MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Felipe Calderon is often shown in caricature as a small, blunt-featured man wearing an oversized general's cap and a field jacket too long for his arms. The image derives from a photo last winter of Calderon launching his military campaign against violent drug traffickers.
Calderon is indeed a short man with big ambitions, and time will tell whether his reach exceeds his grasp. Political opponents today hope to block him from delivering his first state-of-the-union speech in the congressional chambers, the traditional venue, and force him to address the nation from somewhere else Sunday.
But that is a small obstacle compared with what the conservative president has taken on in his first nine months in office: drug violence, corruption and a tax system that's long been the butt of jokes.
Calderon has also sought compromise with a contentious Mexican Congress and is negotiating a landmark aid package from the U.S. designed to strengthen security ties between the countries and help rescue Mexico's foundering drug war.
Already, he has won approval for changes to social security and has sidelined the charismatic leftist he narrowly defeated in last year's presidential election.
In his state-of-the-union address, Calderon is expected to highlight economic growth and expansion of Mexico's public health system and the fight against drugs.
Though the jury is out on the prospects of his fixing Mexico's many troubles, analysts agree that since taking office in December, Calderon has shown himself a far shrewder politician than his predecessor, Vicente Fox, also of the National Action Party.
"His style is more discreet, more professional, less concerned with the spotlight and more focused on results," said Gabriel Guerra Castellanos, a political analyst and former Mexican diplomat. Compared with the government under Fox, he said, the Calderon administration "makes fewer mistakes, fewer gaffes, fewer foot-in-the-mouth outbursts."
Calderon's campaign pitch was a call for order in the face of rising crime, drug trafficking and what he depicted as leftist chaos. It resonated with a silent majority that recoiled at the demonstrations that swept the capital last summer after Calderon's narrow, and disputed, election win over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
