Teachers trash Mexican political party offices in regional capital

By Luis Enrique Martinez

ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) - Angry teachers on Wednesday attacked offices of Mexico's main political parties in the capital of the southwestern state of Guerrero to protest against an education overhaul, breaking windows, spray-painting walls and starting fires.

Dozens of teachers opposed to President Enrique Pena Nieto's new education reform ran riot in the city of Chilpancingo, trashing installations of his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the main opposition parties.

Police were nowhere to be seen.

Television footage showed masked protesters throwing chairs, papers and plants out of the upper floors of the PRI offices in Chilpancingo as others destroyed images of Pena Nieto and sprayed colorful graffiti about him on the walls of buildings.

Teachers in Guerrero, home to the popular beach resort of Acapulco, are fighting the legislation that aims to revamp the country's failing education system by imposing tougher oversight of teaching standards and cracking down on abuses.

The law takes away control of teacher assessment from a powerful teachers union and seeks to end the practice of teachers passing on posts to relatives or simply selling them.

Teachers have been one of the most militant groups in Mexico in recent years, periodically causing major disruptions in some states during efforts to force through change.

"We need to avoid the law of the jungle imposing itself, chaos and the breakdown of public order," PRI chairman Cesar Camacho said, pledging to investigate the unrest.

Images from Milenio Television also showed protesters armed with sticks attacking offices of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which also backed the education reform.

The footage showed people had set fire to a building next to the PRI complex. It was unclear if it belonged to the party.

Milenio's website quoted Chilpancingo Mayor Mario Moreno as saying the city lacked the means to take on the protesters. "We've already asked for federal assistance," he said.

Previous demonstrations in Guerrero have shut down main roads in the state, which is already suffering from a wave of violence that spawned vigilante-style "community self-defense" groups.

The groups have taken the law into their own hands, rounding up who they see as suspects, including police, and prompting criticism the government is no longer in control of some areas.

Guerrero state police said elements from the self-defense groups were among the people attacking the political offices.

The protests in Chilpancingo kicked off after Guerrero's state congress on Tuesday rejected demands from the teachers to amend the education bill, which involves constitutional changes that must be approved by Mexico's state legislatures.

To escape disruption from the protests, the state congress moved this week to Acapulco, which last year became the murder capital of Mexico with more than 1,000 homicides reported.

Pena Nieto signed the education law in February. Lawmakers must still draw up separate legislation to implement it.

(Additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Simon Gardner and Mohammad Zargham)

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Mexican teachers attack political party offices

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) -- Striking teachers in Mexico's Guerrero state attacked the offices of four political parties and a building of the state's education department Wednesday after the legislature approved an education reform without meeting their demands.

Dozens of teachers carrying sticks and stones smashed windows, spray-painted insults at President Enrique Pena Nieto on walls and destroyed computers and furniture. They set fire to the state headquarters of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and another building.

No injuries were reported as the teachers, some masked, ran wild after a protest march in the state capital of Chilpancingo.

Minervino Moran, a spokesman for the strikers, said the attacks were in response to the approval by Guerrero's legislators of legislation similar to a recently adopted federal education law that requires teachers to be evaluated and that seeks to remove control over hiring and firing from the teachers' union.

"We as leaders and as a movement endorse these actions because there is a lot of anger, a lot of outrage with the decision the (state) congress made," said Moran, a spokesman for Guerrero state's Education Workers Union.

The 20,000-member group went on strike in Guerrero state, where the resort city of Acapulco is located, shortly after Pena Nieto signed into law the sweeping education reform two months ago. Its members have since staged increasingly disruptive protests, including blocking the main highway connecting Mexico City to Acapulco.

Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre said in a tweet that prosecutors had issued arrest warrants for Moran and another union leader because they were the "masterminds of the acts of vandalism that took place today."

Television footage showed teachers trashing each of the buildings without the intervention of authorities.

Aguirre told Radio Formula that police didn't try to stop the attacks because officers were busy guarding the government palace and legislature building.

The national education law was seen as Pena Nieto's first major legislative victory after taking office Dec. 1. The constitutional amendment eliminates Mexico's decades-old practice of allowing the buying and selling of teaching jobs, and replaces it with a standardized national teaching test.

That's heresy to a radical splinter union of elementary and high school teachers in Guerrero, one of the country's poorest and worst-educated states. The teachers claim the test is a plot to fire them all as a step toward privatizing education, although there is little evidence the government plans that.

