Posts from McClatchy reporters and editors covering Washington, Jerusalem, Afghanistan and beyond. Go to http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com

'Mexico's out-of-touch candidates'

Mexico unmasked, posted by Tim Johnson on Dec. 18

Mexico's presidential candidates are consistently demonstrating how out of touch they are with everyday matters.

The latest to misstep is leftist presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City. This morning, he told followers that as president he would battle social inequality at the national level with the same kinds of programs employed by City Hall.

"Many people don't know that medical services and medicines are free. Many people don't know that public transportation, the Metro, only costs two pesos here," he said.

Oops. A Metro ticket costs three pesos. Some people in the crowd shouted out "three!" Lopez Obrador then corrected himself, saying it was two pesos when he was mayor "and that's the way I left it." The other day, a correspondent from El Pais, the Madrid daily, asked Enrique Peña Nieto, the presidential candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, what the minimum wage was in Mexico. He said 900 pesos. It actually is 1,740 pesos a month (about $135). This error came just days after he couldn't name three books and their authors who had made an impact on him.

'Has Venezuela's Chavez lost his love for Twitter?'

Inside South America, posted by Jim Wyss on Dec. 20

Since joining Twitter less than two years ago, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has attracted more than 2.3 million followers. That's more Twitter groupies than any other sitting president except for Barack Obama (11.6 million), and puts the Venezuelan leader at No. 139 on the global ranking, according to Twitterholic.

He got there by being a compulsive and amusing tweeter. He has posted more than 1,380 times and often breaks news on the site.

But lately, he seems to have lost his love for the format. The last time Chávez posted on his account was Nov. 22, when he announced a price-control law.

Over the weekend he visited the new mausoleum of Latin American Liberator Simón Bolívar, and today he traveled to the Mercosur meeting in Uruguay. Usually such events would have generated a torrent of tweets. (Chávez followers may recall his live-tweeting of the exhumation of Bolívar's remains last year.) The only other time Chávez has lapsed into such Twitter silence was from June 4-24, when he was undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba. His current absence in the Twitterverse led to a fresh bout of speculation a few weeks ago that he had had another health scare, but he squelched those rumors with live appearances.

As Chavez heads into a tough presidential race, we'll see if Twitter remains part of his electioneering arsenal.

'Obama's surprisingly good 2011'

A Different World, (Opinion blog, Myrtle Beach Sun News) posted by Isaac J. Bailey on Dec. 30

This is something that the tea party and its supporters need to understand: The leverage that group gained in the November 2010 election is about to expire in the next couple of months. If the tea party is still thinking about getting through major budget cuts for the long haul, they'd better use that leverage in January and February, because after that, the political winds and policy leverage go back to the left.

Major tax increases and big Pentagon spending cuts are on tap at the beginning of 2013 – and that is if Congress does absolutely nothing – and there will be no tax or entitlement reform in return. The Democrats don't have to negotiate on any of that, they just have to let them expire. And because of that awful compromise this summer, the debt ceiling won't need to be raised any time during 2012, which removes a great deal of the power the tea party had in 2011.

The tea party, at its purest and best, I believe, is that it wanted the country to get serious about its fiscal stewardship. That's a necessary and even noble pursuit, but they've allowed themselves to become so rigid and so partisan that they lost the forest in the trees. It's not too late. They still have a good deal of influence in Washington, even after the payroll tax cut debacle, but it will be going away pretty soon if they don't use it wisely. If the tea party really wanted to do something about long-term spending, it will have to understand that compromise is a necessity, not a dirty word.

'A rally in Wukan'

China Rising, posted by Tom Lasseter on Dec. 17

Leaders of the local uprising in Wukan held a rally in downtown today – a regular occurrence since police and officials abandoned the village in the face of local anger over allegations of massive land grabs. I shot a quick video of the crowd doing call and response before the main speakers took the microphone.

The crowd made sure to praise the Communist Party of China and ask for help from the central government. It also screamed that local officials are corrupt and demanded that their land be returned.

It's not at all clear what will happen here. For the time being, the fact that an entire village has gone into revolt in a nation known for strict social control is remarkable.

Photos at http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/china/ .

'Track Santa around the globe'

Tech Junkie, posted by Matthew Fortner on

Dec. 23

The North American Aerospace Defense Command takes Santa seriously, offering special technology to the world to monitor Santa's deliveries around the world. Once a year NORAD tunes its tracking technology on St. Nick, tracking his path around the globe as he delivers Christmas cheer to the children and the young at heart. NORAD says they use a complex system of special Santa radar, satellites, Santa cams and escort fighter jets.

You can monitor Santa's progress here: www.noradsanta.org.

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