Upcoming Mexican election.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City and until recently the odds-on favorite to win Mexico's July 2 presidential election, promises to cut government spending while launching new welfare and public works programs to aid the poor. Lopez Obrador (popularly known as AMLO, an appellation he has adopted on his own website) is a radical leftist who many observers believe would lead Mexico into political alignment with Cuba's Fidel Castro, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Brazil's Lula da Silva, and other Marxists who have taken power throughout Latin America. Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) reportedly has seen intelligence reports confirming that AMLO has received funding from Hugo Chavez. With Mexico and Venezuela providing over one-third of U.S. oil imports, a Chavez-AMLO oil axis would not be a calming prospect for American energy users.

AMLO has struck a more moderate image in the past few months, especially since Felipe Calderon, the candidate of President Vicente Fox's party, PAN, began hitting on his Marxist bent. But he is an extremist. The Peoples Weekly World, official newspaper of the Communist Party USA, for instance, regularly writes glowingly of AMLO as the best hope for Mexico. And it notes that, "The PRD [Party of the Democratic Revolution] was formed in 1989 by left-wing elements of the PRI, the Communist Party of Mexico, and other left and progressive groups."

Lopez Obrador's program calls for massive government "infrastructure" building projects, to be constructed with U.S. financial aid.