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Pots or fireworks? The symbols of Venezuela's political divide

By Andrew Cawthorne and Girish Gupta

CARACAS (Reuters) - Split down the middle over an acrimonious election, Venezuelans are squaring off en masse every night at 8 p.m. on the dot in a cacophony of noise from rival factions.

Supporters of opposition leader Henrique Capriles bang pots and pans in a traditional form of protest used in some Latin American nations in times of political crisis.

"Let's show our anger with pots, not with our Venezuelan brothers," said Capriles, urging followers to stay peaceful as they demand a recount of a vote that gave a narrow win to Nicolas Maduro, protégé of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

On the other side, government supporters launch fireworks into the night sky to try and drown out the "cacerolazo," as the opposition protest is known for the Spanish word for stew pot.

At the designated time, Maduro backers also play recordings of Chavez singing nationalistic anthems at full volume, and songs by the revolutionary folk singer Ali Primera.

"Music, lots of music, and fireworks into the sky at 8 p.m.," Maduro said in a speech. "If they are calling for a 'cacerolazo' of hate and intolerance, then we call for a great Bolivarian fireworks party."

Maduro, who like his mentor Chavez takes inspiration from Venezuela's independence hero Simon Bolivar, says opposition leaders are planning a coup against him.

Election authorities gave him a slim victory with 50.8 percent of votes in Sunday's ballot, against Capriles' 49.0 percent. Maduro is to be sworn in on Friday.

The nightly noise, which rocks Caracas and other cities for half an hour or more, symbolizes the bitter division of the nation of 29 million that became deeply polarized under Chavez.

As well as banging pots or launching fireworks, residents also scream insults into the night from apartment windows, and honk car horns in the street.

"Maduro, you're illegitimate! You're a thief!" residents shouted from the balconies of an apartment building in Caracas' upscale Sebucan district on Tuesday night. Children appeared alongside the grownups in some balconies and windows to bang pots and pans.

The raucous, competing demonstrations recall the most turbulent times of Venezuela's recent history, including the months before a 2002 putsch against Chavez when the city shook with noise every time he took to the airwaves.

Chavez died last month of cancer, and had named Maduro as his preferred heir.

Government supporters sneered at the opposition protests as a feeble showing by Venezuela's wealthy elite.

"They're simply damaging their expensive pots, that's all!" said Gloria Torres, 51, a community activist in Caracas' largest slum, Petare.

"This is a war of the classes, those who support the loser are mainly rich folk out in their new cars, while the real people are out supporting Maduro," said Eduardo Bravo, 23, a government supporter in eastern Anzoategui.

(Additional reporting by Girish Gupta, Editing by Daniel Wallis and Doina Chiacu)

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Political consultants celebrate themselves at Washington gathering

By Samuel P. Jacobs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - This is a golden era for political consultants - well, except for those Republicans still smarting from the November elections.

But Americans' political tastes tend to run in cycles, so there is always a mix of hope and wariness when consultants at both ends of the ideological spectrum gather, as they did in Washington last week, to toast the profession's top operatives.

Five months after Mitt Romney was thumped in the race for the White House - a loss that some placed at the feet of the small group of men and women who advised the Republican presidential challenger - the meeting of the American Association of Political Consultants threw together Democratic and Republican operatives who have dedicated their lives to undoing one another's work.

Even those whose clients lost in November feel they have plenty to celebrate in a business that boasts of increasing sophistication as well as profits.

In a video message played at the conference's Hall of Fame luncheon on Thursday, President Barack Obama paid wry respects to an industry that is populated by over-the-top personalities but seen by many Americans as fathering the bitter and costly ways of U.S. politics.

"There is nothing political consultants love more than celebrating their own genius," Obama said.

The 2012 election left many of the Republican campaign professionals feeling less like geniuses after their candidate was outmaneuvered by a sitting president they had believed to be vulnerable.

"Elections make you look smarter than what you are, and more stupid," said Ed Goeas, president of The Tarrance Group, a Republican strategy firm. "This was not an election for Republican consultants that made us look smarter."

After the loss in November, complaints among the Republican activists directed at the party's consultant class have been at full boil.

Appearing last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a gathering for influential right-wing activists, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin blasted party leaders such as Karl Rove, the former George W. Bush adviser, who she said have led the Republican Party astray.

