Jacob Sullum on Mexico's Elections and Drug War Dissent

Early last year, when the death toll from Mexican President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on the cartels stood at 35,000 or so, Michele Leonhart, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told reporters in Cancun "the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs." Senior Editor Jacob Sullum says the results of last week's presidential election, in which the candidate of Calderon's National Action Party finished a distant third, suggest Mexican voters are no longer buying that counterintuitive argument, if they ever did.