ELECTION/MEXICO/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “In 2006, Andrés Manuel López Obrador lost his first presidential race by a hair. He refused to concede, and in a surreal ceremony donned a presidential sash and declared himself Mexico’s legitimate president. Earlier, in a fiery speech in the capital’s historic square, he cursed Mexico’s governing institutions…Now the 64-year-old leftist nationalist is weeks away from an election in which he is making his third run for the presidency. Polls make him the front-runner, and hint at a possible landslide. The prospect has split the country, terrifying many of Mexico’s top businessmen and electrifying many average Mexicans who are fed up with the country’s politics-as-usual of unbridled corruption, sluggish growth and skyrocketing violence…On the campaign, Mr. López Obrador has said he would treat President Donald Trump with ‘caution and respect.’ The two men share more than a few traits: Both are highly gifted marketers and economic nationalists with an instinct for overturning political convention. Mr. López Obrador has found common ground with the U.S. president, agreeing that the new Nafta should lift Mexican workers’ wages. Mr. López Obrador has also promised to respond in kind if Mr. Trump persists in belittling Mexico—even vowing to engage in Twitter warfare with the U.S. president. In his strongest comments about Mr. Trump during a speech last year in Los Angeles, Mr. López Obrador said Mr. Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric was racist, xenophobic and ‘neo-fascist.'”
-Juan Montes and José de Córdoba, “‘Tropical Messiah’: A Trump-Style Politician Is Mexican Presidential Front Runner,” The Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2018 10:11 am