This just in from Mexico: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist populist mayor of Mexico City, unequivocally denies he is another Hugo Chavez. I don’t think he’s telling the truth, he is running for president after all, but how interesting it is, in his quest for votes, that he feels a need to deny any association with Hugo Chavez. Obviously, word has gotten around in Mexico.

This corresponds to another story, seen yesterday about views that Chile’s OAS candidate has received the ‘kiss of death‘ by getting Hugo Chavez’s endorsement. Clearly some kind of critical mass is building in this hemisphere. Nobody outside Iran’s mullahs and Zimbabwe’s Mugabe likes or wants to be seen with Chavez, or be like Chavez. The hemisphere’s leaders are backing away from him like pepper from salt in a bowl of water.

The Mexican cartoon I posted earlier, on Chavez being ‘frivolous and stupid’ is more proof of this as well.