While discussion of illegal immigration has been all the rage in Utah of late, the elections in Mexico drew hardly a peep.
It would seem if drugs coming across the border are part of the reason we are so outraged, then those Mexican elections should have at least raised our eyebrow.
They reflected the problem.
In the state of Chihuahua, drug gangs intimidated voters by hanging four bodies from bridges on election day. In the state of Tamaulipas, a candidate for governor, Rodolfo Torre, was assassinated, supposedly by the drug cartels, the week before the election.
In Mexico, we have a land ruled by one party of vice and corruption for 71 years until a man from another party won a historic presidential election in 2000. Hoping they were shedding themselves of those years with that presidential election, people celebrated the ouster of the ruling party with fanfare equal to that of winning a World Cup.
Yet another president was elected to a six-year term in 2006, this one swearing to fight the drug cartels. His failure in that endeavor is seen in his low approval ratings, and in that his party fared poorly in elections this year.
The old ruling party, the PRI? It won 9 of the 12 governorships.
The drug cartels' reflection in these elections was clear. And, the drugs of Mexico spill across the U.S. border, pouring into a lucrative market that will remain lucrative unless we secure our border against them.
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