Mexico City Mayor Hits the Campaign Trail
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer
Monday, May 30, 2005
(05-30) 01:36 PDT MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) --
In Mexico City, Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has sky-high approval ratings, a strong political party and hundreds of thousands of supporters who took to the streets in protest when the government tried to stop him from running for president. But here in the country's third-largest city, where many like their steaks sizzling and their politics cool-headed and conservative, he has Jose Manuel Cardona — and little else.
"We're going against the grain," said Cardona, a 43-year-old lawyer and accountant who directs a 300-member citizens' committee in support of Lopez Obrador. "Of course you'd like more sympathy and support, but there isn't much."
Lopez Obrador's biggest challenge on his road to the presidency will be winning over voters outside the capital of this diverse and often politically polarized nation.
The mayor's Democratic Revolution Party is popular in Mexico City and has captured governorships in the southern state of Guerrero, in Zacatecas to the north and in central Michoacan state, as well as in sparsely populated Baja California Sur. Lopez Obrador hails from and is still popular in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.
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