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  'The Most Popular Politician on Earth'
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ContributorWesternDem 
Last EditedWesternDem  Sep 23, 2009 02:06pm
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AuthorMac Margolis
MediaMagazine - Newsweek
News DateWednesday, September 23, 2009 08:05:00 PM UTC0:0
DescriptionHe grew up so poor, he didn't find out what bread was until he was 7. That was Lula's age when he climbed onto a flatbed truck with his Brazilian dirt-farmer family and all their possessions and made the 1,900-mile journey from the country's northeastern dustbowl for a life in the slums of São Paulo. He dropped out of school in the fifth grade, shined shoes on the street, and went to work in a factory at 14, losing a finger to a lathe in an accident on the graveyard shift at an auto-parts plant. Eventually he rose through the rank and file to become an internationally respected union leader. A military junta ruled Brazil back then, and strikes were illegal, but he defied the generals and the bosses and practically shut down the continent's industrial powerhouse in the name of the steelworkers.

He's in New York this week to kick off the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The cameras may focus on the embodiment of American cool, Barack Obama, or on flamboyant autocrats and chest thumpers like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, but the biggest star on hand will be the blunt, bearded onetime lathe operator: Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. After nearly seven tumultuous years in office, the man everyone calls Lula continues to enjoy an approval rating above 70 percent. That would be a remarkable feat anywhere, never mind in a continent where presidents are a disposable commodity. "That's my man right there," Obama greeted him at the G20 summit in London in April. "The most popular politician on earth."
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