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MANTECAL, Venezuela (AP) - The Toyota 4Runner pulled to a stop on the country road and a tinted window rolled down. Passers-by gawked, then broke into a run, screaming "president!" when they realized Hugo Chavez was at the wheel. "I love you!" cried a middle-aged woman with tears in her eyes, thrusting a fistful of flowers into the car.
The president clasped hands and planted kisses on cheeks, heads and hands of the people who turned out in the pouring rain to see him — an emotional connection that he called the driving force behind the socialist revolution that has pitted him against Washington.
"What hurts me most is poverty, and that's what made me a rebel," Chavez said during six hours of conversations with The Associated Press on Saturday during a road trip across the southern plains, a helicopter flight and a visit to a cattle ranch.
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