the PRI in guanajuato

I'm certainly not conversant in Mexican politics beyond knowing basically what the parties stand for, but returning from a run the other day I stumbled across what appeared to me to be an old-fashioned Mexican political tradition. I'd seen buses bringing people in from the countryside all morning, and then as I passed the PRI headquarters here in town a throng of campesinos and others were outside, and exiting the building was a crew of very urbane, very made-up looking folks. I think it was all for a visit by PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo, although I think I only saw his wife. The PRI headquarters is across the street from a large bust of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the PRI presidential candidate who was murdered--some say on the orders of his party fellow, and then President, Carlos Salinas de Gortari. The PRI, as I understand it, represent machine politics at its finest, something like if the Tweed Ring ran the U.S. for sixty years.