Mexico Trucker Online

MEXICO CITY — Locked in a dead heat with the former mayor of this city one week before voters go to the polls, presidential candidate Felipe Calderón made a bold statement on his rival’s home turf. He packed this city’s Aztec Stadium with at least 110,000 people.

It was the biggest rally for any candidate so far, and it seemed to put an exclamation point on a nearly nonstop campaign tour that has taken the 43-year-old former energy minister to each of Mexico’s 31 states.

The crowd, rallied by confetti cannons, hundreds of balloons and tens of thousands of flags emblazoned with his party’s colors, gave the event the feel of a U.S. Republican Party convention on steroids.

“It is full, completely full — incredible,” businessman Ernesto Segundo, 50, said from the top row of cement bench-style seats as he surveyed the crowd filling a stadium better known for historic soccer matches.

Calderón, a conservative, is running neck-and-neck with populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was wildly popular as Mexico City’s mayor — a post he left to run for president.

López Obrador, who contends Calderón is only interested in maintaining a system that serves the wealthy and keeps down the poor, will have the chance to show the kind of crowd he can turn out when he wraps up his campaign Wednesday in this capital’s historic central plaza, known as the Zócalo.

Meanwhile, Calderón was all but swallowed up by the cavernous stadium and giant stage, but with his voice booming through speakers and his image projected on giant monitors, he urged supporters to think of their children and think of the future of Mexico.

“Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat its tragedies,” he said, implying that López Obrador’s policies would send Mexico back to the days of a plunging peso and an even tougher economy.

Calderón, accompanied by his wife and young children, touched on a range of standard themes, from creating jobs to tackling crime to protecting the environment.

He sought to sell himself as a president who would unite the country and continue in the same direction as outgoing President Vicente Fox, whose 2000 election tossed out a ruling party that had run this country like a dictatorship for 71 years.

“I am prepared professionally and spiritually for the job,” said Calderón, whose father was a founder of his National Action Party. “I have prepared all my life.”

The event, which drew busloads of people from across the nation, spoke to diversity among Calderón supporters.

Among them were not just his stereotypical middle-class supporters, but people from varied economic backgrounds, including countryside peasants.

“I think we’re going to win,” said José Gerardo Romero Esparza, 16, who although he isn’t old enough to vote, rode a bus all night from the western state of Jalisco to attend the rally.

This was Calderón’s last scheduled appearance in Mexico City before Sunday’s election.

Under Mexican law, Wednesday is the last day candidates can campaign.

Some of the toughest talk of Sunday’s rally came from Demetrio Sodi, who is a member of Calderón’s party and is running for Mexico City mayor.

“This has been the worst government in the history of Mexico City,” Sodi told the crowd, referring to López Obrador’s performance as mayor. “López Obrador is a threat to the nation.”