THE CAMPAIGN

At the end of November 1999, 43 percent of voters polled declared they would vote for Labastida, while Fox’s support was 27 percent and Cardenas’s 8 percent, with 22 percent undecided. This poll indicated that each of the three major candidates had a different task. Labastida’s task was to maintain his lead. Fox’s was to build broad support beyond the PAN’s traditional base so he could oust the PRI from Los Pinos—the presidential residence. Cardenas, who never moved beyond a distant third place, was faced with the choice of soldiering on alone to election day or forming an alliance with Fox to oust the PRI and thus share in the credit for democratizing Mexico.16

The three main presidential candidates agreed there was a pressing need for foreign investment and fiscal discipline. None of the three advocated turning away from the policies set in place by former president Carlos Salinas and his successor Ernesto Zedillo. One of the reasons for this consensus on leaving economic policy largely unchanged was that during the first nine months of

2000,  Mexico’s economy was growing at a brisk 7.5 percent.17

More than ever before, the 2000 Mexican presidential campaign was media-driven, taking on the trappings of U. S. presidential campaigns. The resemblance to U. S. campaigns was hardly surprising since the Labastida campaign hired James Carville, the political consultant who managed Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. Dick Morris, another political consultant who had advised Clinton,

Figure 27.1 Fox campaigning Source: Benjamin Flores/Proceso

Joined the Fox campaign. Fox summed up the crucial role of TV during the campaign, “Have charisma, and look good on TV, and you can become president.” PRD leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was less upbeat on the role of media, declaring, “Combine money, television, and the large number of Mexican voters who are nearly illiterate, and you could elect a cow as president.”18

At the beginning of the official campaign in January 2000, Labastida looked practically invincible, since he had the legendary PRI political machine at his service, the incumbent PRI president Ernesto Zedillo was popular, the economy was growing, and his opposition was divided between the PRD and the PAN.19

Although his campaign adopted the slogan of “the new PRI,” Labastida stood for anything but change. In three decades in government, he had never rocked the PRI boat even slightly. The changes he promised were so innocuous as to be almost imperceptible. In addition, as political scientist Denise Dresser commented, “He’s a gray figure, not a stellar personality, he hasn’t accomplished much, he doesn’t speak very well, he’s been lackluster in every job.”20

Fox, using salty language and attired in denim and cowboy boots, was anything but gray. Rather he exuded freshness, manliness, renewal, and an end of the PRI’s stiff style. To reinforce this image, he headhunted a public relations coordinator. Eventually he selected Francisco Ortiz, who had worked for thirteen years at Procter & Gamble and for seven at Televisa. Ortiz had never met Fox before he was hired. Since there was general consensus on the economic model Mexico had adopted, Fox focused on the notion of change. His campaign motto was “the change which is right for you.” Rather than focusing on what change would lead to, Fox unremittingly portrayed change as leading away from the PRI’s innumerable disasters and disliked presidents. Rather than suggesting changes in the economic model, he simply promised more economic growth—7 percent—than any other candidate.21

Fox focused on winning over constituencies outside the PAN’s traditionally restricted base. He wooed Cardenas’s supporters by speaking of the “useful vote” (“voto util”) that if cast for Fox would get the PRI out of office. Casting a vote for Cardenas, who continued to trail badly at the polls, was described simply as a vote wasted. To build bridges to the left, Fox paid tribute to Cardenas’s role in building democracy in 1988. His deliberate use of crude language, combined with his ranch attire, targeted what he defined as the 40 percent of the population without money or education, few of whom would normally vote for the PAN.22

The Fox campaign highlighted the candidate’s character and personal life while downplaying issues and party platforms. It relied heavily on denouncing existing problems, which candidate Fox promised to resolve. He declared, “The narcos took over the PRI long ago.” Rather than accusing Labastida of any failing that the PRI candidate could respond to, Fox simply belittled his opponent, whose name he would deliberately mispronounce so that it came out “la vestida” (“the cross-dresser”). On one occasion, Fox referred to Labastida as “a faggot tied to his wife’s apron strings.”23

Cardenas’s campaign never recaptured the political magic of 1988. By his third presidential campaign, he was no longer a novelty. Also, after having served as mayor of Mexico City, he was considered more as an administrator than as a challenger to the system—a mantle that Fox had inherited. Rather than relying on a catchy notion such as “change,” Cardenas’s most dramatic proposal was a revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)—a proposal that had failed to attract much support when he proposed it in 1994. He dismissed pleas for a political alliance with the PAN to topple the PRI by declaring Fox’s party too pro-business. He similarly dismissed Fox when he declared, “I don’t think he represents the real and deep change that Mexico needs.”24 With the first of two nationally televised debates on April 25, the political momentum shifted definitively to Fox. No lofty intellectual discussion occurred, but instead, each time Labastida launched a verbal attack on Fox, the PAN candidate deftly responded. When Labastida chided Fox for using vulgar language, Fox shot back that he could clean up his language, but the PRI could never clean up corruption. When Labastida said he was the candidate for change, Fox responded, “Labastida talks about change, but he’s been in the PRI for 37 years.” Sometimes Fox did not even need to respond. In the debate, Labastida, speaking of Fox, stated, “In the last few weeks, he has called me shorty, he has called me a little sissy, he called me a stuffed suit, has called me henpecked, has made obscene gestures on television referring to me. . ..” Labastida’s repeating Fox’s insults not only reinforced the image of weakness Fox sought to portray but provided the Fox campaign with video footage that was incorporated into future campaign ads.25

By May, a poll in the newspaper Reforma indicated that Labastida was favored by 42 percent of likely voters, while Fox was at 40 percent. Cardenas had virtually faded from the race, with only 16 percent support. These figures were particularly ominous for Labastida since his poll numbers were falling and Fox’s were rising. To salvage an electoral victory, Labastida shed his notion of the “new PRI” and publicly embraced members of the party’s old guard, such as Manuel Bartlett. Members of the old guard were best known for their ability to fix elections, not for their commitment to democracy. It had been Bartlett, in his role of secretary of the interior, who had been overseeing the vote count in 1988 when the computer “crashed.”

As the date of the July election approached, most polls showed Labastida remained ahead of Fox, but the difference between the two candidates was less than the margin of error. What was clear was that in the five months before the election, there had been a 12 percent shift in voter preferences away from Labastida and toward Fox. It was the campaign itself that had caused this shift, not voters’ political beliefs at the start of the 2000 campaign.26