MEXICO CITY — With a little more than two weeks before the July 2 election, new polls show that leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has retaken the lead from conservative free-market candidate Felipe Calderon after a barrage of TV ads accusing Calderon of helping his brother-in-law secure government contracts.
Calderon is campaigning as the so-called clean hands candidate, which makes the accusation -- and the attention it's getting here -- so delicious for Lopez Obrador supporters.
Calderon spent millions on aggressive TV and radio ads this spring painting Lopez Obrador as a shrill demagogue who would spend Mexico into ruin. The ads eroded support for Lopez Obrador while boosting Calderon into first place -- until this week.
On Wednesday, a Reforma newspaper poll showed Lopez Obrador in the lead for the first time in months, reflecting what other national surveys have found this week.
Calderon's ads compared Lopez Obrador to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; one showed the former Mexico City mayor calling President Vicente Fox a "squawking bird." Lopez Obrador's campaign advocates the rebuilding of Mexico through subsidies to the poor and massive public works projects.
"The ad campaign against Lopez Obrador worked, but it was a bubble and the bubble burst," said Juan Pardinas of the Mexico City think tank Research Center for Development. "When the mud sticks, it eventually dries and falls off. Lopez Obrador is back where he was, more or less, before the negative ads."
Lopez Obrador's turnabout began with last week's nationally televised debate, and analysts are divided over whether it was genius or luck.
Most agree that National Action Party candidate Calderon, a lawyer and economist, won the debate against Lopez Obrador and Roberto Madrazo, the Institutional Revolutionary Party standard-bearer who has consistently run third in the polls.
But Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, appeared calm and reasonable, a sharp contrast to the politically dangerous man portrayed in Calderon ads.
More important, the postdebate headlines sprang from a 15-second line delivered near the end of the two-hour face-off. It was a line that Lopez Obrador strategists said their candidate planned to use only if Calderon went on the offensive, which he did.
