The Making of El Presidente

Asalto a Palacio: Las Entrañas de una Guerra (Storming the Palace: The Entrails of a War)
By Guillermo H. Cantú
369 pages, Mexico, F.D.: Raya en el Agua-Grijalbo, 2001 (in Spanish)

It now seems like another world when, in early September 2001, Mexican President Vicente Fox swept Washington off its feet with his bold immigration proposals, forceful speeches, and charismatic persona. Just a year removed from his landmark electoral victory, Fox appeared poised to transform U.S.-Mexican relations and stake out his place on the world stage. But in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Mexico has slid down the list of American priorities, and Fox’s ascendant star has lost some of its luster, both at home and abroad. Faced with declining approval ratings and an economy estimated to register zero growth in 2001, Fox has discovered that governing Mexico is not nearly as easy as campaigning there.

A bestseller in Mexico since its publication in June 2001, Storming the Palace reveals how Fox ran an American-style campaign to win a Mexican-style election and topple the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Authored by Guillermo H. Cantú, a successful entrepreneur and close friend of Fox, the book provides a glowing defense of the virtues of marketing and polling as methods for grasping and holding on to power. Yet, unwittingly perhaps, Storming the Palace also demonstrates that Vicente Fox understands marketing better than politics. Fox’s governance style, wherein image trumps substantive policy, suggests that Mexicans may be offered little more than democracy lite.

Guillermo Cantú reveals how U.S. political strategist Alan Stoga (formerly with Kissinger Associates) advised Fox to sell "The Big Idea of Vicente" during the campaign. After seven decades of PRI rule, Fox had to think big and he had to think different. As a candidate, the former Coca-Cola executive crisscrossed the country auguring 7 percent annual economic growth and unbounded prosperity. He waved the banner of "change" and vowed to make it happen. At the same time, however, Fox consciously eluded easy classifications. He staked out a position one day and embraced its alter ego the next; he catered to the right, then flirted with the left. If some Mexicans wanted more privatization, Fox agreed to carry it out; if others demanded more social spending, Fox promised to become the president of the poor. He was an earthy, plain-speaking, protopopulist one week, a market-friendly, business-oriented capitalist the next. Fox lacked the constraints of a clear ideological party platform, and his shifting stances blurred his own party’s socially conservative, center-right ideological profile.

Fox rode triumphantly into Los Pinos (the presidential residence) mounted on "The Millennium Project," a campaign manual and political road map devised by one of Fox’s closest friends and former Coca-Cola colleagues, José Luis González. The document set forth how Fox ("the product") would be packaged and sold to the Mexican public. "The Millennium Project" gave Fox precise instructions on how to steal banners from the left and contain the right, how to take advantage of his height (he is 6 feet, 4 inches tall), what to wear and say, and even how to comb his hair. Advised by expert marketers, Fox developed a winning profile — stubborn and persistent, informal and intemperate, simple and sincere. Vicente Fox beat the pri by gambling on a simple formula: Marketing + Money = Presidency.

Today, Fox uses the same credo to govern the electorate he so assiduously courted. Like most postmodern politicians, the gladiator from Guanajuato relies heavily on polls, data processing, image management, and marketing. First at the helm of the newly created Office of the Presidential Image and now with the Office of Social Communications of the Presidency, Francisco Ortiz, a former marketing executive with Procter & Gamble, takes the country’s pulse through weekly polling. When the president’s popularity dips, quick measures — including a televised marriage ceremony or a quick visit to the Vatican — are taken to counteract any downward trends.

In his former life as a Coke executive, Fox could focus on marketing with little regard for the product’s underlying fundamentals — the formula. And as a presidential candidate, he could pitch himself in much the same way. As Storming the Palace proves, Fox ran a histrionic, media-driven campaign that allowed the product to be all things to all people. As president, however, Fox lacks a clear grasp of the political bartering necessary to transform positions into policies. In other words, now the formula matters. The more Fox appeals directly to the populace for support on his pet issues, the more Mexico’s legislators (including those from his own party) make him pay the price for ignoring them.

For example, Fox promised a Chiapas peace process in "10 minutes" and developed an indigenous-rights bill, only to discover that his party had no appetite for either initiative. He launched a marketing campaign in favor of fiscal reform but forgot to build a supporting coalition in the National Congress first. Ignoring party leaders in order to sway public opinion may work in countries where elected representatives are responsive to their constituencies. But in Mexico, members of the legislature cannot be reelected, so their destinies depend less on the will of the people than on party bosses. In this setting, Fox’s direct-marketing strategy is a non-starter, and his record of accomplishments is sparse. Peace in Chiapas remains elusive, fiscal reform is bogged down in Congress, social programs are at a standstill, the economy is grinding to a halt, and the president still spends more time promoting himself than getting the job done.

Fox has faced mounting accusations of frivolity. Instead of focusing on critical negotiations to assure passage of a fiscal reform bill, Fox went on a whirlwind tour of Europe where he spent more time posing for the cover of Spain’s society magazine ¡Hola! and sporting his new patent leather boots than promoting investment. After the October 2001 assassination of Mexican human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa, Fox commuted the sentences of two imprisoned environmental activists — whose cases Ochoa had been overseeing — in an effort to defuse domestic and international criticism. The move was emblematic of his government’s attitude: The pardon generated applause and provided a good photo opportunity but offered no real solution to Mexico’s deeper problem of impunity.

Ultimately, Storming the Palace shows how Vicente Fox adapted Mexican political campaigns to the information age. But the strategies that allowed him to topple the PRI may not be enough to assure successful democratic governance. Via a personality-driven campaign that focused on "change," Fox assembled a politically heterogeneous and ideologically divergent coalition; now he must learn the messy arts of negotiation and compromise. Fox won a majority of votes but not enough to avoid a divided government in which his party does not control Congress. The president’s main challenge today is not how to sell himself but how to make democracy work. Those who voted for Vicente Fox endorsed his call for change — better economic management, less crime, and less corruption — and they expect him to deliver. Perhaps Fox should heed the counsel of his campaign manager, José Luis González, who told him before resigning halfway through the race: "Good presidents have never been loquacious." Vicente Fox stormed the palace; now he must prove that he knows what he is doing there.