"How about defending posters of Hitler?"

Interesting choice of questions. That's exactly what the ACLU did, years back, in Skokie, Illinois, when it defended the right of the Nazis to march. It's one of the things that defines commitment to free speech: defense of the right to say even that which we disagree with. How about you? Would you ban posters of anyone? If so, who? And... how?

I even defend your right to "hang your poster" freely here; heck, I provide you the uncensored space to do so, where you are read exactly for what you say. It is a hubris particular to the way your ego is structured that you fantasize that you cause me or anyone else here hysterics. To the contrary, I appreciate your playing of Mrs. Teasdale to my Groucho Marx, as a manner of deepening my arguments based on facts, while keeping it all entertaining enough for others to follow.

Anyway, defense of the rights to speech and the rights of the poor to speak through the ballot box is the same thing. I would hope that a guy who puts writing for soft-porn mags on his resume would understand the importance of defending all speech.

As for the economic trends in voting in Mexico 2006, you are demonstrably wrong when you claim that the vote was, economically, "all over the map."

Just look at any map of how Mexico voted: the poor south and centers went one way and the wealthier north went another.

There is a direct correlation between per capita income and the choice. It can be read by state (Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, with the poorest per capita income, went overwhelmingly to Obrador; Nuevo Leon, Guanajuato, etcetera, with the higher per capita income, went overwhelmingly to Calderon).

Another observation came today from Fox's press secretary, when saying, as evidence that social programs no longer buy votes, that among the 100 impoverished municipalities targetted by anti-poverty programs, 77 of them voted for Obrador.

You can see the difference in how the vote was cast at every level: wealthier precincts in any given city voted for Calderon, poorer ones voted for Obrador. The class divide is exactly what has occured here, except that the PRD had to share the majority poor vote with the vestiges of the PRI, whereas Calderon received the votes in the upper one-third of economic strata. I remind you, not any candidate got anything close to a "majority" so you ought to check your assumptions and revise them. It is ignorant to claim that if 30-something percent of voters went for the Wal-Mart candidate that you therefore have "Wal-Mart Mexicans in the majority."

Take a stroll through IFE's own results and check the poor states, cities and towns against the wealthier ones; it is the most obvious and stark defining factor of the election.

The only variable is how much of the poor, region by region, voted for PRD and how much voted for PRI. But the PAN got defeated by landslide margins in every impoverished region. And the PRD got defeated by landslide margins in every wealthy one. That is objective fact. Its the same as Venezuela, except that you seem to want to believe that Mexico has more economically comfortable people.

And this leads us to another factor that is emerging: a great number of the PRI voters are also upset about the Election Fraud. And I think you will see heavy social unrest in those regions, too (look at what happened in Comalcalco, Tabasco, where PRD and PRI combined got 95% of the vote; a near riot the other night when IFE officials started unsealing ballot boxes illegally), if the State persists in trying to shove a fraudulent result down the nation's throat.