Caracas Envoy's Job: Sell Chavez: President's Plans Fuel Skepticism

Beginning of article

Alfredo Toro Hardy, Venezuela's new ambassador to the United States, knows that he has an uphill struggle in explaining the government of President Hugo Chavez to skeptics in Washington.

A former paratrooper who led a failed coup and then spent two years in prison, Mr. Chavez is a fiery populist with an "affinity with Fidel Castro," who recently threatened to dissolve Venezuela's Congress if it stood in the way of constitutional reform.

Critics fear Venezuela's new president is a Latin American strongman, but his supporters argue he is the man needed to reform a moribund and corrupt democracy.

"Normally, when the democratic model is exhausted, what …