems) and worsen relations with the US, even though Bush was originally very favorably disposed to him.

I think Fox is weak and nothing is going to make up for this. In recent Mexican elections, the PRI did not get an absolute majority, but they certainly came back again, and Fox's party dropped way back. Maybe Fox will grow a backbone, stand up to the left, and impress Mexican voters again, but I doubt it.

The bad thing is that Mexicans voted for him thinking he'd bring reform, realistic capitalism, development of the national economy, privatization of the petroleum industry - and what he brought was alienation from Mexico's most important trading partner (us), simultaneously with pleas for the US to accept more Mexican economic refugees - who wouldn't need to leave home if Mexico had a functioning, non-corrupt and non-statist economy.

Ping to CW.

[AmericanMade1776]

Thanks for this Article, often I come in contact on the internet with Mexicans who bad mouth American's action's abroad. Recently one was Mexican was expressing the view that the United States should not be involved in Liberia, even though, Taylor of Liberia should be removed.

Is it just Fox's government, or does Mexico generally stand on the sidelines, when there are crisis in other countries. I am not talking just with the United States, I am talking about an attitude of being Innocent abroad by the Mexican Government, because they see themselves as observers standing on the sidelines of world politics,not participators.

[Cedric]

We all hoped and assumed Fox was Bush. He isn't. He's Clinton!

[Paleo Conservative]

The bad thing is that Mexicans voted for him thinking he'd bring reform, realistic capitalism, development of the national economy, privatization of the petroleum industry - and what he brought was alienation from Mexico's most important trading partner (us), simultaneously with pleas for the US to accept more Mexican economic refugees - who wouldn't need to leave home if Mexico had a functioning, non-corrupt and non-statist economy.

You hit the nail on the head. I can't think of anything to add to your paragraph. I was hoping Fox was going to institute reforms on the model of Hernando De Soto's book The Other Path, but I was mistaken.

[mtbopfuyn]

I'm with you in not having seen Mexico ever take much of a stand on anything. They seem to be always hiding in the shadows of world affairs. Too bad about Fox not living up to his people's expectations, but I can't say I don't feel a little pleasure in his downward trend due to him biting the hand that feeds him.

[Cedric]

...with pleas for the US to accept more Mexican economic refugees...

It's worse than that. I've seen interviews in which Fox arrogantly said the U.S. should be grateful for the cheap labor! And oh by the way, Fox is demanding their share of the Social Security taxes these illegals have had deducted by their U.S. employers!

[Paleo Conservative]

Is it just Fox's government, or does Mexico generally stand on the sidelines, when there are crisis in other countries. I am not talking just with the United States, I am talking about an attitude of being Innocent abroad by the Mexican Government, because they see themselves as observers standing on the sidelines of world politics,not participators.

There's still quite a bit of animosity in Mexico towards the United States for annexing Texas and the territory that is now part of California, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. Quite a few delude themselves thinking that if that territory still belonged to Mexico, Mexico would not be the poor country it is today. It would still be just a poor, but Mexicans would have to travel further to get out of Mexico. The problem with Mexico is the political culture of corruption they inherited from the Spanish empire. Fox did nothing to change it.

[livius]

He's Clinton!

Sad but true.

[livius]

I think many people (probably most of them Mexican) were hoping for that...

[Cedric]

Plus, Mexico is a socialist gulag! The animus toward the U.S. wouldn't be there if their own country wasn't so SOL! Mexico is rich in natural resourses and the people are hard workers but the venom of socialism is deep in their system.

[vbmoneyspender]

The problem with Mexico is the political culture of corruption they inherited from the Spanish empire. Fox did nothing to change it.

Cortez basically left in place the system that the Aztecs had created to run Mexico. The only difference was that Cortez decapitated the Aztec leadership that wouldn't play nice with the conquistadores and intermarried with the Aztecs that would play nice. As a result, Mexico still has deep roots in the feudal society that existed for centuries in Mexico prior to the arrival of Cortez. Until Mexico gets a political leader, backed up by a strong political party, that is willing to completely open up Mexico's economy, things are not going to improve there, particularly not in the southern and central parts of Mexico. I don't know if that is ever going to happen though because of the apparently almost universal human tendency of preferring equality of outcomes over equal opportunities.

[livius]

The problem with Mexico is the political culture of corruption they inherited from the Spanish empire.

Sorry I missed this one! Actually, a lot of their problems relate to the fact that Mexico is, technically, a Socialist country. In fact, a Marxist country.

Latin America was settled by the Spanish, but many LatAm countries were also heavily influenced by the Germans (and even by the French - remember, Mexico was at one point ruled by an Austrian emperor sponsored by the French).

One of their biggest problems is that most LatAm countries gained their independence in the 19th century at a time when very statist constitutions were in vogue among 19th century liberals. Adopting these constitutions, which gave rights to the state rather than to the individual, most LatAm countries immediately became statist at heart, even if they did not overtly become Communist as Mexico did. This is actually the thing that has been holding them back, and will continue to hold them back, no matter what party is in charge. Corruption goes hand in glove with statism.

[Cedric]

Your reply #14 makes a lot more sense than trying to tie the current problem to Cortez!

[Paleo Conservative]

Sorry I missed this one! Actually, a lot of their problems relate to the fact that Mexico is, technically, a Socialist country. In fact, a Marxist country.

Hernando de Soto would say that Mexico is still a mecantilist country. They persued a protectionist economic policy of import substitution. Before NAFTA there were very high tarrifs on manufacured goods from the Unitied States. It has private property, but there has always been a very heavy handed government that interfered in the market. Under Spanish rule even Spanish colonies were not allowed to trade with each other without the permission of the Spanish government.

[livius]

Well, strict control would have been true of any colonial system (Spanish, British, etc). However, the particular problem of Mexico was that it was caught up in the Napoleonic wars in the 19th c., and afterwards plunged full bore into socialism/communism. The history of Mexico in the late 19th/early 20th century is not pretty reading.

But regardless of Mexico's particular circumstances, every Latin American country seems to have this peculiar flaw: the state is constitutionally more important than its citizens. Oddly enough, those that have recently developed new US-style constitutions after being dominated by Communists or socialists (such as Nicaragua) are better positioned than some of the older "democracies" (i.e., elected statist governments).

I don't know if Mexico will ever be able to break out of this trap, regardless of the party in charge. It's a pity, because there's no real reason for Mexico to be poor. They have resources, a youthful population, good trade connections, etc.

[Cedric]

A soclalist democracy is the easiest trick in the political book!

[livius]

Too true, alas. But in the case of Nicaragua, it's a FORMERLY Communist country, and is now struggling to become a free-market economy with a democratic political structure. This is no easy feat, of course.

I recently translated a document detailing all of the struggles they have had to develop an independent, professional judiciary. But they take it very seriously and are working quite hard at it. (Actually, they're better than the Dems in this country, who seem to be working hard in the other direction!)

[Cedric]

Dennis Prager reminds us that the U.S. Constitution and system of government is the exception in world history.