Argentine first lady looks presidential in campaign

By Kevin Gray

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - First lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is still just a presidential candidate, but she is already acting as though she is leading Argentina.

While other candidates crisscross the country trying to drum up votes at rallies, Fernandez is hobnobbing with foreign leaders and sitting in on meetings as a top advisor to her husband, President Nestor Kirchner.

Buoyed by a more than 25 percentage point lead in the polls, Fernandez is using frequent trips abroad and tightly scripted campaign appearances at home to bolster her standing as the runaway favourite in the October 28 vote.

"Her campaign is basically being run as if she's already won -- and she's succeeding in doing it," said political commentator and columnist James Neilson.

This week, Fernandez accompanied Kirchner to the U.N. General Assembly in New York, meeting with Wall Street bankers and analysts and delivering speeches broadcast live back home.

It was her latest stop on a globe-trotting tour that has also taken her to Spain, Austria, Germany and Mexico, where at times she has been greeted as if she were a head of state.

Her Web site, www.cristina.com.ar, has dozens of photos of the glamorously dressed Fernandez meeting with everyone from media magnate Rupert Murdoch to German leader Angela Merkel.

"It's a virtual consecration. The government wants to create the image of her as presidential," said pollster and political analyst Jorge Giacobbe.