Former Mexican President Fox Gives Nod To Hillary Clinton

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox virtually endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a Friday speech in Storm Lake. When asked about U.S. presidential politics, Fox replies, “Maybe the lady that is campaigning here will deliver. We hope so.”

Fox’s remarls came during a provocative speech/panel discussion before an estimated crowd of 900 students, faculty and others at Buena Vista University, Fox guffawed when the name of anti-immigration crusader Tom Tancredo emerged in a question, and told white western Iowans that many of the Hispanics living and working here simply want to cash in on higher wages in the United States and return to Mexico or Latin America. The latter opinion runs in direct contrast to a just-released study from the Pew Hispanic Center.

Friday evening, Fox, who served as president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006 and broke the stranglehold of 71 years of single-party rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, was scheduled to speak two more times on the campus of this northwest Iowa private college. Fox is another in a long-time of distinguished speakers to visit the campus of part of the William W. Siebens lecture series. He held a news conference earlier Friday and fielded questions from Iowa Independent and other reporters, most in English but one in Spanish from the western Iowa newspaper, La Prensa.

Earlier in his remarks to the Buena Vista University crowd Fox allowed that most men who have served in political office anywhere in the world fail to deliver on all their promises.

“Maybe the lady that is campaigning here will deliver,” Fox said. “We hope so.”

When pressed on that (by a BVU student), Fox — who also made the veiled endorsement in earlier remarks — didn’t invoke Clinton’s name but he said women have a “different character” and “vision” that may be the prescription for what troubles many nations.

“Maybe it’s because having kids is something very, very special,” Fox said.

He added, “They will do whatever is necessary to ensure the future of their kids.”

Later, when asked directly what he thought of the presidential campaign of GOP Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo Fox asked a student panelist to repeat the name of the candidate. When he recognized Tancredo, Fox said a long, “ahhhhh” and waved a hand dismissively.

“He shouldn’t have a Spanish name, Tancredo,” Fox joked. “It’s an offense to all of us in Mexico.”

In the bigger picture, Fox advocated an economic system for the Americas that he envisions as operating something akin to the European Union. He said the United States clearly has a labor shortage and that a younger Mexico with a “mature” United States, in the demographics of age, have complementary economies. What’s more, Fox said, many of the Hispanics working in this nation and hailing from foreign places just want to make enough to live more comfortably in their homelands and aren’t viewing America as anything more than a wage-earning weigh station.

“They don’t want to stay here forever,” Fox said.

Fox was also scheduled to be in Storm Lake Saturday morning for a community meeting on the campus of this heavily Hispanic community.  There were rumblings in the press room about protests during the community event set for Saturday — some anti-immigration and perhaps some from Latinos who may feel Fox didn’t fight hard enough in his dealing with President Bush on behalf of Hispanics of Mexican descent. Campus officials said they did not expect any issues but would nevertheless be “ready” for them.