PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto took 38 percent of the vote in a three-way race. Pena is Hollywood handsome, and his wife is a soap opera star. With the help of largely favorable media coverage, especially from television, he leveraged just enough voter disenchantment with Calderon's war on drug cartels to defeat two weak opponents. ...
The PRI's legacy of corruption and violence, however, already tags Pena. ...
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, have publicly expressed concerns that the PRI will not fight the drug cartels but accommodate them. ...
Military historian A.A. Nofi, who has written on the historical impact of the Mexican Revolution, said that the concern is legitimate. "An important reason for the PRI victory was Pena's pledge to revamp the drug war," Nofi told me after the election. "But the current bloodletting is rooted in the 71 years of PRI control. The PRI mired the country in corruption. Systemic corruption helped fuel the rise of the drug cartels. If the PRI has managed to clean up its act, then progress in the drug war may be possible. If not, Mexico is in for more violence, at some point in the future."
Could Mexico's northern states bordering us degenerate further into lawlessness?
How many troops to we have in Fort Hood, anyway?
