Mexico's Election Teaser: Who's the Most Macho?

Aspirant alpha-male Al Gore may want to recruit some campaign staff from Mexico: With leading presidential candidates Vicente Fox and Francisco Labastida running neck and neck in the polls ahead of Sunday’s election, both men have been tapping the testosterone to lift them over the top. Their economics aren’t all that different, although Fox, the candidate of the right-wing National Action Party, has more leftist advisers and more populist programs than Labastida, the man tapped to lead the Institutional Revolutionary Party, an oxymoron that describes its nine-decade monopoly on power. But with up to 20 percent of voters still uncommitted going into the election weekend, the result may boil down to a question of style. And swagger.

Put the two men side by side, and there’s no question who you’d want backing you up in a barroom brawl. Fox is a six-five bruiser who oozes physical self-confidence; Labastida at five-ten comes across as something of a wimp — not least because he’s perceived as clinging to the skirt of his powerful and intelligent wife, Maria Teresa, who has drawn comparisons with Hillary Rodham Clinton. When Fox some weeks ago punned on Labastida’s name, dubbing him "La vestida" (meaning "the dressed woman" or "the skirt"), he started a machismo bidding war that has made the campaign look like a "Saturday Night Live" skit.

Days after Fox’s insult, Labastida chose a nationally televised debate to splutter that he was as macho as anyone, and that the insult to his masculinity was improper. But the tenor, and even the fact of this protest left many viewers unconvinced. (Perhaps he ought to have taken the matter outside, there and then...) But the PRI came back swinging, days later, circulating a pamphlet questioning Fox’s masculinity on the grounds that "he couldn’t even sire his own son" — a reference to the candidate’s adopted children. The ruling party also spread rumors that the reason Fox had left his wife was that he’d been cuckolded.

Fox shot back with an attack ad questioning Labastida’s sexuality, depicting him lifting another PRI candidate by the thighs and including a clip of male strippers performing at a rally for a regional PRI candidate. But in a sign of the growing power of gay and women voters in a traditionally macho culture, Fox’s campaign quickly retracted the spot.

Labastida’s party hasn’t confined its attacks to Fox’s cojones. They’ve also been into his bank accounts, with the help of the police, in a bid to show that he’s getting money from abroad. They’ve also taken to questioning the patriotism of a man whose mother is originally European and who spent years in gringo employ.

The negative campaigning, though, may be a sign of Mexico’s maturing democracy. After all, it’s not as if the presidency has really been up for grabs in 90 years.