Those conservatives upset about the position of President Bush on the immigration issue need to understand that there are two equally important elections in the latter half of 2006, the American general election in November and the Mexican presidential election in July.
Those conservatives upset about the position of President Bush on the immigration issue need to understand that there are two equally important elections in the latter half of 2006, the American general election in November and the Mexican presidential election in July. Mexican was long a one party state, governed by the hopelessly corrupt PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), and the election of Vincente Fox six years ago as the candidate of PAN (National Action Party) was a double victory for those of us who want Mexico to become a prosperous, friendly, free and democratic nation.
First, the PAN victory meant that the one party system which was an effective dictatorship had been broken. This destruction of PRI rule is complete. Polls for the July Mexican presidential election show that the PRI candidate is running a slow third in public opinion polls. The more Mexico remains a real democracy, the better for us.
Second, PAN is the most conservative (or least Leftist) of the Mexico political parties in the new and real multi-party political system of Mexico. That does not mean that Fox or PAN will embrace pro-Americanism, market forces, low taxes or everything that the Republican Party would also want (certainly the Democrat Party in the United States does not embrace pro-Americanism, so we cannot complain too much), but PAN by far better for America than any other political party in Mexican history.
Opinion polls had been showing for years that the next president of Mexico was going to be Manuel Lopez, the Marxist Mayor of Mexico City. He, too, is not a member of PRI, and the very fact that Lopez and Calderon, the PAN candidate, were running ahead of the PRI hack indicates that multi-party democracy has truly taken root (i.e. the PRI machine is broken.)
Now Calderon is running ahead and opening a significant lead in the July 2, 2006 Mexican presidential election. This is very good news for the United States, the Mexican people, and for decent people all over the world. Once that July election is over, President Bush will have a great deal more flexibility in dealing with immigration problems than he does today.
President Calderon will be able to insure greater cooperation between the United States and Mexico on three key issues: terrorism, immigration and oil. Because Mexico allows a single six year term for the office of the president, President Calderon at the beginning of his term can take politically unpopular positions which will, in the long run, yield major benefits to Mexico and other emerging democracies.
He will be able to afford to work more closely to control the border with America both in terms of limiting the illegal immigration and also working to prevent and to expose terrorism planned for the United States. What makes this particularly helpful is that this will be only a few months after Stephen Harper became the Conservative Prime Minister of Canada with a much more sympathetic attitude toward fighting terrorism and controlling illegal immigration. That means that the United States will receive additional executive support from both of its territorial neighbors very quickly and before the November 2006 elections.
Beyond that, Calderon will be able to help keep oil production in Mexico high and prices low, putting more pressure on those nations hostile to America but dependent upon oil dollars to do the same. The happy election of a Conservative Prime Minister in Canada, which is also a major producer of oil and gas, will enable President Calderon to reduce the power of Chavez and friends to blackmail America.
Although it is sometimes hard for Americans to understand, it is profoundly in our interest to have Mexico blossom into the same sort of successful Latin nation that Spain has become, that Costa Rico has long been, and that Cuba once was (before Castro) and will become again after Castro’s trip to the smoking zone of the eternal hereafter. Mexico, with a good government or a better government than it has had in the past, will become over time a magnet for those who truly want to be Mexicans to return home (just as Italian-Americans have, when they wished, returned home to Italy.)
Once Calderon is in office for six years, the entire complexion of our most pressing political issue, immigration, will be much harder for Leftists to use to incite anger in America against conservatives. July 2, 2006 is a very important day. Watch it closely. Like elections in Germany and Canada, this is an “under the radar screen” election, but one that can change geopolitics overnight.
Bruce Walker has been a published author in print and in electronic media since 1990. He is a regular contributor to WebCommentary, Conservative Truth, American Daily, Enter Stage Right, Intellectual Conservative, NewsByUs and MenÕs News Daily. His first book, Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie by Outskirts Press was published in January 2006.
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