In a state where immigration is a central issue, the economic and social relationships between Arizona and Mexico are important. And yet unknown to the average Arizonan, a close and definitive presidential election - a primary determinant of how Mexico intends to go about solving its problems - is raging in Mexico.
In light of the current campaign's importance, it is worth investing a few minutes to set the backdrop for the current struggle for Mexico's soul.
Many Americans are familiar with the mythology surrounding the Mexican Revolution: vague images of Pancho Villa and bands of rifle-laden Robin Hoods. Fought throughout the 1910s and 1920s, the Mexican Revolution was a struggle in which idealism and ideology were quickly converted into opportunism and self-serving savagery.
Various warring factions reconciled, as the story goes, in the form of a political party, the National Revolutionary Party.
Themes included the demand for a liberal democratic constitution, the state seizure of land from wealthy landowners and the redistribution of this land to the peasantry and strong public education. All of these were actualized to some extent in the post-Revolutionary era.
But the movement shifted in a way that can be summed up in the name the party holds today: the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or Institutional Revolutionary Party.
As the decades rolled along, the PRI grew increasingly intolerant with individuals pushing for civil liberties (founding principles of the revolution) and reliant on corrupt patronage networks.
By the 1980s, the PRI was embracing economic doctrines that were negotiated with the likes of former presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and that economic neo-liberal everyone always seems to forget, Bill Clinton. This bred disillusionment, to say the least. When democratic-socialist PRI members broke away in 1988 to form the Partido de la Revolucion Democratica, or Party of the Democratic Revolution, they were widely considered to have won the election. Through shameless fraud, the PRI held onto power.
Almost two decades later, while the PRD continued to promote a left-wing vision of Mexican social democracy, the Partido Accion Nacional, or National Action Party, ran on a platform of clean and open government in 2000, led by the charismatic Vicente Fox Quesada.
Fox won comfortably and has made a valiant effort to reform Mexican government. He should be commended for at least attempting to fix the problems of his country. (Consider his predecessors who often ignored these problems and concentrated on accumulating personal fortunes.)
If the 2000 election proved that democracy can function in Mexico, the 2006 election is all about defining the direction Mexico should now take.
The PRD is nominating Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico City mayor and beloved left-wing populist, for president. AMLO, as he is known, is running on an anti-poverty platform that is taking direct aim at the capitalist tendencies of President Fox and the PAN.
Meanwhile, seeking to remind voters that they are a party known for ethics and for opposition to the PRI, PAN is nominating former Energy Secretary Felipe Calderon Hinojosa on the same reformist credentials that worked so well for Fox in 2000.
And the wildcard is Roberto Madrazo Pintado, the notorious godfather of the aggressively opportunistic, "dinosaur" faction of the PRI. Madrazo, who once fraudulently defeated AMLO for the governorship of the Mexican state of Tabasco, arose as the leader of the PRI following its 2000 defeat.
When pundits predicted the collapse of the PRI, Madrazo has been successful at the local level in recreating his party as an authoritarian-leftist alternative to the PAN and PRD. And he is attempting to use charisma and broad language to take back the presidency.
The polls currently give a slight edge to AMLO, which means anything can happen between now and next summer's election.
Joaquin Rios is a political science sophomore. He can be reached at joaquin.rios@asu.edu.
