The odds, King Lear and the New York Times...

As always, "XicanoPwr" provides an excellent overview of the Presidential election saga on his blog, ¡Para justicia y liberdad! If I'm reading the Jornada article right, the "re-caluclated" votes, and with a good number of ballots nullified, the difference between PAN and Por el bien de todos, the difference between the two candidates is STILL a mathematically improbably 0.58% difference! 239,751 votes looks to me to be too close to say for certain that Calderón did win. Even if his victory is ratified (and I'm assuming it will be), the PRD coalition is the real winner... having gone from a regional third party (except in Mexico City) to THE opposition. With AMLO being painted as a sore-loser in the pro-government media (like Televisa) and in the U.S. press (this is one of the few times I've seen the Washington Post and "freerepublic.com" singing from the same hymnal), he may become semi-irrelevant. So did Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, after his "loss" to Carlos Salinas. However, Cardenas begat Lopez Obrador,and modernized the left, making them a relevant party, and a real opposition. It also led the way to a PRD enclave in Mexico City. Sure, there were problems with Cardenas' administration in the city -- mostly caused by the Federal Government's bone-headed attempts to discredit the PRD (but only served to discredit the country -- and damage the city), mostly by starving it of the funds it needed to fix 622 years of top-down management. Lopez Obrador's Mexico City showed that the PRD can credibly administer the country. IF the PRD coalition did lose (which will always be an open question), it doesn't mean they're dead. The Mexican left is alive and well -- and I'd argue stronger than ever. Alfredo Navaez, "Citius64" has an interesting take on the situation. He quotes (in English) an editorial on the election from the New York Times (I'll link to Citius... somone complained once that I was breaking some sort of rule by linking directly to a subscriber-only NYTimes article ... which is bull-shit, of course. This site is licenced to reprint those articles for educational and discussion purposes. Anyway... if you've got a complaint, take it up with citius64, not me). More interesting still, is his comparison of AMLO and Lear. Not that I necessarily agree, but given what I wrote before about AMLO, as a "loser" becoming somewhat irrelevant to the future Mexican left... I give citius64 credit for making a connection those of us with English degrees (and from English speaking countries) are supposed to make. Will Mauricio Ebrard turn out to be Regan, Goneril... or Cordelia... or.... will something else happen? I honestly don't know.