L.A. Welcomes Next President --of Mexico

America finally welcomed a president-elect Thursday night--one who sports a mustache and wears size 12 cowboy boots.

Vicente Fox, elected president of Mexico on July 2, flew in to address a Los Angeles banquet of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and to meet with Gov. Gray Davis.

In a downtown hotel ballroom crowded with Latino leaders and luminaries, Fox vowed to forge deep political, social and commercial ties between Mexico and people of Mexican heritage in the United States, especially California.

“Mine will be the first Mexican administration to sincerely honor the ties that bind people of Mexican descent to the United States,” Fox said in prepared remarks. “My goal is to build a relationship of equals, of neighbors, of partners in progress.”

Fox, 58, will take office Dec. 1 for a six-year term following his historic defeat of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

“Today we embrace this new relationship with the president-elect, recognizing we will not agree on every issue all the time,” Davis said.

Both the governor and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante plan to travel to Mexico next month for Fox’s inauguration, Bustamante said, underscoring the improved ties between California and Mexico.

The president-elect, on his first trip to Los Angeles since his election, said he needed the help of both Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals living in the United States to carry out his transformation of Mexico.

During his speech, delivered in English, Fox mentioned several irritants in U.S.-Mexico relations, such as illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

“We will lead the mother of all battles against drug trafficking,” he said.

However, he didn’t mention the execution in Texas on Thursday of Miguel Flores, a murderer whose death sentence spurred outraged protests in Mexico and elsewhere.

The 6-foot, 4-inch Fox, a rancher and former chief executive of Coca-Cola’s Mexico operation, said in Mexico City earlier this week that the tense relations between Mexico and California during the administration of former Gov. Pete Wilson have been “overcome.” Fox said he has “an excellent relationship and friendship” with Davis and Bustamante, and that California “is an excellent partner for Mexico.”

California lawmakers, including Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and county Supervisor Gloria Molina, were equally effusive in praising Fox and his embrace of California.

“The president is here to send a symbol and a signal that the country of Mexico is ready to do business with America, and particularly with California,” Bustamante told reporters.

“We’re going into a different time, a different era, with new leadership. I think people are looking south to Mexico and seeing opportunity instead of looking with consternation.”

Trade has never been stronger between California and Mexico.

Los Angeles’ Latino leaders welcomed Fox’s direct appeal for stronger ties between Mexico and people of Mexican ancestry living in the U.S.

State Sen. Hilda Solis, who was elected to Congress this week, said: “I think he’s very atypical, and that is very positive for us. He knows the value of communicating with the people living here, those here legally and those here not legally.”