Actual Reuters Headline: 'Leftist Raises Hopes in Mexico's Forgotten Towns'

July 2nd, 2006 1:29 PM

With Mexicans going to the polls today to elect a new president, Reuters leaves little doubt as to whom it's pulling for: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party The headline tells you all you need to know, but here are a few choice excerpts to flesh out the picture of an heroic 'leftist' bringing hope to the little people, versus the other major candidate, Felipe Calderon, who is given the shortest of shrift, merely being described once, and then only as a 'conservative.' Nuff said!

  • "When the air reeks of sewage, rain makes your street look like a ploughed field and month-long water shortages mean even bucket baths are sometimes a luxury, a flushing toilet can be a dream worth voting for. A two hour commute from downtown Mexico City on the putrid periphery of a vast urban sprawl, many in this town of housemaids and security guards will vote for a leftist in Sunday's presidential election, hoping he will change their lives." [Intead of a chicken in every pot, a potty in every house?]
  • "Lopez Obrador gave cash handouts to elderly and disabled people and single-parent families as Mexico City mayor. He has promised to spread those programs throughout Mexico while boosting incomes through welfare payments and fuel price cuts." [Nothing like handouts and more welfare to get an economy going!]
  • "Juan Jose Lopez. . . said his elderly father in Mexico City was receiving a pension thanks to the leftist, and said the candidate's humble origins made it more likely he would look out for the poor." Right.
  • "Some already have huge expectations for a better life under Lopez Obrador. 'Our hygiene, our habits, everything would change,' 32-year-old bus driver Oscar Hernandez said, sitting on a dirty sofa outside the breezeblock shack he shares with his wife, as one of his three children filled a bucket for a bath." Yup, nothing like a leftist president to make the kids brush their teeth before bed.
  • "Lucero Nunez, 23, rents two dingy tenement rooms with her accountant clerk husband and two baby sons. 'He promises to raise incomes, he says it on the television,' she said of Lopez Obrador. 'My husband is skeptical, he says seeing is believing, but I believe him ... you can tell he's a man of the people.'"

Seems clear Reuters believes it too.