"Now is the time to furlough the consultants, and tune out the pollsters, send the focus groups home and throw out the political scripts, because if we truly know what we believe, we don't need professionals to tell us," Palin said, calling for more staunchly conservative candidates.

(Never mind that Palin's own political action committee doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to consultants in 2012.)

CPAC also featured a panel with the indelicate title: "Should we shoot all the consultants now?"

Dale Emmons, a Democratic strategist from Kentucky and president of the consultants' association, said Republicans should hold their fire.

"To those who want to shoot all the consultants, I don't advise they do that," Emmons said. "I know the abilities of the people I compete against are strong."

Emmons said that perhaps no collection of advisers could have steered Romney around an incumbent president with a superior organization on the ground - one that was well positioned to take advantage of the nation's growing minority vote, which went heavily for Obama.

Few consultants or top aides who worked with the Romney campaign appeared at last week's gathering, which featured two days of panels - several dissecting the campaign's failings.

Former Romney press secretary Andrea Saul, a routine presence for the campaign on cable television, and Alex Lundry, a top data researcher for Romney, did participate.

For Obama advisers, the meeting was something of a victory lap. The president's pollster, Joel Benenson, began the conference with comments about the strength of the Democratic campaign's polling program and the weakness of various public surveys.

His colleagues David Axelrod and David Plouffe, top strategists for Obama's two winning presidential runs, were inducted into the association's Hall of Fame on Thursday.

"At first, I wondered whether this was a real organization or something that Axe and Plouffe made up last week," Obama said during his videotaped remarks.

A HAND ON THE 'WHEEL OF HISTORY'

A quartet of Republican strategists known for steering Republicans to victories in past elections - Arthur Finkelstein, Lance Tarrance, the late Bob Teeter and the late Lee Atwater - was honored.

Atwater, who died of cancer in 1991, is best known for orchestrating often-controversial campaigns that helped turn the South increasingly toward the Republican Party in the 1980s.

His aggressive campaign style inspired a generation of Republican consultants and led critics to accuse him of race-baiting, particularly for his work as George H.W. Bush's campaign manager in the 1988 presidential campaign.

On Friday night, the consultants handed out dozens of awards, celebrating the year's best in advertising, fundraising and mailing.

The consultants are sensitive to the criticism that they profit from the dysfunction of U.S. politics and were eager to stress their influence on candidates who they believe can help change the country for the better.

Plouffe, who managed Obama's 2008 campaign, said their lives amounted to putting a hand on the "wheel of history."

On his way out the door Thursday, Plouffe stopped to chat with a fellow consultant. Plouffe warned about the potential cost of the presidential election in 2016. Last year, each side of the presidential contest spent more than $1 billion.

"By '16, it's going to be $2 billion," Plouffe said.

The consultant sure hoped so.

"From your mouth," he said, "to God's ears."

(Reporting by Samuel P. Jacobs; Editing by David Lindsey and Eric Beech)

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Analysis: Illinois pension fix faces political, legal hurdles

By Karen Pierog

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois lawmakers begin a two-month push on Monday to enact major pension reform, under pressure from taxpayers, workers, business groups and bond investors to fix the worst-funded state pension system in the United States.

The key objective: To put together a package of reform measures that are capable of addressing a nearly $100 billion unfunded pension liability, while still standing up to anticipated court challenges.

The state's constitution prohibits reduction in pension benefits to active and retired workers, and reform efforts have been inhibited by warnings made by union groups and others that they intend to file lawsuits to block implementation of many reforms.

The president of the Illinois Senate, John Cullerton, a Democrat, said he is preparing a two-pronged attack. He first will seek to pass a bill similar to the measure the House approved late last month that would impose restrictions on cost-of-living increases to pension payments to retirees.

As a back up, in case those reforms hit a constitutional roadblock, Cullerton said he will seek to offer workers a choice. They will either receive the benefits already promised, but have to forego state-funded healthcare care in retirement, or they will accept limits on cost-of-living increases in their pensions and still have access to state-funded healthcare.

"I'm trying to come up with a winning combination to pass a bill," Cullerton said.

Pensions are devouring an ever-increasing share of state revenue. That is a worry for the state's bondholders, as well as vendors, school districts and others doing business with a state that is running as much as a year behind on $9 billion in unpaid bills.

Illinois' credit ratings have been downgraded to the lowest levels among U.S. states as solutions to the pension problem remain elusive, and studies have shown Illinois has the lowest funding ratio of any state in the nation.

