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Mexican conservative turns the race around
By James C. McKinley
The New York Times
TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ, Mexico
Petroleumworld.com 05 24 06
Felipe Calderón loves making allusions to Mexican folk songs. These days, the conservative candidate for president is particularly fond of recalling a song about a nag named Relámpago ("Lightning," in Spanish) who upsets a glistening champion, Moro, in a race.
"I was not the favorite," Calderón boomed over loudspeakers to a crowd of farmers, fishermen and small-business owners in the town of Tonalá, on a swing through Chiapas last week. "I was not the one who was up in the polls, but do you know what I did, gentlemen? I went to work. I set about telling Mexicans what the other candidates really mean."
He has reason to crow. Several recent polls show Calderón has surged past the leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to become the front-runner in a three-way race to become Mexico's president, a contest that will determine whether the country stays the course of pro-business, free-trade policies.
Calderón has engineered the turnaround with a nimble, slick campaign, relying heavily on radio and television advertisements, many of them negative, but all tested in focus groups and tailored to specific constituencies, his aides say. Mexicans will vote on July 2.
Calderón has outspent López Obrador two-to-one on attack ads that, among other things, link the left-leaning candidate to Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's stridently anti-U.S. president. Calderón has also deftly played on the perception that López Obrador, though he is immensely popular, has an authoritarian streak; several aggressive protests he led over a decade ago have left him with a reputation as a rabble rouser. Calderón's spots call his rival "a danger to Mexico."
The personal attacks on López Obrador are just one of several strategic shifts Calderón's young campaign team initiated in late March: Calderón now also embraces President Vicente Fox, after initially keeping him at arm's length. The two have a close history, however; Fox named Calderón chief of Pemex, Mexico's oil company, after tapping him to lead the party's team in Congress. Calderón now staunchly defends the government.
Calderón has also dropped his stuffy stump speech about the virtues of open markets and foreign investment, and opted for a simpler message. He now vows to create jobs, jobs and more jobs. His ads call him the "president of employment" and his slogan is "My job will be to make sure you have a job."
He has also stolen a page from López Obrador, who promises a raft of government subsidies and handouts. Calderón, a fiscal and social conservative, now makes a point of saying he will extend and expand the welfare and health-care programs Fox put in place. The promise to keep government largesse flowing draws the biggest applause at his rallies.
The upshot has been a remarkable political comeback. In January, five major surveys by respected pollsters showed Calderón trailing López Obrador by 6 to 10 percentage points. In April and May, however, four of those polls gave Calderón a slim lead of 1 to 7 points. The other poll showed him trailing by only 2 points.
"We've managed to change the subject of the election," said Juan Camilo Mouriño, Calderón's 34-year-old campaign manager, as he sat behind his desk in a dark blue suit at campaign headquarters, checking sports scores on a new laptop. "We have a candidate who can see his mistakes and make adjustments."
Mouriño said the inner circle of the campaign had a fierce debate before deciding to bombard López Obrador with negative advertisements.
An attempt to knock him off the ballot for ignoring a court order failed badly last year, only making him more popular. The conventional wisdom was, the more you attack López Obrador, the stronger he gets by casting himself as the victim of a conspiracy.
But Calderón was trailing by 10 percentage points. His free-trade message and "passion and values for Mexico" slogan was falling flat.
"We had to make adjustments," Mouriño said. "We decided that among other things there exists a lot of myths about Andrés Manuel."
López Obrador's campaign, meanwhile, has been floundering in its efforts to find a response. Until recently, the candidate had resisted advice to respond to Calderón's mud-slinging with mud-slinging of his own. López Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution finally aired a radio spot calling Calderón "a liar."
Besides taking his time to go on the offensive, López Obrador has made other gaffes, his aides concede. He ridiculed Fox, called him a chattering bird, and told him to "shut up" and stay out of the campaign, handing Calderón fodder for his claim that López Obrador is intolerant.
López Obrador's decision to pass up the first debate, a classic front-runner's tactic, also backfired. Most analysts say it contributed to the notion that he can be arrogant and contemptuous of other viewpoints. López Obrador has also refused to let his aides use his modest lifestyle or his close relationship to his sons to soften his image, some inside the campaign say.
As for the polls, López Obrador has dismissed them as fabrications of media barons involved in a conspiracy to defeat him. (His aides maintain their internal polls show he still leads Calderón by 6 percentage points.)
López Obrador has stubbornly insisted on running a grass-roots campaign that relies more on speeches in town squares, loudspeakers atop cars and word of mouth than on television and radio spots, his campaign aides say. That decision could turn out to be a stroke of genius or his biggest mistake.
"The strategy will stay the same, because that's Andrés Manuel's way of campaigning," said Ricardo Monreal, a senior campaign aide. "His way of campaigning is, as always before, street by street, town by town, at the level of the people. He believes he will beat the marketing campaign that way." Monreal added: "We all know that marketing has carried a lot of current presidents into office around the world. But López Obrador is not relying on this. He is relying on the strategy of the street."
Aside from his jabs at Fox, López Obrador has been restrained in attacking Calderón. "We are not going to get into a war of insults," Senator Jesús Ortega, his campaign manager, said.
Still, López Obrador has made some adjustments, said César Yáñez, his spokesman and one of his closest advisors. For months, the candidate, who was mayor of Mexico City until last year, avoided interviews, unless they were with local radio stations.
In the last two weeks, however, he has submitted to three interviews on national television. He has also begun to needle Calderón. Last week, he said conservative candidate was a captive of his campaign advisers.
The managers of both campaigns say the race is still too close to call. And both camps agree that the final debate in early June, the only face-to-face confrontation between Calderón and López Obrador, will be pivotal.
TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ, Mexico Felipe Calderón loves making allusions to Mexican folk songs. These days, the conservative candidate for president is particularly fond of recalling a song about a nag named Relámpago ("Lightning," in Spanish) who upsets a glistening champion, Moro, in a race.
"I was not the favorite," Calderón boomed over loudspeakers to a crowd of farmers, fishermen and small-business owners in the town of Tonalá, on a swing through Chiapas last week. "I was not the one who was up in the polls, but do you know what I did, gentlemen? I went to work. I set about telling Mexicans what the other candidates really mean."
He has reason to crow. Several recent polls show Calderón has surged past the leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to become the front-runner in a three-way race to become Mexico's president, a contest that will determine whether the country stays the course of pro-business, free-trade policies.
Calderón has engineered the turnaround with a nimble, slick campaign, relying heavily on radio and television advertisements, many of them negative, but all tested in focus groups and tailored to specific constituencies, his aides say. Mexicans will vote on July 2.
Calderón has outspent López Obrador two-to-one on attack ads that, among other things, link the left-leaning candidate to Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's stridently anti-U.S. president. Calderón has also deftly played on the perception that López Obrador, though he is immensely popular, has an authoritarian streak; several aggressive protests he led over a decade ago have left him with a reputation as a rabble rouser. Calderón's spots call his rival "a danger to Mexico."
The personal attacks on López Obrador are just one of several strategic shifts Calderón's young campaign team initiated in late March: Calderón now also embraces President Vicente Fox, after initially keeping him at arm's length. The two have a close history, however; Fox named Calderón chief of Pemex, Mexico's oil company, after tapping him to lead the party's team in Congress. Calderón now staunchly defends the government.
Calderón has also dropped his stuffy stump speech about the virtues of open markets and foreign investment, and opted for a simpler message. He now vows to create jobs, jobs and more jobs. His ads call him the "president of employment" and his slogan is "My job will be to make sure you have a job."
He has also stolen a page from López Obrador, who promises a raft of government subsidies and handouts. Calderón, a fiscal and social conservative, now makes a point of saying he will extend and expand the welfare and health-care programs Fox put in place. The promise to keep government largesse flowing draws the biggest applause at his rallies.
The upshot has been a remarkable political comeback. In January, five major surveys by respected pollsters showed Calderón trailing López Obrador by 6 to 10 percentage points. In April and May, however, four of those polls gave Calderón a slim lead of 1 to 7 points. The other poll showed him trailing by only 2 points.
"We've managed to change the subject of the election," said Juan Camilo Mouriño, Calderón's 34-year-old campaign manager, as he sat behind his desk in a dark blue suit at campaign headquarters, checking sports scores on a new laptop. "We have a candidate who can see his mistakes and make adjustments."
Mouriño said the inner circle of the campaign had a fierce debate before deciding to bombard López Obrador with negative advertisements.
An attempt to knock him off the ballot for ignoring a court order failed badly last year, only making him more popular. The conventional wisdom was, the more you attack López Obrador, the stronger he gets by casting himself as the victim of a conspiracy.
But Calderón was trailing by 10 percentage points. His free-trade message and "passion and values for Mexico" slogan was falling flat.
"We had to make adjustments," Mouriño said. "We decided that among other things there exists a lot of myths about Andrés Manuel."
López Obrador's campaign, meanwhile, has been floundering in its efforts to find a response. Until recently, the candidate had resisted advice to respond to Calderón's mud-slinging with mud-slinging of his own. López Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution finally aired a radio spot calling Calderón "a liar."
Besides taking his time to go on the offensive, López Obrador has made other gaffes, his aides concede. He ridiculed Fox, called him a chattering bird, and told him to "shut up" and stay out of the campaign, handing Calderón fodder for his claim that López Obrador is intolerant.
López Obrador's decision to pass up the first debate, a classic front-runner's tactic, also backfired. Most analysts say it contributed to the notion that he can be arrogant and contemptuous of other viewpoints. López Obrador has also refused to let his aides use his modest lifestyle or his close relationship to his sons to soften his image, some inside the campaign say.
As for the polls, López Obrador has dismissed them as fabrications of media barons involved in a conspiracy to defeat him. (His aides maintain their internal polls show he still leads Calderón by 6 percentage points.)
López Obrador has stubbornly insisted on running a grass-roots campaign that relies more on speeches in town squares, loudspeakers atop cars and word of mouth than on television and radio spots, his campaign aides say. That decision could turn out to be a stroke of genius or his biggest mistake.
"The strategy will stay the same, because that's Andrés Manuel's way of campaigning," said Ricardo Monreal, a senior campaign aide. "His way of campaigning is, as always before, street by street, town by town, at the level of the people. He believes he will beat the marketing campaign that way." Monreal added: "We all know that marketing has carried a lot of current presidents into office around the world. But López Obrador is not relying on this. He is relying on the strategy of the street."
Aside from his jabs at Fox, López Obrador has been restrained in attacking Calderón. "We are not going to get into a war of insults," Senator Jesús Ortega, his campaign manager, said.
Still, López Obrador has made some adjustments, said César Yáñez, his spokesman and one of his closest advisors. For months, the candidate, who was mayor of Mexico City until last year, avoided interviews, unless they were with local radio stations.
In the last two weeks, however, he has submitted to three interviews on national television. He has also begun to needle Calderón. Last week, he said conservative candidate was a captive of his campaign advisers.
The managers of both campaigns say the race is still too close to call. And both camps agree that the final debate in early June, the only face-to-face confrontation between Calderón and López Obrador, will be pivotal.
NYT 05 23 06
Copyright © 2006 The New York Times. All Rights Reserved.
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