Misconceptions about Mexico

AUSTIN, Texas -- In the two-minute lead-up to the Texas Democratic primary debate, Lou Dobbs was spewing his usual agit-prop comments on CNN against the so-called NAFTA highway.

He claimed the candidates wouldn't touch the issue because it "leaves Hispanic Americans divided as well." The candidates, he suggested, didn't want to upset Texas' all-important March 4 Latino vote.

In fact, Sen. Barack Obama had already admitted in Dallas, "We have to improve our relationship with Mexico so their economy is producing jobs on that side of the border."

During the debate, Obama said President Bush "has been so obsessed with Iraq that we have not seen the kinds of outreach and cooperative work that would ensure the Mexican economy is working not just for the very wealthy in Mexico, but for all people."

In the spin room, after the debate, I asked state Rep. Ana Hernandez, an Obama surrogate, to explain what Obama meant. A daughter of Mexican immigrants whose father was out of a job before leaving long ago, she said flatly, Mexico doesn't have a middle class. "They need to fix the economic policy. The Mexican economy is out of whack."

That part about the middle class seems to be a curious and popular belief. Yet Business Week reported in 2006 that the Mexican middle class grew "to nearly 40 percent of all Mexican households, vs. 30 percent just a few years ago."

Last October, former Mexican President Vicente Fox was in Houston touting his book and bragging about the ascent of the middle class -- after a tragic decline in numbers during the '80s and '90s.

We don't seem to get it straight. Yes, Mexico's growth is too slow. It needs reforms. But the picture we paint is of an economy on the ropes.

This past Christmas, Mexican consumers spent enough money on the U.S. side of the border to increase retail spending about 5 percent over 2006, while the rest of the United States was flat-line or worse. That ought to serve as a real-life reminder how Mexico, our third-largest trading partner, doesn't just take but gives.

There is no need to fake the truth about it. And the mutual issues between us and Mexico don't just concern migration.

It's abundantly clear, for instance, that our illicit drug habits promote crime and corruption in Mexico. So it's important to control lawlessness by bringing our drug habits under control. That is also why it was stunning that Obama sounded like Nancy Reagan mouthing "just say no" in a four-point agenda for talks with Mexico that included investing in anti-drug education on both sides of the border. Huh?

Something more like treatment, decriminalization and taking the economic profit out of drug dealing would make more sense.

Federico Pena, an Obama adviser who served as President Bill Clinton's transportation secretary, told me after the debate that what is needed is to replace Bush's Latin America policy in "a way for all people to benefit."

So far there's not much to show how that's done.

No doubt the intentions are good. But where is the insight? When do the candidates get instructive about the practical reality of life in North America? Are we getting fed more faith than fact? Or are we getting waltzed once more?

I posed Obama's statement to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar. He was in the spin room supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. His Texas district borders Mexico and he was the only one to bring up sovereignty. "They (Mexico) have to come up with their own solutions. Can't tell them what they ought to be doing," said Cuellar.

That night, more people with college degrees were congregated at the University of Texas except for during commencement. This is the place where the world-class LBJ policy school is located. The university has one of the finest Latin American library collections in the world.

Surprisingly, the policy talk was kind of hollow. Timid even.

If, as Obama's people so often suggest, transparency is the path to getting better policy, may I remind them that 7.6 million viewers were watching on CNN and Univision?

(Jose de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. He is author of "The Rise of Hispanic Political Power." E-mail joseisla3(at)yahoo.com. For more stories, visit scrippsnews.com.)