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YARE, Venezuela - It's the Roman Catholic feast day of Corpus Christi and a parade of demons dances through the village streets to the steps of the church. Here an audience gathers as a priest makes an offering of the Holy Eucharist. The hallowed gesture brings the costume demons to full submission and the crowd to elated celebration.

Traditions like the Dancing Demons are alive in Yare, thanks in part to support from President Hugo Chavez. In return for his support, the parade route is flanked by rows of souvenirs emblazoned with Socialist Party symbols. But do Venezuelans embrace their President's populist policies and share his hatred of the U.S.? The answer has changed considerably since 1998 when Chavez first swept to power on a wave of nationalism.

The timing of Chavez's rise was ideal. Oil prices spiked, Venezuela's economy flexed, and in his plutocratic foil George Bush, Chavez had his dragon to slay. He called for Latin America to seize back its business interests from Los Yanquis and send them scrambling for the border - an old idea revived with an infusion of Chavez charisma. His speeches drew huge enthusiastic crowds. He fed Latin America's mistrust of American policy makers by keeping El Che, Castro, Iraq, and the CIA's meddling fresh in the people's minds.

Outside of Venezuela, Latin Americans took a cautious approach to this latest savior. Sure there was pleasure in Chavez's bold swipes at the U.S., but real progress had been sluggish. Promises recurrently rolled from political lecterns and stages across Latin America only to wither in the sun before they could aid the people (IMF/World Bank health reforms, Social Security, the war on drugs, etc.). Could Chavez's cojones and ham-fisted tactics be enough to buck that trend? They were a start. And even the most ardent Chavez critics grudgingly admitted that this start was big news in Latin America: Argentine writer Luisa Valenzuela: "Many here tend to mistrust populism and demagoguery, finding them redolent of Peronism. But even among the wary, a window of hope has opened, with Mr. Chavez as its symbol."

By his second term, Mr. Chavez had solidified enough power to enact his ambitious nation-wide reform program. "Bolivarian Missions" encompassed everything from the Environment (Mission Arbol) to Education (Missions Robinson, Ribas, and Sucre) to Civilian Militias (Mission Miranda) and the promotion of culture and tourism (Mission Cultura) as

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