I don't care who ultimately wins and have only been impressed, moderately, by Ron Paul and that's for refusing the populist positions on judicial activism and international affairs.

Johnston was not as conservative as most other Senators from the Deep South, retaining a populist position on many economic issues.

As a city council member, Cisneros took assorted populist positions on such issues as dealing with labor, water, education, and housing, among others.

He has populist positions that I like: disarmament, jobs, education.

(He consolidated his populist position in 2007 by describing that prize as "evil" for the divisions it encourages between "supposed 'literary' novels and other perfectly good books".)

But the Blanco candidate, Jorge Larranaga, a 48-year-old lawyer, has been moving to the left and taking populist positions in the hope of forcing a runoff.

Something else is at work: how magnetically Jesse Jackson's populist positions pull on many liberal Democrats tired of suppressing their thirst.

"We want to get away from an exaggerated presidentialism that neglects political parties, concentrates power in the figure of one person and takes populist positions," he said.

The party adopted a populist left-wing position economically, and sought to slow the post-Soviet privatisation and liberalisation.

The plants have become a sensitive political issue in the city, with the mayor urging their construction and Democratic borough presidents carving out more populist positions.