The newspaper El Universal reported last week on an Internet campaign devoted to saying horrid things about the girl. She is mocked on Facebook groups with names like "I hate Mariana, the PRD girl."
Some critics apparently don't like her voice. Others say they're sick of seeing her everywhere. ("The only thing left is for her to show up in the bathroom," one sniped.) Some of the commentary is politically motivated; others, flat-out racist, are based on the girl's vaguely Asian looks.
A PRD spokeswoman told El Universal that the girl represents values the party supports, including honesty, transparency and renewal. But enough is probably enough. After the vote, the spokeswoman said, the youngster "will go her own way."
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It may seem risky to play up an inconclusive drug war that has claimed about 11,000 lives. But President Felipe Calderon's PAN is doing just that, airing campaign spots that show video of drug traffickers being arrested and piles of marijuana and cocaine seized.
Will the ads remind voters of just how violent a place Mexico has become since Calderon declared war on traffickers in late 2006?
Or will they convince Mexicans that, as the spots say, the administration is protecting their children from the scourge of drugs and violence as no government before it?
Pollsters say the PAN seems to have succeeded in painting the war as a winning -- or at least courageous -- battle. Public support for the administration's anti-crime crusade is high.
But foes say the PAN has politicized the drug war by accusing its main competitor, the PRI, of colluding with traffickers and, on the eve of elections, by rounding up 30 local and state officials on suspicion of having ties to cartels in Michoacan state.
Almost all belonged to rival parties.
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ken.ellingwood@latimes.com
Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report.
