"Immigration debate impacts Mexican race"

If you could vote in Mexico, whom you choose? The question is fair as Mexico's dual-citizenship franchise law allows expatriates that have attained citizenship in another country to vote in Mexican elections as well, thus assuring that they will maintain interest and ties to "the mother country".

Candidates

1) Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, "a fiery lefist, has accused Fox of being weak when dealing with Washington, calling Fox a U.S. 'puppet' and 'lackey' for not vigorously opposing the move of the U.S. National Guard to the border.

"Lopez Obrador is using Fox as a patsy for Calderon. He has found it easier to run against Fox than Calderon because Calderon is slippery and difficult to get to," political analyst Federico Estevez said."

Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who has headed demonstrations against state and federal governments, would likely work more closely with migrant protesters, [George] Grayson, an expert on Mexico said.

"I could see Lopez Obrador flying into the United States and joining demonstrations to put the pressure on," he said. "He believes in direct action. Look at his past. He has always mobilized people to achieve his political aims."

"Lopez Obrador has been stumping in these [poor] villages and is gaining substantial support there, pollsters say. He kicked off his campaign in the impoverished hamlet of Metlatonoc on the day it held a funeral for a former resident hit by a car in Alabama.

2) Felipe Calderon, a member of the ruling National Action Party.

Harvard educated, "Calderon, a career politician and son of a National Action Party founder, staked out his own nationalist credentials on the immigration issue, attacking the U.S. Senate for approving 370 miles of triple-layer border fencing."

"These measures increase the social and human costs for migrants and only benefit criminal groups," he said.
Calderon "would probably continue Fox's strategy of lobbying U.S. senators and holding get-togethers with the U.S. President, said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary."

3) Roberto Madrazo "of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for 71 years until Fox's historic victory in 2000, is also hitting the immigration issue hard with peasant farmers, a key base for the party.

Madrazo began his campaign with a rally in the central Mexico farming town of Izucar de Matamoros, flanked by a migrant activist from New York and a young Indian woman whose brothers work in the United States.

Madrazo claims migration has increased under Fox because the president has abandoned the countryside."

"Whoever wins, the migration policy of Mexico's next administration will probably vary more in style than substance.
With migrants sending home nearly $20 billion a year and reducing the pressure for job-creation in Mexico, it is likely that any president will go on pushing for Mexicans to work legally in the United States....

But their tactics may differ."

For whom would I vote IF I had the Mexican franchise? It's hard to tell as all three candidates tie everything to migration which was in full swing long before Fox was elected. But rather than expecting to bailed out by the United States or using the United States as a "safety valve," Roberto Madrazo was the only one that offered hope in Mexico:

"The solution to the migration problem is in Mexico, not the United States," he told the Associated Press in a recent interview. "We are the ones who have to create more jobs in the countryside."

Based on this report, I would choose Madrazo. However, his political party, the one that had been in power for 71 years is known to be very corrupt and elitist, and can his party be trusted to uphold that sentiment? The choice would be very difficult, the least of the three evils: a manipulator of U.S. policy, a Marxist, and an elitist . Whom would you choose?