By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times, January 8, 2012

First, he struggled to name a single book he'd read, except for "parts" of the Bible. Then he couldn't quote the minimum wage nor the price of the omnipresent tortilla.

The man who would be the next president of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, is not off to a good start.

For months, the election of Pena Nieto had taken on an air of near-inevitability. The handsome politician with the TV star wife consistently leads polls by seemingly insurmountable margins.

But with the campaign now taking shape in earnest, Pena Nieto has stumbled badly in a series of embarrassing, well-publicized gaffes that raise questions about his mettle as a candidate.

Mexicans will vote in July to replace President Felipe Calderon, whose six-year term has been plagued by violence and drug cartel warfare that have left as many as 50,000 people dead. Many voters are looking for a change. Calderon is barred by law from seeking reelection.

Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico with an iron fist for seven decades until being unseated from the presidency in 2000, has positioned itself to return to power. Maintaining that it has reformed from its corrupt ways, the PRI has won several governorships and legislative offices to rebuild a formidable party machinery and push laws favoring its election bid. READ...