The legislative push that begins Monday comes two weeks after the state's lower chamber passed a reform plan that, if adopted by the Senate and signed into law by Governor Pat Quinn, could save as much as $100 billion in pension costs over 30 years, according to backers.

The House measure, which was sponsored by the powerful speaker of the House, Michael Madigan, a Democrat, limits cost-of-living allowances (COLAs) on pension payments, a significant factor in Illinois' rising pension costs. Cuts to COLAs also were part of another, more comprehensive bill that went down to defeat in the Senate on March 20. None of the reform bills passed so far by the House or Senate has been taken up in the other's chamber.

The Madigan-backed measure, which lists Cullerton as the Senate sponsor, would take the biggest step in reform so far by addressing cost-of-living allowances for pensioners.

Under it, retired workers would get the current 3 percent compounded annual automatic increase only on the first $25,000 of their pension. No pension increase would kick in until a worker turns 67 or has been retired for five years, whichever comes first.

The House also passed two measures earlier in March -increasing retirement ages for certain workers and limiting salaries on which pensions are based. Taken together the two changes would save only $1 billion over 30 years.

OFFERING A CHOICE

Cullerton's effort to put together a bill that can pass constitutional review already has begun, with a relatively modest measure dealing solely with the Teachers' Retirement System, which covers local school districts with the exception of the Chicago Public Schools.

The key to its constitutional viability, Cullerton believes, is the effort to offer pension beneficiaries a choice in how their benefits may change. The Cullerton plan offers something of value in exchange for reduction in pension benefits - in this case, health coverage in retirement - and this consideration could be key to any constitutional challenge.

The Cullerton bill would offer school employees the choice of retaining the current annual 3 percent compounded cost-of-living adjustment to their pensions, but no health benefits upon retirement. As an alternative, teachers could agree to a reduced COLA in order to have continued access to state-sponsored healthcare in retirement.

Cullerton would like to expand the approach taken with the Teachers Retirement System, the state's largest pension fund, to three of Illinois' other state-sponsored funds.

However, potential savings to the sagging pension system under this approach are expected to be much less than if COLA limits and other changes are imposed on workers and retirees, as prescribed in the House measure backed by Madigan.

HURDLES AHEAD

Public worker unions are taking a dim view of the bills. Both chambers are controlled by Democrats but state labor unions that traditionally back the Democratic Party have expressed skepticism that changes to member benefits can be made without violating constitutional protections.

In December, Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 said that any proposal that includes a COLA limit would result in lengthy and costly litigation.

However, a recent state court ruling has begun to reframe the legal debate. On March 19, a state judge found that state-sponsored healthcare for retired state workers is not protected by the constitution. This has given rise to a belief that court challenges may face more difficult going than union rhetoric has suggested.

State Representative Elain Nekritz, a Democrat, said she believed the House's approach to pensions is constitutional because the courts would interpret the clause restricting pensions adjustments in light of the state's efforts to improve its sagging finances.

Beyond the struggle to redefine cost-of-living allowances and make other changes, some proposals are seeking to shift the cost of pension payments from the state to local authorities.

One controversial measure is to make school districts, community colleges and state universities pick up the cost of pension payments for their teachers. Currently, the state bears those costs.

Nekritz, the House's point person for pensions, said she expects the lower chamber to put together a comprehensive bill that could include shifting the cost of teachers' pensions to local taxing districts.

Many suburban Chicago Republican lawmakers oppose the move, concerned it would lead to property tax increases by local school districts. But Nekritz said the impact would be reduced by restricting the change to pensions for workers hired after any law is passed.

Other reforms under discussion include one that would require employees to pay more toward their pensions and another that would give the pension funds power to sue if the state fails to keep current on new payments into the state pension funds, according to Nekritz.

The state also could be required to use money currently allocated to pay off pension bonds to make pension payments once those bonds are retired. All told, the state has sold more than $17 billion in pension bonds since 2003.

LOW CREDIT RATING

Illinois' struggles with pension reform have drawn the attention of bond investors, and any reform measures likely will face skepticism from investors who have seen Illinois adopt reforms in the past, only to fail to deliver.

In 1994, the state legislature passed a plan giving itself 50 years to fix Illinois pension problems. But after a 15-year "ramp up" period expired, the legislature never came through with the large balloon payments mandated by the law.

