Fox Barnstorms Across State

Mexican President Vicente Fox made good Thursday on his campaign pledge to govern his country for 118 million people--the 100 million south of the border and the 18 million of Mexican blood who are living in the United States.

Like any good politician tending to his constituents, Fox spent the second and last day of his California visit chatting with primary school children in San Fernando, wooing investors at a downtown Los Angeles hotel, launching technology projects and charming thousands of migrant farm workers in the hinterland.

Traveling with Gov. Gray Davis throughout his five-stop trek from Sacramento to Santa Ana, Fox traded on his political legitimacy as the first opposition candidate to win the Mexican presidency in 71 years. And he staked his claim to the “democracy bonus” flowing from his hard-won victory--a new willingness among Californians to treat Mexico as a mature, equal partner.

Davis, who at times seemed ignored while the 6-foot-4 Fox commanded all the attention, lavished praise on the Mexican leader, telling an audience at UCLA that Fox is a “humanist [whose] generous spirit is farsighted.”

At the university ceremony, Davis and Fox inaugurated a broad-band Internet 2 link between UCLA and Mexico’s national university that will give all Mexican universities access to the vast University of California online library system.

Fox said such technology partnerships will help Mexico overcome huge deficiencies in education and skills development.

“We lost a lot of time in the last century, and we’re lagging way behind,” he said. “Sometimes you wake up and get desperate when you see what are your real possibilities of overcoming these backlogs. . . . But fortunately, technology allows these big jumps ahead. And this is basically what we are after in Mexico.”

Fox shared personal experiences revealing the close ties between California and Mexico. After being given a sculpture done by a UCLA faculty member, Fox recalled: “I have received two gifts from UCLA. My nephew, who is 3 years old, is alive today because of help from the medical center here. Also, a child I found on the streets is back in good health thanks to treatment here. This is more of a gift for me than I could ever expect.”

At an earlier luncheon, the governor did his own bit of stumping, reminding the audience that in his inaugural address, he had promised to put aside past animosities with Mexico and rebuild the countries’ relationship. After all, Davis said, 12 million of California’s 34 million people are of Mexican descent.

Mexico has become increasingly valuable to California, Davis said, having overtaken Japan as the state’s No. 1 foreign market, with exports up 43% in the last two years.

“Our relationship is flourishing, people are making money, there is more commerce, there is more understanding, there are better feelings. We’re making progress on all fronts,” Davis told the town hall group.

The group threw a banquet for Fox in the ballroom of the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, and nobody seemed too upset that he arrived more than an hour late. Stylishly dressed guests cheered, “Viva Presidente Fox!” One woman shouted, “We love you, President Fox!”

The former Coca-Cola executive dazzled the ballroom crowd with pro-business talk of a new Mexico open for trade and providing opportunities.

“We have an obligation to make sure each citizen has the opportunity to overcome poverty, that every kid has the opportunity to go as far as he desires,” Fox said, speaking in English and ignoring his prepared text. “We are making sure that we have a country where peace and tranquillity are a way of life, where corruption and impunity are eradicated and where the rule of law prevails.

“The best business you can do is Mexico,” Fox said to applause.

The president began the day with a stop in Fresno to meet with Mexican migrants, whom he has hailed as heroes rather than scorned as sellouts, as past presidents have done.

Fox, a rancher from Guanajuato, a state that has produced many migrants, embraced those at the gathering, promising to work to get them the right to vote by absentee ballot as early as the mid-term federal legislative election in Mexico in 2003.

And they embraced him.

They streamed into downtown Fresno from the farm towns of the San Joaquin Valley--grape pickers from Parlier, tractor drivers from Tulare and cotton irrigators from Corcoran, a caravan of dusty vans and battered cars.

The long line to see el presidente began to form outside the city’s Exhibit Hall in the dark of morning, a familiar hour for the men and women who work the fields of America’s most productive farm belt.

Leopoldo Duenas slept in until 6 a.m., put on his boots and cowboy hat and drove 55 miles from Huron, one of the poorest towns in the state. He said he came to hear the leader of a country he still considers his own, even though he has spent the last 40 years moving from harvest to harvest, from Washington to Nebraska to California.

“I am a Mexican and I am an American . . . and he has come to help the people,” Duenas said. “This is a very important visit for all the farm workers.”

If not for the shiny floors and dim lights of the fancy hall, Fox’s Fresno visit might have been mistaken for a good old-fashioned field rally of Cesar Chavez and his campesinos. The crowd of 2,500 was made up of men in green John Deere hats and women raising the black Aztec eagle flag of the United Farm Workers union, along with Mexico’s tricolors and signs that read “Amnesty Yes, the Bracero Program No.”

Davis used his introduction of Fox to announce that the California Endowment, one of the state’s largest health foundations, had pledged $50 million to develop programs to improve the health of the state’s farm workers.

Fox told them he admired their dignity and the quality and productivity of their work. If in the past they they had been made to feel like turncoats for grabbing a chance on this side of the border, Fox said, he regarded them as the finest ambassadors of Mexico’s culture and work ethic.

“You are the cultural engine, the permanent ambassadors of Mexican culture,” he said. “You are important, believe me, you are very important. In addition to missing you, we are very grateful to you.”

Fox concluded his trip with a quick helicopter journey to Santa Ana, where about 5,000 people thronged the streets to dedicate a distribution center for Mexican products.

Then, like any good California politician, he returned to Los Angeles to dine with Hollywood personalities and Beverly Hills moguls.

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Smith reported from Los Angeles and Arax from Fresno.

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More Inside

Day in Pictures: A look at Vicente Fox’s day in and around the Southland, B2

Laura Bush Visits: First lady launches her education campaign in a visit to a San Fernando elementary school, B7