Watching and Waiting (the elections)

All campaigning has stopped now -- under the strict campaign rules in Mexico (so strict, Fox, BBC, Bloomberg at AUTI signals were cut off for a time on Sunday, because the four had forgotten to agree not to show polling results after the cut-off date for any polling) -- as of midnight (a few hours ago), all campaigning had to come to a screeching halt: no TV commericals, no radio ads... no nothing? Not quite. IFE in no way can stop e-mails, bloggers and the 24-7 "spin cycle". Nor, it seems, are they immune to hackers (or maybe... aided and abetted some hackers). It's slightly embarrassing. IFE, (Instituto Federal Electoral) deservedly is respected world-wide, and just today, was held up as an example of their north of the border friends of how to run a clean election. Unfortunately, the admiring articles in the U.S. press appeared the same day the Institute had to admit that PANistas had "somehow" gotten ahold of voter registration data. Of course, they're saying it's minor, though denuncias have already been filed. Reporter Carmen Aristegui ... acting on a tip from some so-far "unnamed source" accessed the data herself, using "Hildebrando117" as her password. "Hildebrando" is, of course, Calderón's inconvenient brother-in-law. Coincidence? Yeah... right! Oh well... que sera sera... they'll be plenty of political news next MONDAY. Until then... I'll just have to look for something else to blather about, even though IFE isn't much concerned with whatever I say.