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July 17, 2008
Obama's sister wooing expats in Mexico
The Democratic Party has made targeting ex-pats a priority this election season, hoping to take advantage of the more than 6 million Americans who live outside the country (that’s more than 24 entire states). For the first time, ex-pats got their own Democratic primary (Obama took 65 percent of the vote) and will have 11 votes at this summer’s Democratic convention in Denver.
Now that the general election is on us, the Democrats Abroad group is pushing its members to get their absentee ballots by signing up online. We’ll see if the effort improves the numbers. The AP reports that of the 990,000 who requested absentee ballots in 2004, less than 400,000 were actually counted (problems with foreign mail services got most of the blame).
Soetoro-Ng is a Honolulu teacher who is Obama’s half-sister on his mother’s side (after she divorced Obama’s Kenyan father, she re-married an Indonesian man). She will be courting Mexico City’s large American population, many of whom are indeed wealthy enough to afford a couple of plates.
There is also a Republicans Abroad group, which helps Republican ex-pats get absentee ballots for individual states.
Republican candidate John McCain visited Mexico last week, but it’s not clear if Obama will head south of the border before the election.
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July 16, 2008
Next Mexican resort: Tequila!
Tequila. Tacos. Acapulco. In that order, those are the three words that Americans most associate with Mexico, according to a study by Mexico’s National Tourism Confederation. Hoping to take advantage of that invaluable name recognition, the small town of Tequila (the birthplace of the famous spirit) is positioning itself as Mexico’s next major tourist destination.
Officials recently announced a $7 million infrastructure improvement for scenic lookouts, expanded roads, and artistic fountains. Several new resort-style hotels are in the works, hoping to convince tourists to spend the night (most visitors are daytrippers).
I haven’t visited Tequila yet (although I’ve tasted some of the amazing artesenal tequilas available in Guadalajara), but for those of you who have, what do you think of the plan to make it more tourist-friendly?
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July 14, 2008
Mexico on Miss Universe: We were robbed!
The Mexican commentators on Galavision were fuming after the results. “This makes me so mad,” said Eduardo Videgaray immediately after the broadcast ended.
In the aftermath of the pageant, angry Mexican web surfers took their anger out in cyberspace. “Without a doubt they stole the crown from Mexico. (She) had an elegance that the rest of them lacked,” said “Juan” on the Televisa website esmas.com. “Ivy” was even madder: “She was a perfect woman!!! She had everything to be a Miss Universe - height, body, face, intelligence, bearing. It makes me think that POLITICS WAS INVOLVED IN THIS!!!!”
On the Reforma newspaper website, “Ignacio” thundered: “Of course this was fraud! Mexico answered better and had much more class than the Venezuelan.”
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May 29, 2008
Mexican soccer finals set: Texas with a rooting interest?
The Coahuila team, Santos, has a couple Texan links that might make it the “home team” in Central Texas: First of all, it’s among the closest teams to the Lone Star state, as Coahuila is home to border cities like Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuna (Santos actually plays in Torreon, in the south of the state). Secondly a local soccer star, Sonny Guadarrama, played for the team after graduating from Cedar Park High School (He has since been traded to the team in Morelia).
But this may be the last year that Santos gets to claim the local rooting rights. The professional team from Ciudad Juarez just jumped into the top division after years of languishing in Mexico’s second division. Texans hungering for a fix of live Mexican soccer will only have to hop across the bridge in El Paso when the next season begins.
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February 26, 2008
Internal division stalks the Mexican left
Two years later, the Mexican left is consumed by division, an internal fight that threatens to spill out of control and, experts say, weaken the Democratic Revolutionary Party, the PRD, Mexico’s foremost left-leaning party.
How bad have things gotten? This morning we read (subscription required) of death threats received by members of the New Left, a more moderate group of legislators, just days after they were verbally abused at a Lopez Obrador rally against privatizing Pemex. Among those receiving death threats is Lopez Obrador’s former top campaign aide Jesus Ortega, who has broken with his former mentor. “It seems to me that intolerance has no place among those who say they have a democratic stance,” lamented PRD founder Cuauhtemoc Cardenas after the rally. Lopez Obrador has condemned the aggressions.
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February 25, 2008
Mexico ex-pats favor Obama
The results are in for the first ever “Global Primary” and in Mexico, ex-pats overwhelmingly backed Barack Obama. Obama took 56 percent of the vote compared to 40 percent for Hillary Clinton. That was slightly less than the 65 percent to 32 percent whipping Obama gave Clinton in world-wide voting organized by the Democrats Abroad organization.
There are some six million American ex-pats scattered around the world (more than several U.S. states) and an estimated one million in Mexico alone. They run the gamut from executives in Mexico City high-rises, to retirees living the good life along Lake Chapala to surfer dudes hiding out in Puerto Escondido.
The Democrats Abroad will hold their convention in Vancouver, Canada in April to sort out the group’s 22 delegates, who will be attending the Democratic National Convention. As close as this race has been, a delegate from San Miguel de Allende or Mazatlan could cast the deciding vote.
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February 6, 2008
Mexican media: advantage Hillary
Mexican papers, most of them at least, are giving the victory to Hillary Clinton in last night’s Super Tuesday elections, which were followed rather breathlessly south of the border. The front page of the influential daily El Universal features a huge photo of a pumped up Clinton addressing the crowd with the headline, “They voted for experience.”
La Cronica also featured a jazzed Clinton, juxtaposed with a somber photo of Barack Obama looking like his pet dog had just died. The headline was a little more restrained: “Hillary triumphs, but doesn’t deliver the knockout blow.” Both the Excelsior and Reforma newspapers featured large photos of the celebrating Clinton rally, without any visuals of the Obama fever in Chicago.
Only the left-leaning daily La Jornada newspaper took a different approach, casting last night’s primaries and caucuses in terms of Obama’s sudden surge. La Jornada was the only major metro to feature a smiling Obama on the front page and ran this headline, sure to warm the hearts of Obama’s many Mexican supporters: “Obama frustrates Hillary’s Super Tuesday hopes.”
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January 25, 2008
The ultimate half-time show
Hands down, the coolest half-time show I’ve seen in any sport took place last weekend at a soccer game between Mexico City’s Cruz Azul and Santos of Coahuila (which should be the home town team for Austinites given their proximity).
If I had known what was going to unfold I would have videotaped it, so hear goes the written explanation: Two men ran parallel races through an obstacle course. So far so good. In the first leg, the men ran with parachutes strapped to their back, which slowed them up a little. Then they jumped on tricycles and tried to pedal their way across a steeply pitched see-saw (they went almost vertical before the see-saw crashed to the ground). They were then met by hulking luchadores, the famous Mexican masked wrestlers, who tried to keep them from advancing. The men were slapped, kicked, tackled and pile driven. If they managed to make it past the wrestlers, they found a teammate strapped inside a gigantic ball who they then had to roll into the goal while the same wrestlers tried to take out their knees. That, my friends, is entertainment.
Forget grown men in animal costumes doing dunks off trampolines. The Mexican soccer league knows how to do half-time.
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Mexico drug war really is like a movie
“They infiltrate the authorities to create a group with impunity,” said top federal prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos.
The arrested men were found with vests emblazoned with FEDA, an acronym for Arturo’s Armed Forces, a nod to drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva, whose brother was arrested this week.
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