Losing Double in Venezuela

After a brief hesitation, Henrique Capriles has agreed to be the opposition candidate for the April 14 president election. Lots of combat-oriented rhetoric is flying all over, with "fight," "war," etc. Twitter is positively aflame with it.

Capriles will almost certainly lose, which would put him in the very unusual position of losing two presidential elections in six months. There is, however, plenty of precedent for perennial losers eventually coming back. Salvador Allende first ran for president in 1952 and won only just over 5 percent of the vote, and didn't end up winning until 1970. In the United States, Richard Nixon is of course the most famous/infamous case, as he lost both the 1960 presidential election and then the 1962 California gubernatorial election, finally coming back in 1968.

At least for now, Capriles is what the opposition has to offer, so he's come out blasting to overcome the support for Chavismo and the sympathy for the candidate Hugo Chávez publicly chose. Via Steven Taylor, here's a visual of that from Colombia's El Tiempo: