Felipe Calderon?

It looks like the American "mainstream" is more to the right than the Mexican right.

Right off the bat, he slashed his salary and those of other top officials by 10 percent and said the money would go toward social programs, adopting in one fell swoop one of his leftist rival’s favorite campaign promises.

Fine. But he's pretty wealthy anyway. And so is his government.

Then Mr. Calderón introduced a budget that slashed spending in his office and the Interior Ministry while raising spending steeply for public security and health care.

Hmmm. Redirecting government spending toward the public welfare....Didn't we end that in the Reagan years?

Finally, on Thursday, the president used his first out of town trip to highlight the poverty in Guerrero State and announced a program to pump money into 100 of the poorest towns in Mexico.

He said closing the gap between rich and poor would be one of his top priorities. “I know the enormous debt that Mexico owes to marginalized people and that this debt should be paid with acts of the government,” he said.

Huh? A debt to "marginalized people" that should "be paid with acts of the government?" This guy was the right-wing candidate in Mexico?

As my wife, Mary Pat, said, "Can we get him to be President up here?"