ABSTRACT
Mexico's stability depends in large part on the image of an all-powerful Senor Presidente. In Mexico, the office of the presidency is not the same abstract, autonomous entity it is in the United States. One may criticize Mexico's corruption, her electoral fraud, her rigidly hierarchical social, political, and economic structures, and her disparity between the haves and the have-nots. The road to success in Mexico is not solely paved with hard work, frugality, and wise business and professional decisions—as is the case of the North American myth, as exemplified in the Horatio Alger stories. The old boys club that had the voice in Mexico under the official political umbrella until 2000 was often dubbed the "revolutionary family," so named by Frank Brandenburg in his seminal study before Mexico took its authoritarian turn in 1968. The revolutionary family up to and into the 1970s seemed to possess assets that most ruling elites in developing countries lacked.
