Coahuila, the Minnesota of Mexico?
What is it with the Coahuila PRI? The PRI is supposed to be making nice with the conservatives at PAN. Instead, we had Coahuila legalizing gay “civil unions” (pushed by the PRI, but opposed by PAN and PRD), and now the PRI Governor, Humberto Moreira Valdés, defending AMLO!
The last Coahuila Governor to get really pissed at the Feds and go over to the left — like Governor Moreira — was also part of the 
traditional establishment (Carranza’s big problem with the Portfirian government is it took so damn long for the guys above him to die off, and he was stuck as Monclova’s Presidente Municipal forever, until Madero’s revolution made him interim governor).
And, Moreria, like Carranza, has to deal with the crazies who wanted to “seal the border” (though, in our day, the Texans know the “seal the border” guys are nuts).
So, maybe it isn’t all that odd that those independent minded Coahulense, like Minnesotans, do the unexpected. I’m not going to push this very far, but Minnesota supposedly solidly supports the establishment parties, but then does it’s own thing. Coahuila, despite being one of the norteño states (allegedly pro-business and pro-U.S.) has Communist-run cities (Acuña) , lefty preachers (Archbishop Vega) and the State parties don’t follow national trends… after all, in Coahuila, it was the PRI that backed gar marriage, and the PRD and PAN that opposed it.
Or, I suppose, it could just mean that PRI still hasn’t decided if it’s a party of the left, or a junior partner to PAN. Moreira may just be chomping at the bit, as Carranza was in 1910… and facing a neo-liberal federal government that isn’t seen as meeting popular demand. Maybe Coahuila isn’t Minnesota…. maybe it’s Coahuila.
but
mexfiles.net 
Don’t sell the PRI short. They’re experiencing a revival in the provinces that will vault them past the PRD and possibly even the PAN in the 2009 midterm elections. As for 2012, they already have a few governors that could be described as presidential material – most notably State of Mexico Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto.
In contrast, who does the PAN have? Juan Camilo Mourino and his family’s fishy Pemex contracts? Party president German Martinez? Please. Or, even worse, Jalisco Gov. Emilio Gonzalez Marquez, the same guy who just forked over 90 million pesos to the Archdiocese of Guadalajara – sorry, it’s A.C. – for the construction of a two-billion-peso temple in suburban Guadalajara. The party is in trouble – and they know it.
The PRD has AMLO, but his negatives are sky high. Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard would have to break with AMLO to get the nomination – thus creating even more discord in the party. Maybe Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy? He has feet in both the Cardenas and AMLO camps.
But I wouldn’t bet against the PRI, even though the party unfortunately still has a tendency to rally around losers like Puebla Gov. Mario Marin – the guy that got away with trying to railroad journalist Lydia Cacho – and Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz, the troglodyte governor that sparks months of riots in 2006.
The PRI has the best organization, a better electoral track record since its 2006 debacle than its rivals, and idiot opponents that keep making even more PRI success possible.