The name is absent

104

feedback, leaders process that information, and the politician should be in a good
position to get the party spot.

However, the general election is likely to be a different world. Campaigns are
long, tough, extremely time and resource consuming and, sometimes, bloody. Does bill
drafting make any difference in such a hard situation? The intuition is that it might
contribute, but probably not that much as in the previous stage. For gubernatorial
candidates, evidence shows that it does not matter at all. For municipal contenders, the
expectation is alive, but it does not seem to make a huge difference in the electoral
revenue. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, there is a plethora of factors that
can affect electoral performance. I am not including those macro-components in this ⅛
analysis, but it is difficult to think that variables like economic performance or
presidential perception do not affect even subnational choice. The interesting point at ⅛
this stage is to wonder whether those macro-conditions also affect the previous stage of
candidate selection. A bad juncture would for sure influence the chances of an
incumbent or a copartisan of a ruling officer. However, this stage seems to be more
prone for individual-level maneuver. Understanding strategic bill drafting as a
mechanism that is more linked to position taking for a candidacy rather than for
securing a general victory makes the findings of this dissertation not only more accurate,
but also more realistic. Otherwise, most of the literature linking Clientelism and
patronage (Calvo and Murillo 2004, Brusco, Nazareno and Stokes 2005, Kemahlioglu
2007) with electoral performance would be overshadowed by the power of symbolic
politics.

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