It could happen here?

Imagine if you had read this lede on the Saturday following the first Tuesday in November 2004:

WASHINGTON DC - Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry made it clear Saturday he won't go down without a fight, calling on a gathered multitude to join him in nationwide protests as he tries to prove to the courts that he was defrauded in last Sunday's election.

Speaking before hundreds of thousands of party supporters, Kerry, with his running mate John Edwards at his side, told his supporters across the nation to join him in launching a National March for Democracy beginning Wednesday and vowed to prove he was the winner in the photo-finish balloting.

That's what many of us wanted to read, but didn't.

Flash forward to Mexico, 2006.

Apparent loser in Mexican presidential election disputes results

By Kevin G. Hall

McClatchy Newspapers

MEXICO CITY - Mexican presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador made it clear Saturday he won't go down without a fight, calling on a gathered multitude to join him in nationwide protests as he tries to prove to the courts that he was defrauded in last Sunday's election.

Speaking before hundreds of thousands of supporters dressed in the yellow and black of his Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Lopez Obrador told his supporters across the nation to join him in launching a National March for Democracy beginning Wednesday and vowed to prove he was the winner in the photo-finish balloting.

Granted, for the former mayor of one of the worlds largest cities, "hundreds of thousands" of supporters doesn't sound like much (I haven't checked other sources for crowd counts yet). But here's a guy who sees something that looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, and calls it a duck.

Although he didn't provide much detail, Lopez Obrador said party lawyers would begin filing complaints Sunday in five regional electoral courts that belong to the TRIFE. Those regional courts immediately pass challenges to the presidential election up to a supreme electoral tribunal in Mexico City. Lopez Obrador has until Monday to bring all challenges to the TRIFE.

While we worked toward the January 6th, 2005 deadline for Congress to certify the Electoral College results, the article states that Lopez Obrador has until September 6th for the Mexican Federal Electoral Tribunal (TRIFE) to certify the results.

And just like Bush, even though the results are not certified, Lopez Obrador's opponent is already acting as if he owns the place:

On Friday, Calderon held a news conference with foreign correspondents and assumed the air of a president-elect. His camp has started publicly discussing transition issues and cabinet positions. He tried to make it appear as a fait accompli that he's Mexico's next president.

Kevin G. Hall's report reads like a flashback, a bad dream, but it stands out among the reports I've read, as it focuses completely on Lopez Obrador's dilemma. I doubt that it is a coincidence that it reads like a historical report of the US presidential election of 2004. Other media outlets have reported on the Mexican election with the standard deference to the status quo of the "ruling class".

But perhaps the traditional media in the US will ultimately learn a lesson from the great divide currently facing our neighbors to the south - one can only hope.