http://www.reforma.com/

Great sites.  Thanks for a terrific service none of the Corrupt Corporate Media are providing.

So uh, I someone want to explain this election? Who should I be rooting for?

What's funny as a kid growing up in El Paso, TX, we always had a saying "No puedes ganar el PRI"/ "You can't beat the PRI" when someone is being stubborn or unwilling to move. It's amazing to see a minor party come from nowhere to being a front runner and 2nd (according to Univision right now).  Lopez Obrador has done amazing things in Mexico City and hope he wins.

Doesn't look like that site is posting like they said they would.  Results are coming in at

http://media.economista.com.mx/html/Prep Federal.htm

Fox is on national television in Mexico right this minute urging calm -- official sampling too close to call. Won't have confirmed final results until Wed. This is an extraordinary moment.

I'm on the border in far West Texas, sitting with a former U.S. state department official in Mexico who maintains a keen interest in U.S./Mexico relations. Never seen anything remotely like this.

The Economista website has access to regional results.

You can see that Obrador's support is strongest in the South and Center (Mexico City), while the PAN has more support in the North and the East coast (Monterrey). No single region is dramatically lagging in results reporting, so it is hard to tell which candidate might have votes behind the damn.

Obrador has more or less declared himself the winner, though he says he is pledged to abide by the official results. In his speech in Mexico city, he said his campaign believes they will win with about 500,000 votes.

I'm having this translated for me in real time from Mexico. But I watched Obrador, and that is what he said.

Calderon is now on Mexican t.v. live declaring that he won. Says he's been ahead from the start, and that they will be ahead at the finish.

We are in San Diego watching Mexican TV all night.  My Mexican husband is worried that something fishy will happen- there has been no convincing explaination of why results will take until the 5th to be confirmed.

Lopez Obrador made it very clear that he expects to win.  He has a very strong following behind him.  Calderon said so far the numbers have confirmed that he in fact is the winner- seems that if the numbers change this will make it difficult for him to argue that the numbers are wrong.  

If on Wednesday Calderon is the winner I agree with my hubby that things could get very ugly.  Unlike here where people are incredibly naive (The Sect. of State of Florida actually was the co-chair of the Bush campaign and "independently" decided Bush won? No problem.) Mexicans do not have faith in their institutions- with good reason.  A lot of media organizations may be wishing they would have followed this story a little more closely in the last months. (DUH!)

I watched the results from the early 50% returns to 60% return, and based on that trend, where it went from:

50.79%
Felipe Calderon (PAN) - 37.93%
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (PRD) - 35.83%

to

60.43%

Felipe Calderon (PAN) - 37.62%
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (PRD) - 36.09%

It would be projected out to (at 100% with a ~.05 move per 1%):

Felipe Calderon (PAN) - 36.38%
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (PRD) - 37.13%

It looks like, based on the 10% returns that I saw of Calderon winning by 5%, that PAN must have gotten a big absentee vote bounce? But anyway, assuming that the 50-60% returns match-up with the remaining 40% to return, Obrador will win handily.

65% counted: Obrador 36.2% Calderon 37.4%

Rememeber this is by popular vote and not some constructed electoral college.

The strongest state for López Obrador is the Distrito Federal (central Mexico City) and 90% of the precincts have already been counted there.

Other central states that are mildly for Obrador like the Estado de México (suburban Mexico City) will not produce strong enough margins to matter.  

In the very poor southeast states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, Obrador will run up another two hundred thousand vote margin as returns come in slowly (expect these largely rural and technologically unsophisticated states to finish counting last).  In the rich, oil company dominated Tabasco, Calderón's outright calls for driving corruption out of the oil industry and Obrador's insider connections will drive a giant margin for Obrador, probably adding another hundred thousand or two before the night is out.  Madrazo was gobernador of  Tabasco or else Obrador would win 80% there all by himself.  (Is it alright if I don't feel comfortable in bed with the oil guy?  It's a Bush thing.)

And maybe the rural folks in Chiapas and Oaxaca will be even more reformist than city voters.  They have taken the worst of central government abuse over the past generation.

In the northern states where Calderón dominates, there are a lot of precincts still out.  In Jalisco (home of Guadalajara, México's second city) 30% of precincts are still out and Calderón is winning by a dominant margin.  Similar proportions of precincts are still out in Chihuahua (Juarez City) and Baja California (Tijuana City) where Calderón's free market economic program is overwhelmingly popular among all socioeconomic classes.

In the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon (home of Monterrey, México's third city) and in the central region of the Bajio, the Blanquiazules (the PAN -- Calderón's party) are even stronger than in Jalisco and Baja but 80% of the votes are already counted.

I have to predict a widening margin for Calderón from here out.  The small remaining DF vote and southeastern states will not be enough to win this.  When we look back over it, we'll see that the focus on middle class urban lifestyle liberals in the DF was almost but not quite enough to win the presidencia.  Obrador needed an economic platform that could woo a much larger margin among the lower income suburbanites of the Estado de México and the upper income suburbanites of Morelos.  And Obrador needed to reassure businesses in the large cities outside the DF, especially on the border with El Norte (that's us) that he wouldn't cut them off from their markets.

Just writing that makes me feel so ... Clintonian.

In some poor rural precincts there is still a lot of vote to come in from the southeast.  In Ocosingo (Chiapas) where I meet a lot of people who don't get enough services in their towns to have a phone line or even electricity only a few percent of the vote is counted.

three days ago.

(I'm just sayin'.)