The answer to this question seems pretty obvious to me, and one doesn't need to resort to cheap psychologizing -- "corruption," "power mad," etc. -- to provide it: Chavez and his circle see themselves as coterminous with social change in Venezuela. Venezuelans told him in so many words he was wrong, both through the vote and through the massive abstentions I've been reading about. Now if U.S. leftists could over their cult of Chavez like the Venezuelans did... (gawd, did I just sound like Yoshie or what?).