Chavez re-elected

If you think things have been rough for the right wing in the U.S. lately, it's even worse for their Venezuelan counterparts.

By a smashing margin of 10 percentage points, Venezuela's left-leaning President Hugo Chávez was re-elected today. Chávez faced a tough challenge from Henrique Capriles, who also claimed to be a champion of the left. I'm skeptical of Capriles's claim though, because observers say he is ideologically on par with Bill Clinton. Are they talking about the same Bill Clinton who signed the Republicans' job-killing Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was in effect a bailout of right-wing talk radio? The same Bill Clinton who gutted the Glass-Steagall banking law?

Chávez has lots of supporters who are willing to stand up for their candidate - as well they should. They weren't about to let the right-wing establishment drag Venezuela into a political civil war the way the Republicans have done in the U.S.