New York native John Ross said he admires Lopez Obrador's pluck. "This is a milestone," said Ross, sitting in his usual spot at La Blanca Café in Mexico City. An author, poet and social activist, he traveled to the capital in 1985 to write about the devastating earthquake that killed at least 12,000 people. He said he checked into the Isabel Hotel and has lived there ever since. And over the years, he said, he's watched Mexican leftists fight to give a voice to the poor, starting with victims of the 1985 quake. He followed Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the son of Lázaro Cárdenas, the nation's last leftist president, as he faced Carlos Salinas in the 1988 election. The electoral computers crashed while the vote was being counted. Ten days later, Salinas was declared the winner in what many Mexicans see as a stolen election. Lopez Obrador was also cheated, Ross contends. "The only difference between 1988 and 2006 is that the computers are better," he said. tracey.e...