In 1993, Illinois began issuing pension bonds, the proceeds of which were supposed to be used to put the state's pension system on solid footing. In all, $17 billion of pension bonds have been issued, but portions of the proceeds have gone toward making the state's annual pension payments, and the bonds have contributed substantially to the state's indebtedness.

The state's track record was reflected in the pricing of $800 million in bonds sold by the state of Illinois last week. The so-called credit spread for the 10-year, tax-exempt bonds over Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale, stood at 141 basis points last week. As recently as April 2010, Illinois' credit spread was just above 100 basis points, at the same level as California.

John Sinsheimer, Illinois' capital markets director, said the U.S. municipal bond market continues to demand "a significant penalty" for the state's failure to address the pension shortfall.

Richard Ciccarone, a managing director and the chief research officer at McDonnell Investment Management, said any reform plan should include a guarantee the state will not return to its old habit of not fully making annual pension payments. For decades Illinois skimped on making payments to the pension system as required by actuarial calculations. In fact, the state met its obligations in only one year of the past decade.

Despite its strong pledge to repay bondholders, Illinois "still needs cash in the bank" in order to make the actual payments, Ciccarone said.

Lawmakers and business and labor groups involved in the push for reform are uncertain whether a comprehensive fix can be achieved in both chambers of the Illinois legislature before the legislature's spring session is scheduled to end by May 31.

"We're a ways away from a proposal the governor can sign," said Steve Brown, a spokesman for Madigan.

Christopher Mooney, a political scientist at the University of Illinois, said that in the end, several pension reform bills likely will be combined into a single measure. A successful court challenge to any enacted reforms could actually help state lawmakers, he said.

"They'd have to start over but they would be in a much better position because they would have some guidance from the court on what is acceptable and not acceptable," Mooney said.

(Reporting By Karen Pierog; Editing by David Greising, Frances Kerry and Bill Trott)

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Pope Francis forces Argentine political about-face

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Catholic doctrine considers the pope to be God's delegate on Earth. That alone might explain the remarkable about-face that Argentina's populist president Cristina Fernandez and most of her followers have managed to pull off in the days since the cardinal she treated as a political arch-enemy became Pope Francis.

But there are more earthly reasons for her turnaround, factors that have more to do with the dirty and often contradictory Argentine political landscape that Jorge Mario Bergoglio knows so well.

Fernandez had sought to neutralize the Buenos Aires cardinal's political influence for so long that she and her allies suddenly found themselves out of step with the joy most Argentines have shown at seeing one of their own running the Vatican.

For years, they had labeled him "chief of the opposition" and "accomplice of the dictatorship." Supporters of the president reportedly even tried lobbying other cardinals to turn against Bergoglio when choosing a new pontiff.

But that was before he became Francis. Now he's suddenly the pope who shares the same commitment to the poor and dream of a "Patria Grande" (Grand Homeland) that the populist leaders of Latin America have been pursuing. Fernandez announced this herself, after a private lunch at the Vatican with her former foe that had Argentines glued to their TV sets, marveling over the sudden change. "The president made the simple calculation that this confrontation was totally a losing proposition," and so the government decided to try to co-opt the Argentines' fervor for their pope, political analyst Claudio Fantini said.

In Argentina's polarized political universe, which treats everyone as either a friend or enemy of the president, Fantini called this a "Copernican shift," as if everyone suddenly learned the true center of the solar system.

And Francisco, whose sharp political skills have long been apparent to Argentines, responded with his own highly symbolic gestures.

He invited Fernandez to share his first official audience as pope and then ended speculation in Argentina that he might visit home before October's congressional elections, which could determine whether she will have enough votes to undo constitutional term limits and keep ruling beyond 2015. The president's opponents had hoped he would come in July or September, and perhaps push votes their way.

These and other gestures by Francis, 76, sent a signal that when it comes to the populist governments of Latin America, he'll avoid the kinds of direct confrontations that feed divisive politics, and instead will seek to co-opt them as well, joining forces to help the poorest benefit from society. "Bergoglio is a conservative, but his church career has always been directed toward doing things for the poor," said Fantini.

At first, Fernandez seemed stunned by the election of Bergoglio, the man whose opposition to gay marriage and adoption she had compared to the Inquisition. On these and other social issues, from providing free contraception to enabling transsexuals to change their official identities on demand to rewriting divorce laws, she had enough votes in congress to ignore his complaints. His frequent homilies urging Argentina's leaders stamp out corruption and fix societal ills were an annoyance, but not a threat to her political power.

