By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday; Page A17

TOLEDO, Ohio, Sept. 6 -- Back home, they call him "El Presidente." In the United States this week, Vicente Fox seems more like the head of sales for a consumer
goods corporation. His employer: Mexico. His product: Immigration. His assignment: Build the brand.

This morning came the soft sell to a joint session of an American Congress suspicious of the Mexican president's request to legalize Mexican immigrants.

Trust me, Fox said in promising an improved Mexican product -- using a version of the word "trust" 33 times in a 30-minute speech.

"Thanks to those democratic changes inaugurated in Mexico last year on July the 2nd, the time has come for Mexico and United States to trust each other," he said.
"Let us foster trust between our societies. Let us build trust along our common border . . . Members of this honorable Congress, give trust a chance."

Here in Toledo this afternoon, Fox pitched to expatriate Mexicans as if they were old customers who had changed brands: "I want to tell you not only that we love
you and respect you, but we need you back in Mexico; that we will be working to welcome all of you back in Mexico to promote the growth of our great nation."

All politicians, in a sense, know something about salesmanship. But few know as much as Fox.

He spent 15 years in the employ of Coca-Cola Co., working his way up from route salesman to sales supervisor to president for Latin America. What worked for
Coca-Cola, he hopes, will work for Mexico.

Substitute "country" for company, "citizens" for customers, and the rest of Fox's vocabulary seems as applicable to soft-drink sales as to diplomacy. He speaks of
"streamlining" and "dialoguing" and "concrete action plans."

Compounding the effect is Harvard Business School's own President Bush, himself an old salesman of oil and baseball.

Bush heeded the fellow sales veteran's pitch this week. Today, he promised "100 percent effort" toward an expeditious immigration policy, even broaching the
possibility of green cards for Mexican workers here.

"I want to accommodate my friend," Bush said.

Put the two salesmen in a room together and the result sounds less like foreign affairs than a Powerpoint presentation by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Today, the two governments launched a "Partnership for Prosperity," devoted to "creating jobs and facilitating increased efficiency for small and medium-sized
businesses through use of communications technology to create new and improved linkages between customers and suppliers."

Fox, it must be said, is a model salesman. Like Bush, he arrives early for meetings. Unlike Bush, he is frenetic, packing his three-day state visit with events and
speeches.

True, Fox has a comb-over hairdo and a mustache, two traits that might spell danger in another salesman. On Fox, they convey dignity.

Fox also has a knack -- shared by Bush -- for encouraging audiences to underestimate him. Midway through an hour-long interview with The Post Wednesday,
which he handled with near-flawless English, Fox begged forgiveness.

"I'm not sure about my English," he apologized.

Fox has plenty of promotional material in his briefcase. At the Post, Fox pitched his product's value: "United States is doing great business with Mexico. I mean, no
doubt. On all fronts."

On the South Lawn later Wednesday, he pitched the product's usefulness: "Today Mexico buys from the United States more products and services than from Spain,
Germany, France and Italy combined."

Today, the two salesmen traveled together to Ohio. Toledo was a good choice for Fox (his grandfather lived down the road in Cincinnati) and for Bush (its growing
Hispanic population is important in this swing state in 2004).

It wasn't the first sentimental journey for a visiting head of state. President Bill Clinton took British Prime Minister John Major to Pittsburgh, where Major's
grandfather worked in a steel mill. Clinton took the food-loving German Chancellor Helmut Kohl on a culinary tour of Milwaukee.

Here, before a campaign-style rally of some 5,000 at a University of Toledo arena, the man from Coca-Cola unfurled his full sales job. He sold "trust" again. He sold
the dignity of Mexican immigrants. He sold the North American Free Trade Agreement. He sold Mexico's achievements in drug, crime and economic policy. And he
sold Bush.

The last pitch was straight from the marketing textbooks: Flatter the discernment and judgment of the customer.

Hours earlier, Bush had given Fox much of what he wanted: a promise to act expeditiously on a plan that would legalize undocumented Mexicans. Fox had landed a
major account, and it was now time to praise the purchaser.

"He is a great friend for truth, work, commitment and the passion for the art of government," Fox said. "Each day, I gain more and more respect for his leadership,
for his vision, for his hard work . . . I daily thank him for his friendship."

The deal thus closed, salesman and customer left the stage to press the flesh in the crowd. The college marching band played "Celebration."

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