The ‘futbol factor’ in Mexican politics

SO FAR, the Mexican presidential race has been about many things -- jobs and immigration, populism versus neoliberalism, and the rival worldviews espoused by Hugo Chavez and George W. Bush.

But when millions of voters here cast their ballots on July 2, the race may turn on a single burning issue: How is Mexico doing in the World Cup?

Calling Mexico “soccer mad” is a bit like calling Don Quixote a wishful thinker -- accurate, as far as it goes, but drastically understated. Futbol permeates nearly every facet of this country’s social life and animates its collective fantasies.

It’s therefore not surprising that theories abound as to how the fate of the seleccion nacional may affect the upcoming presidential contest. It’s also not surprising, given the intense passions that both soccer and politics provoke here, that some of these theories flat-out contradict each other.

In World Cups past, the Mexican team, cursed with repeated bad luck, has performed in valiant but underachieving fashion. But this year’s team has aroused high hopes. Its controversial Argentine coach, Ricardo La Volpe, has practically guaranteed that his squad will advance at least to the tournament’s quarterfinal round, just a couple of days before the presidential election.

This is where the theorizing gets fun.

According to one hypothesis, a strong performance by the Mexican team would benefit Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist Mexico City mayor and candidate of the Party of Revolutionary Democracy, or PRD. Widely known by his initials AMLO, Lopez Obrador is popular with the country’s poorest citizens.

By this logic, Mexican voters -- energized by their team’s upsetting of the soccer status quo -- would be inspired to reject the political status quo in favor of the more revolutionary alternative that AMLO supposedly represents.

Unless, of course, the exact opposite happens.

In a recent opinion piece in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma, sociologist Jose Woldenberg, in the guise of a fictional commentator named Manuel Ensayo Lirico, predicted, “If Mexico is on July 2 one of the four semifinalists, this country will be enwrapped in a wave of euphoria and self-satisfaction that has not been known in decades, maybe centuries.”

In other words, if the team triumphs, it will reinforce Mexicans’ nationalistic pride and create a sense that the country is on the right track. In that case, voters would be more inclined to stay the course, presumably by voting for Felipe Calderon of the conservative, pro-business National Action Party, known as the PAN, that currently rules Mexico under President Vicente Fox.

But if Mexico is eliminated in the first round, according to Woldenberg, the futbol gods will not be kind to the PAN.

Calderon, who according to surveys is running neck and neck with Lopez Obrador, has in recent weeks been eager to link his own electoral fortunes symbolically with those of la seleccion. Two weeks ago, the candidate met with the national team at its training ground and exhorted them to give their all in the upcoming World Cup tournament.

Calderon also drew a parallel between the team’s World Cup aspirations and his own presidential hopes. “I believe in a Mexico of winners,” he said. He has taped campaign ads with several former and current national team members, but he may have lost points with voters when he tried to show off his footwork with a soccer ball and mainly succeeded in looking like a guy who spends most of his life wearing a suit and sitting behind a desk.

Not to be outdone, Lopez Obrador inserted his own World Cup inspirational message into a recent live television interview: “Willpower is fundamental in politics, in sport, in everything.”

But his soccer shtick is suspect. He’s a well-known baseball fan, hailing as he does from the Caribbean-influenced state of Tabasco.

So far, Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, hasn’t sought to capitalize on the “futbol factor.”

And so far, he is in third place in the polls.

Meanwhile, all you Mexican politics junkies, don’t touch that dial. Just keep it tuned to ESPN.