Setbacks for Venezuela's Leader Embolden a Vigorous Opponent

"Vote against the devil," says one banner. "Vote against the empire."

In speeches, when Chávez does mention members of the opposition, he portrays them as lackeys of the Americans, arguing that they are busy hatching a diabolical "Plan B" to oust him or to undermine the results of the election by refusing to recognize his victory. He said he has his own plan, Plan Che, named after the Argentine guerrilla martyr, Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

"If they force us to activate Plan Che, they will be sorry for 5,000 years, they will be sorry all their lives," Chávez said in an impassioned address. "Not just the imperialists here but their owners in the United States."

Martín Pacheco, one of Chávez's most trusted campaign advisers, said Chávez's campaign is focused on obtaining 10 million votes from a total of 16 million eligible voters. "So there's no doubt, in any sector of the country or internationally, of the leadership that the president has," Pacheco said in an interview in his downtown Caracas office.

Opposition strategists say Chávez's constant warnings about invasions and assassination plots are figments of his imagination, and they are optimistic that Venezuelans are tired of the bluster. The opposition has dropped its one-track message of the past -- that Chávez should simply leave -- a demand that offered no alternative.

Unlike most other opposition politicians, Rosales strolls through poor neighborhoods and, in his raspy cadence, details one social problem after another that affect the poor, Chávez's base. He says that tens of thousands of Venezuelans have become homicide statistics under Chávez's watch, and he notes that Transparency International recently ranked Venezuela as the second most corrupt country in Latin America, after Haiti. He also derides Chávez's failed efforts to obtain a nonpermanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, a setback attributed to Chávez's caustic speech on the floor of the General Assembly in September.

"Rosales is talking to the Chavistas," said Enrique Ochoa, chief of operations for the Rosales campaign. "We had given Chávez the gift of discourse on social themes. Now we have an opposition that talks of social justice, of the poor. We used to have an opposition just happy to be an opposition."

Rosales, who grew up in the steamy countryside of oil-soaked Zulia state, has been aggressively trying to carve a space for himself in a political environment long dominated by Chávez.

A governor with a generation of political experience, including membership in the now-discredited Democratic Action Party, Rosales is trying every trick of the trade, from headfirst attacks on Chávez's so-called Bolivarian revolution to embracing old-style Latin American populism. He has generated worldwide attention for his proposal to issue a debit card -- called "My Black Lady" -- that would provide hundreds of dollars to poor families, all from oil proceeds.

In teeming neighborhoods that ring this city, though, there is an inherent distrust of Rosales and the rest of the opposition. Chávez supporters have viewed opposition tactics as anti-democratic, like last year's decision to pull out of congressional races, a strategy that was aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the government but that ultimately gave Chávez complete control of the 167-seat National Assembly.

"They don't understand that they've lost and Venezuela has changed," said Daisy Espinoza, 54, as she watched a Chávez rally on state television. "We know here what the president has done for us."

In conversations, many poor Venezuelans cited Chávez's vast expenditures, especially on subsidized food, literacy programs and health care, as improving their lives. The spending is enormous: Rafael Ramírez, president of the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, said nearly $8.3 billion in company oil revenue had been funneled toward government social programs in the first nine months of this year. For all of 2005, the company spent $7.3 billion.

The programs help people such as Isalenis Arevalo, 24, who takes her 4-month-old baby to see a doctor, for free, in the poor neighborhood where she lives. "Before, you had to buy medicines, you had to go to clinics and get charged high prices," she said, holding her infant inside her doorway. "The doctors didn't come to the barrios."

Flush with oil profits that have fueled the highest growth rate in Latin America, Chávez handed public workers $3 billion in Christmas bonuses a month and a half early. The government has also been hard at work finishing infrastructure projects, including a subway line in Caracas and a bridge to boost commerce between Venezuela and Brazil.

But the campaign isn't taking chances. Ramírez, the oil company president, recently told workers in a speech that was secretly recorded that Chávez was the "maximum leader of the revolution" and had the complete support of the company. "Whoever doesn't feel comfortable with this orientation will have to cede his place for a Bolivarian," Ramírez said.

The video was disseminated by the opposition, which cited it as proof that the government was coercing workers. "It's blackmail," Rosales said in the interview. "If you don't dress in red, they'll throw you out."

The president, though, never backs down. He quickly defended Ramírez.

"Petroleos de Venezuela workers are with this revolution, and those who aren't should go somewhere else. Go to Miami," he said, noting that other agencies, from the army to the tax collection agency, are "red, very red."