A year later, Mexico is dramatically overhauling its electoral process in hope of avoiding a repeat performance in 2012. Now that more than half of Mexico's states have approved the changes, the country's electoral system will more closely resemble the relatively polite European model than anything seen in the United States. The next presidential election will last only 90 days. Paid TV and radio ads will be banned, and Mexico's election authority will try to regulate the negativity out of Mexican politics.

The electoral changes, which Congress passed this month, are the result of the intense negotiation that is quickly becoming the hallmark of Calderón's young administration. López Obrador's Democratic Revolutionary Party had sought the changes since the election, and in effect traded them for a tax reform measure pushed by Calderón's National Action Party, analysts say.