Santiago Fioriti
07/25/2021 6:46 AM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 7/25/2021 6:46 AM
A month and a half ago, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta went to dinner at the house of Facundo Manes, a beautiful apartment on the sixth floor on the street, on Cerrito Street. The neurologist showed him his library, the desk where he writes his books and the privileged view of 9 de Julio Avenue and the Obelisk. She awaited him with an elaborate menu and a late-harvest red wine. They were alone. Everything seemed given to be a great evening.
It could not be
.
Dinner passed between mistrust and uncomfortable moments. The two were studying each other, as if instead of a table and two plates were separated by a chess board. The mayor would have wanted to tell him what he barely dared to suggest: that he had better not listen to the advice of the radicals who, in those days, in a slow procession, passed by that same house to convince him that he was a candidate for deputy for the Buenos Aires province. Perhaps the neurologist could have anticipated that he was tempted to say yes.
Fifteen days after that meeting,
Clarín
announced in a Sunday cover that the move by the heads of the UCR was one step away from crystallizing. Manes had decided to play, but he was still going to reserve a few weeks to announce it. The pretended unity to face the Frente de Todos was blurred. María Eugenia Vidal's jump to the City had created a hole. The head of government always thought that this hole was ideal and exclusive for Diego Santilli. Until
a black swan crossed in his lake
and he had to rethink the strategy.
Rodríguez Larreta insisted until the end to twist the will of radicalism.
"Until the last day there is time," he said.
He exhibited surveys that gave Santilli a better position, offered positions on the lists and gave power to his own mayors to negotiate with his peers in the UCR.
Manes' associates listen to him repeat that Guernica was not painted by Picasso.
That it was a work that exceeded the Spanish painter.
“The dynamic is not ours.
People put us here ”, they say in the environment of the doctor.
As you can see, they do not go around with little girls in the comparisons.
Emilio Monzó, the Peronist who is in charge of the Buenos Aires army together with Joaquín de la Torre and who comes from breaking first with Mauricio Macri and then with Larretismo, works to contain his enthusiasm. He usually transmits an anecdote that Macri himself told him when they met. "When he was president of Boca, everyone asked him for tickets to the court and when he launched into politics, half of those who asked for tickets began to whistle him." It remains to be seen, he wonders, how many people who asked Manes for medical advice or bought his books are now willing to accompany him.
When his application came out, Manes' phone was filled with unexpected messages and calls.
Some really very strange.
Many gave him strength, but a significant proportion wanted to dissuade him from leaving the competition.
No one leaves the jungle unscathed
, they told him. One of them was Vidal, first on the phone and then on a Zoom.
"I told them a long time ago not to waste time, that Facundo was a candidate,"
Santilli boasted privately. Santilli had also dined with his rival at the home of one of the Buenos Aires ministers. Several of his collaborators doubted that there would finally be primaries. Larreta wanted to believe that, just as he prevented the candidacy of Patricia Bullrich in the City, he could do the same in the Province.
“Their tactic is to cage people. With us he could not
,
"
say those who live with Manes.
Larreta tried to seduce Alfredo Cornejo, Gerardo Morales, Luis Naidenoff and his best ally, Martín Lousteau. All of them, separately, had come to pay homage to Manes for him to run. With yes in their power, the radicals accelerated. Morales directly questioned the mayor's strategy in public. Lousteau joined in and threw darts at the former governor. The Jujuy president is angry because someone told him that Larreta said that radicalism has no chance because it only pursues minor charges. "If I want to be president," he said.
Whoever says they only think about 2021 is lying.
Santilli has been walking the Conurbano for several weeks.
His team, which has been reinforced in recent weeks, affirms that it promotes a strictly professional campaign, PRO-style, with clear messages.
His campaign manager will be the mayor of Lanús, Néstor Grindetti.
Structure have;
experience, too;
silver is not lacking.
The former Buenos Aires deputy chief plans to visit between 40 and 50 municipalities before the PASO, scheduled for September 12.
It will focus on the first and third electoral sections, where Manes has the highest level of ignorance.
The pandemic made Santilli popular.
On Monday he visited the Villa Jardín neighborhood of Lanús, together with Diego Kravetz.
Some boys came out of their houses to greet him:
"You're with El Pelado,"
they told him.
"Be you, let yourself break it," Carrió tells him.
Larreta trusts that his management in the City and Santilli's dual role as a spokesman for the pandemic and security places his dolphin in a preponderant place. They will do descents with Elisa Carrió, Miguel Pichetto and Patricia Bullrich. These drops will be monitored according to the image level of those leaders in specific districts. And with Vidal? “If it agrees it will be; if it is not convenient, no ”, assume the larretistas, pragmatic to the point of exaggeration.
Nothing is done without a survey in hand
. The absence of Vidal in the launch of Santilli spoke for itself: it is seen that for now it is not convenient for him to be.
The campaign in the media and networks, they say, will rely on the electoral machinery that was inherited from macrismo. How far that machinery goes is always a mystery. The proselytizing apparatus was infallible for a long time. But it is the same one who maintained that Macri would be reelected as president or that he would lose the PASO against Alberto Fernández by a small margin.
Manes will go with a speech that seeks to be disruptive. He will say that Argentina is a poor country that is not developing and he will assure the poorest people of Buenos Aires that if they do not study, no one will give them a job. The radical's team begins to become uneasy with some attitudes of their adversaries. He suspects that they promote a campaign against the doctor in the networks to discredit him. You have to see if they cheer up, but when the microphones are opened they want to ask the air if this supposed campaign is financed with public resources. This is just starting.
The ghost of a hot campaign exists.
From one side and the other.
The radicals never ate glass.
The inmate could become fierce as the days go by.
Those who say that the only enemy should be Kirchnerism are trying to clear up rumors and plot a photo of both candidates to send out signs of a healthy coexistence.
In a moment it was almost agreed and suddenly it was cold.
They will continue negotiating.
What they did agree to were two debates on TV, one on TN and the other on A-24.
A few days ago, Santilli left his house to walk down Figueroa Alcorta avenue.
Upon reaching Ortiz de Ocampo, he met Gastón Manes, the candidate's brother and right-hand man.
Despite the fact that the two were wearing chinstraps, they recognized each other.
"Che, they're going to campaign clean, right?"
Asked Gaston.
"But forget it!" When did you see me do something dirty to me?
Santilli replied.
They laughed and each continued on their way to the cafe on the corner.
It was too cold to be outside.