Suddenly, the old man who lived alone in a church office building across the plaza from her government palace had become the world's the most powerful religious leader.

She delayed congratulating him for more than an hour after his name was announced, and then buried a reference to his selection 40 minutes into an otherwise routine speech that day.

She had refused for years to cross the plaza and meet with him. Now she would have to travel around the world and face him before the cameras.

Activists most loyal to Fernandez and her late husband, President Nestor Kirchner, were even more disoriented. For years, they had shown their annoyance every time Bergoglio criticized society's ills in a homily, or met with opposing politicians behind closed doors.

But Francis's election exposed the group's otherwise well-hidden fissures — and threatened to break it apart.

Kirchnerism includes human rights leaders fiercely critical of the church hierarchy's failure to openly confront the 1976-1983 dictatorship, and others with close church connections. There are activists for the rights of sexual minorities and the separation of church and state, but also Catholics who are proud members of the same Peronist party that has dominated Argentine politics for generations.

And just as some Kirchnerites were cheering for Bergoglio ahead of the conclave, others were trying to derail his chances.

The Argentine daily El Cronista Comercial reported that some officials even tried to circulate a dossier of allegedly incriminating stories about Bergoglio with cardinals before they entered the conclave.

The Fernandez government denied it, but Bergoglio's allies described a similar campaign in 2005, when the cardinals were sent anti-Bergoglio emails just as they were preparing to choose John Paul II's successor. Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi called it a defamation campaign by a newspaper staffed by the "anti-clerical left."

Lombardi was aiming at journalist Horacio Verbitzky, who kept publishing allegations in the pro-government Pagina12 daily even after Francis was elected, accusing Bergoglio of provoking the kidnapping of two of his Jesuit priests during the dictatorship.

Verbitzky wasn't the only Kirchnerite unwilling to conform to the new posture.

National Library director Horacio Gonzalez took the microphone at a meeting of the "Carta Abierta" (Open Letter) group of pro-government intellectuals, called Francis a demagogue and described his election as some kind of global conspiracy.

"Every time he said something, he would shoot at the heart of the government, saying 'there are poor people and you all are provoking it,'" Gonzalez complained. He called the papal election part of "a project to divert the masses from the political processes that aren't controlled by the church."

Most Argentines apparently don't share such ideas now. A new nationwide poll by Management & Fit found nearly two-thirds have a positive image of Francis.

Meanwhile, other respected figures emerged, vouching for Bergoglio. Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel said he's in no way responsible for human rights violations. Emilio Persico, a leader of the pro-government Evita Movement, proudly recalled that Bergoglio led a mass to pray for the health of Hugo Chavez before the Venezuelan leader's death.

To help reorient the government's base of support, posters quickly appeared around Buenos Aires with the image of Francis over the words "Argentine and Peronist." Another showed the hands of both Fernandez and Francis as she gave him a traditional set for drinking "mate," an herbal infusion popular in Argentina, during their Vatican encounter. That poster carried the phrase "we share hopes."

On her return to Argentina, the often-combative Fernandez described the new relationship in almost mystical terms.

"The marvelous thing is to re-encounter each other," she said. "God made us in his image, but all of us in a different way, so that we have the option of deciding who we want to be. This is the human condition: diversity, plurality, and acceptance."

Political analyst Ricardo Rouvier put it more cynically: that within Kirchnerism, politics triumphed over ideology.

"The first reactions from this space were ideological: he's an ally of the dictatorship, a right-wing populist," he said. Then came a "clearly political presidential reaction: moving rapidly from being perplexed and possibly uncomfortable to joining forces and actively participating" in the Francis phenomenon.

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Well-known political names seek South Carolina seat

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - Voters went to the polls on Tuesday to choose among several high profile candidates in a special primary election to fill a vacant seat in coastal South Carolina's 1st Congressional District.

The vacancy was left by Republican Tim Scott, who was appointed to replace Republican Jim DeMint in the Senate after he resigned last December to head the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Sixteen Republicans competing in Tuesday's primary include former Governor Mark Sanford, who gained notoriety in 2009 for trying to hide an affair with an Argentine woman, and Teddy Turner, the son of media mogul Ted Turner. If no Republican gets more than 50 percent of the vote on Tuesday, the top two vote-getters will meet in a primary run-off on April 2.

Two Democrats on Tuesday's ballot include Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of TV comedian and political satirist Stephen Colbert. She faces a perennial candidate in the Democratic primary and is expected to win in her first run for political office.

