Mexico's Sinking Front Runner.

Byline: Jorge G. Castaneda (Castaneda, a former foreign minister of Mexico, is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American Studies at New York University.)

Mexico's July 2 presidential election has all of a sudden become a tossup. Polls before last week's debate already showed a close race; former front runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's decision to forego the debate clearly hurt him and confirmed his decline. The question is how Lopez Obrador managed to lose a 10-point lead in barely more than a month,

and what rising star Felipe Calderon from the National Action Party (PAN) can do to consolidate and broaden his support among Mexican voters.

Hubris obviously hurt Lopez Obrador. He refused to participate in the first of two scheduled debates by claiming that his wide lead justified his staying away--just as it justified his recurrent absence at all business-organized events. He has grown exceedingly disrespectful toward still- admired President Vicente Fox, repeatedly urging him to "shut up" and referring to him as a cackling bird. He never responded substantively to Calderon's charge that he was a Mexican version of Venezuela's Hugo ChAvez, dismissing the issue by simply saying he had never even talked to ChAvez on the phone. And he surrounded himself with the former aides of two of Mexico's most unpopular figures--former presidents Luis Echeverria and Carlos Salinas--though his own party warned him against doing so.

But arrogance and disrespect for the electorate are not sufficient explanation. One underlying reason for Lopez Obrador's collapse lies in his failure to move to the center and separate himself from the more radical stances and factions of his Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), his allies (many ultraleft radical groups in Mexico City) and his foreign sympathizers (Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia). Mexico remains a terribly conservative country. Mexicans desire change only sporadically and in small doses, and they generally loathe stridency, confrontation and clean breaks with anything.

Lopez Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, has failed to consummate this metamorphosis from left-wing rabble-rouser to centrist statesman because his base would not let him. Those supporters are too extremist, too numerous and, in a nutshell, too intent on revolution. They are a minority (not more than 15 percent of the electorate) but a significant one, highly ...