This paper intends to investigate how the popular can be taken as a matrix of Lula's discourse and how editorialists and columnists of the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reframe this discourse as "populist" in 2006 and 2010, at the presidential elections, and, thus, sustain his political positioning. We seek to demonstrate how the opinions published in this newspaper resume the elements that make up the notion of "populism", hegemonic until the late 1970s, namely, that of a phenomenon that is characterized by a mass politics, a style of government that relies on manipulation and state protection of workers and that has characterized Brazilian politics between the years 1930 and 1964. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]