Mexico Is Making Changes

MSNBC News reported yesterday that Mexico is trying to create as many as a million jobs this year--right there in Mexico.

Mexico is working hard to create jobs so that its people do not have to emigrate to find work and expects to add up to 1 million new jobs this year, Mexican Economy Minister Sergio Garcia said Thursday.

He said employment growth and ebbing population growth in Mexico should ease immigration into the United States, where hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated on May Day in response to moves to crack down on illegal immigrants.

“The most important solution is the generation of employment in our country,” Garcia told a news conference during the World Congress on Information Technology.

Well, it's about stinkin' time! Did they just now figure this out? OK, I'll take a deep breath and go on.

There's more cheery news out of Mexico, this reported by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer yesterday. President Vicente Fox will be leaving office this fall. Mexican presidents only serve one six-year term and can't run for re-election.

He wasn't expected to win his party's primary, let alone surge ahead in the latest poll for the presidency. But soft-spoken, conservative Felipe Calderon has managed to overtake his charismatic left-wing opponent, and suddenly the campaign is looking like a roller coaster.

Harvard-educated Calderon, 43, touts free-market reforms, conservative fiscal policies and job creation so that Mexicans won't have to cross illegally into the United States to look for work. He is the candidate for outgoing President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, but is more socially conservative than Fox. He strongly supports his party's anti-abortion policy and cites Scripture during stump speeches.

Calderon wasn't Fox's first choice as successor. The two butted heads in 2004 when Calderon began openly campaigning to replace Fox while serving as his energy secretary. The spat led to Calderon's resignation.

Last fall, many expected Interior Secretary Santiago Creel to win the nomination, but Calderon quietly united the party behind him.

If Felipe Calderon wins on his pro-life, free-market platform, it could bode well for the job situation both here and in Mexico. Which could bode well for our illegal alien problems. I'll have to start keeping an eye on the campaign and counting down to the day Vicente Fox leaves office.