Francisco Madero

Madero was able to have his voice heard in the political campaign because he was moderate and not a liberal so Díaz did not force him away from the electoral process. He then quickly gained popularity with the middle ground. He held rallies and gained the attention of many middle- and upper-class voters with his visions of democracy without social and economic change. Many people in Mexico felt like they had no foot to stand on politically under the dictatorship that Díaz was running but Madero was using the same trigger words that Díaz used to win against Juárez and Lerdo, with this he was able to get the support of many voters that could change the tide against Díaz. Díaz noticed that he was becoming a threat to his presidency and Madero knew his votes would not get counted, so he asked Díaz to let him run as his Vice President instead. Díaz said no and sent him to jail and of course won the presidency yet again. Once Francisco Madero was let out of jail on bond and disguised himself as a worker to get to his family’s wealth in San Antonio, Texas. He then went on to talk with his supporters about a revolution in Mexico.

Madero made a lot of false promises to a lot many of his voters, especially with the major issue of land reform. He would go on and tell the people who lost their land from the corrupt government that he would give it back to them. He used big issue topics like ‘no-reelection, decentralization, and free-market capitalism’ to gain followers during the election only to go back on his word about each and every one of these issues. Madero valued political stability and administrative efficiency and to really make his promises happen he would need to take over the whole system. Which were what the lower-class voters were wanting him to do. What Madero really wanted was to just change a some things to make them run better, he believed that the land disputes should be settled within the court system not with redistribution like he had promised. With Madero saying absolutely anything to get into office, this created an even bigger issue for him when he actually got there. The Mexican people already had distrust in the government and they wanted him to cash in on the promises they had been fed during his campaign.

When Madero got into office and he followed what Díaz had been doing and just changed some of the people out, this made the men who were loyal to Díaz very happy but really put the rebels on high alert. Later, everyone on both sides became aware that they were going to have to do everything that they did with Díaz with Madero. The early signs of revolution were key for Madero to pay attention to, he was well aware of the issues happening but he could not get a grip on the revolution. Since he did not appoint strong members onto his team and the iron fist the rebels were used to with Díaz didn’t faze them anymore, Madero was losing his foothold quickly. This created a chain reaction of counterrevolutionaries.