Caracas Chronicles

I had great fun writing my election Set-Up piece for The New Republic. 

It’s tough writing so many of these without overlap, though. To keep it fresh, this time I tried to lean more on the cancer angle.

How sick Chávez may be is impossible to say. But his bout with cancer inevitably put his supporters in mind of his mortality. Chávez has always been more popular than the government he leads, and Venezuelans intuit that the president may not be able to serve out another six year term. When the big guy is not around anymore, what will be left behind are the institutions he has created. As it turns out they, too, are bloated, lumbering beasts, stricken by corruption that’s metastasized out of all control .

I love the photo they ran with it, though. Talk about Lloviendo Sobre Mojado…