Politics: How the post-debate plays out
In the first of this year’s presidential candidates’ debates last week Andrés Manuel López Obrador entered as the undisputed frontrunner and unsurprisingly became the target of roughly 70% of all questions and political jabs during the fray. To the extent that he had any clear strategy for the debate it appeared he had opted to try and do no self-inflicted harm, by dodging and ducking his way through the event. His strategy failed.
He was by no means the only one to disappoint. The two independents, who are both polling in the low single digits, either struggled to get a message across (Margarita Zavala) or may have overreached with attention-grabbing proposals, such as the obviously unconstitutional idea of chopping off the hands of all thieves (Jaime “el Bronco” Rodríguez).
The incumbent party’s nominee, José Antonio Meade, also appeared to squander an important opportunity to erase fears he may be slumping into political irrelevance by dodging questions about the highly unpopular administration that is backing his campaign and looking ill at ease while stubbornly sticking to a defense of the more anodyne aspects of his résumé.
The most obvious winner was the National Action Party’s Ricardo Anaya, who had fine-tuned his arguments, deftly managing his allotted time while employing visual aids to bolster arguments that he delivered solidly. He managed to outshine all his opponents more on the strength of his pre-debate preparation than by the depth of the proposals he offered.
He struck a stark contrast with AMLO, who gave the impression of having done nothing to prepare, letting Anaya’s strongest political assaults go unanswered and retreating to well-worn slogans from his stump speeches.
We will have to wait for more polling to determine the extent to which Anaya has consolidated as Andrés Manuel’s clearest and perhaps only real rival. If, as appears likely, Anaya picks up a few more points, including some at AMLO’s expense, and Meade slips further behind, we may be looking at something of a repeat of the 2006 two-man race of AMLO versus the PAN nominee.
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