Topic: Global Politics
In Mexico's presidential election, the candidate from incumbent President Vincente Fox's party, the PAN or National Action Party, won a narrow victory over leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the PRD or Party of the Democratic Revolution. What is striking in this case, as it was in the United States in 2000 though to a lesser degree, is that the leftists cannot accept that they lost...plain and simple.
Mexico's highest court has recommended that Felipe Calderón be named president-elect, and that the election is over and, though close, was clearly a victory for Calderon. Obrador has claimed "irregularities", and though every election has a few examples of unethical people trying to help one side or the other, the court decided that there wasn't a level of that to warrant another vote as Calderon wants.
When leftists lose, they believe first and foremost that they've been robbed. In the US, in 2000, when Bush won the electoral college and lost the popular vote (which was not the first time in history that happened, 1824 when John Quincy Adams beat Andrew Jackson, 1876 when Rutherford B. Hayes beat Samuel Tilden, and in 1888 when Benjamin Harrison beat Grover Cleveland). Henceforth, from 2000 on, the electoral college, which has been the system of electing the President of the United States since the inception of the union, is now a criminal and immoral way of chosing a leader. Not only that, but the Democrats through accusations of disenfranshisement just for kicks. Gore wanted recounts in only the most heavily Democratic districts, as if that is fair to all in the state and the nation, and so, when refused this un-Constitutional request, he went on to say that African-Americans and other minorities were stripped of their rights simply because Gore only wanted to mine the heavy blue areas of Florida to get him over the top.
When, in 2004, John Kerry lost to President Bush, the Massachussetts Democrat claimed, and still does, that because the state of Ohio was close, that he had been robbed. Because there were touch-screen ballots, exactly what the Democrats wanted out of the 2000 debacle (because the Democratic-designed punch cards confused people), and because the Secretary of State was a Republican, Bush stole that one too. In this case, Bush won the popular vote...this is where Democrats dream of having won Ohio, and lost the popular vote still, and somehow forget their objections to the electoral college).
I have spoken with liberals who say to me that despite the fact that Republicans have won all federal branches of government, the House and Senate, and the White House, and there is a conservative advantage on the high court because of those won elections, they actually speak for the people and are the true voices of the electorate. It is insane. Right now, the Democratic negativity about everything seems to be penetrating, but we are not a parliamentary system. They'll just have to wait until November to see if their "against everything" works.
In Mexico, things are no different. Obrador is threatening to ignore whatever decisions are made by the high courts and election officials because he knows he actually speaks for the people despite the fact he lost the election. He cannot accept that he lost the race, plain and simple, and is going to cause general upheavel to get his way. Terrorism, in a way?
In the United States, Democrats resorted to this in a way, by smearing Bush as stupid at every opportunity, by stonewalling and fighting everything Bush tried to do (even when he did liberal things like Medicare Part D). They have attacked our efforts in the War on Terror, tried to block the Patriot Act and take away the tools to fight terror.
Leftists here and there, all the same.