The general election is set for May 7.

The district, which was redrawn after the 2010 Census, takes in the city of Charleston and parts of four nearby rural counties and stretches south along the coast to include wealthy Hilton Head Island.

Sanford, who held the congressional seat from 1995 to 2001, spent Monday in the Charleston area at businesses and announced campaign stops for Tuesday in Charleston. Sanford has been pointing to his record of "standing up to big spenders, regardless of party," his campaign said.

As governor, he carried two squealing piglets, named "Pork" and "Barrel," into the Statehouse in Columbia to protest the state's budget deficit. He was the first governor to formally reject federal stimulus money, his campaign said. In 2009, the state Supreme Court ordered him to accept $700 million in stimulus funds.

Colbert Busch released her second television ad, with the Port of Charleston as her backdrop, over the weekend. She touted her experience as director of sales for a shipping line and a leader in advocating science and math education in South Carolina.

Under South Carolina's new voter photo identification law, voters will have to present any one of five photo identifications, which include a military ID, driver's license, passport or new voter registration card. Voters without a photo ID can state a reasonable impediment to their having one and cast a provisional ballot.

(Editing by David Adams and Grant McCool)

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New York's Bloomberg faces test in Chicago political gun battle

CHICAGO (Reuters) - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's push for stricter U.S. gun laws in the wake of the Connecticut school massacre faces a stern test next week in a messy Chicago special election where he has piled in with more than $2 million in political ads.

The outcome of the race is the first big election test since the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting of whether gun control champions such as Bloomberg and former U.S. congresswoman Gabby Giffords can use money, and the same tough tactics as gun rights lobbyists, to influence voters.

Gun control vaulted to the top of the U.S. political agenda after a gunman last December shot and killed 26 people at an elementary school in Newtown including 20 children.

Bloomberg is taking a risk by wading into the nasty and racially charged politics of Chicago, where critics have already complained the brash mayor is trying to buy an election nearly 1,000 miles from New York City.

The February 26 primary is to replace U.S. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to using campaign funds to finance a lavish personal lifestyle.

Jackson was a reliable vote in Congress for gun control measures but polls last month showed the seat could be won by Debbie Halvorson, who has an "A" rating from the powerful gun rights lobby, the National Rifle Association, and opposes an assault weapons ban.

The winner of the Democratic primary is likely to win the seat because the district is heavily Democratic.

Bloomberg's Independence USA political action committee, or PAC, has blanketed Chicago television with more than $2 million in ads attacking Halvorson's stance on guns and endorsing Robin Kelly, a candidate supporting gun control, according to PAC spokesman Stefan Friedman.

"Halvorson would have probably won this district if the gun control issue hadn't intervened," said Dick Simpson, a former Chicago city council member and political scientist at the University of Illinois, Chicago. "Whether she still can win it is unclear."

The district at stake is majority African-American and includes some areas ravaged by gun violence, as Chicago's murder rate reached the highest in five years. The district should be receptive to Bloomberg's message of gun restrictions.

But it also stretches south to the outer suburbs of Chicago where some white voters are in favor of gun ownership.

Halvorson is the only white candidate among the 14 Democrats still vying for the seat. The concern among some in the black community is that the black vote will split, allowing Halvorson to win the primary with only about a third of the vote.

There have been no public polls in weeks and both sides are touting private polls showing they are winning the gun battle.

Halvorson is fighting back, saying Bloomberg misrepresented her position on guns. She said that she supports registration of all firearms and background checks for gun purchases, but opposes a ban on assault weapons.

"(The commercials) are so over the top. They are unbelievable. They also are false, because they say that I am endorsed by the NRA, which I am not," Halvorson said.

The Illinois State Rifle Association, which is aligned with the NRA, said it does endorse Halvorson.

"I think that (Bloomberg) is trying to take advantage of a tragedy," association executive director Richard Pearson said, referring to the Connecticut shooting. "And I think that you hear less talk about victims and it's more about getting his agenda done."

Halvorson and Chicago city council member Anthony Beale, who is also vying for the seat, accused Bloomberg of trying to "buy" an election.

Bloomberg and his allies are unbowed by the criticism.

"The mayor has been clear that when these issues are in play, he believes it's a good use of time and resources to help educate the public about the candidates' position on them," Friedman said.

(Reporting by Renita Young; Editing by Greg McCune and Dale Hudson)

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