The mayor of a western Mexico town was assassinated by cartel hitmen  as a poll was released showing that more than half of the citizens of Mexico believe the Cartels are winning the war against the government. With a citizenry with no confidence in the government’s ability to maintain order and highly militarized drug gangs Mexico is quickly becoming a failed state and a danger to our security:

MEXICO CITY – Suspected drug gang hitmen shot dead a mayor in western Mexico as he drove back from a day out with his family, the latest politician to die in Mexico’s drug war, a state attorney general’s office said Monday.

Gunmen caught up to Mayor Marcelo Ibarra on a highway and shot him in the head Sunday night as he was returning to his hometown of Villa Madero in Michoacan state, a key front in the government’s army-led war against drug cartels.

“We believe this was linked to drug gangs, they were pursuing him,” a spokeswoman at the state attorney general’s office said. She said Ibarra’s wife and two children were unharmed.

Police declined to say why the mayor was a target.

His murder occurred six months after gunmen in northern Mexico killed former federal lawmaker and former mayoral candidate Juan Antonio Guajardo and comes amid a rash of police killings this year.

Michoacan is a flash point in President Felipe Calderón’s crackdown on drug smugglers. Its green hills and avocado fields hide methamphetamine labs and clandestine landing strips for planes moving cocaine to the United States.

The state has become a battleground between allies of the Gulf Cartel from northeastern Mexico and traffickers from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, home to Mexico’s most wanted drug lord, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in drug violence across Mexico so far this year, a faster pace than in 2007 when around 2,500 were murdered over the year, including some state-level politicians.

In May, cartel hitmen murdered a senior federal police chief in charge of drug investigations.

As the death toll rises, 53 percent of Mexicans believe drug gangs are winning the war against the government, a poll in the daily Reforma newspaper said Sunday.

Ready for that fence yet?