Venezuela's Chavez: did U.S. give Latin American leaders cancer?

[joshcryer]

105. Personal opinion, following the elections closely.

HCR (Henrique Capriles Radonski) has higher popularity, is governor of the second most populous state, and is running a unification campaign that Hugo Chavez has been cow-towing to in his speeches. The cancer has put Hugo out of the limelight so he's not able to make the kind of speeches he used to make, it's really bad for his campaign.

Venezuela has the cleanest elections in all of Latin America, an electoral defeat would send a resounding referendum against Chavismo. What many people don't realize is that Chavez was originally elected due to high crime rate (about 4k people a year), since his two wins that figure has blown up 4-fold. Iraq is safer.

The Venezuelan's love Hugo because he's a master at rhetoric (even if he says stupid crap sometimes), he used to do cadanas for 6+ hours straight. If Hugo is absent for the campaign, especially as things start to get really hectic (after MUD's primaries are over), it's going to be really interesting.

Put it this way, HCR is almost tied with HC (Hugo Chavez), and he has a purely grassroots movement, whereas HC has the full disposal of the government coffers at his disposal. That's a really big deal.