Northern Exposure.

THE RACE FOR MEXICO'S JULY 2000 PRESIDENTIAL ELECtions has begun in earnest. In a sign of the changing times, representatives from ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) toured Texas to drum up support and there was none of the traditional nationalistic outrage at home.

"In the past, it would have been the kiss of death to be thought of as acceptable in a public way to the U.S.," says Rod Camp, a noted expert on Mexican politics at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. "Now, it's almost another legitimizing element."

Certainly, the 70-year-old PRI is keen to renew its image among Mexicans living in the United States, where the party has been much maligned as a bunch of corrupt, electoral cheats. It doesn't help that the PRI-controlled government recently squashed a plan to allow immigrants to vote via absentee ballot in this year's elections.

While party members concede they have some work to do, they stress that the party has changed. "The PRI is not the same party of 15 or even five years ago," said Sen. Romeo Flores, who also serves as the PRI's political coordinator for Mexicans living abroad. "First, we are democratizing the party. Then, we will democratize the country."

Mexico City Mayor Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and Guanajuato Governor Vicente Fox of the right-leaning National Action Party (PAN) have formally announced their candidacies. Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo's apparent favorite, Francisco Labastida Ochoa won the ruling party's first-ever primary in early November defeating strong challenger Roberto Madrazo and long shots Manuel Bartlett or Humberto Roque Villanueva.