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This is a case where image overtakes substance on both sides.
Chavez is a mildly ineffective reformer who uses oil revenues to advance social programs. He is not abolishing private property, and the things that the state has purchased, it has done so at market prices. Inequality is falling faster in Brazil with Lula and Chile with Bachelet.
So his popularity there is matched by his unpopularity here because of his discourse. Mildly ineffective reformers are generally not very popular, but mildly ineffective reformers who do largely symbolic acts of "resistance" to US pressure can become very popular. So he yells, and screams, and does photo-ops with Castro, becoming a useful bogeyman for the American right, and a "symbol" of resistance for the South American left.
Socialist? No, not at all.
Now, as far as the referendum, whatever you think of him, there are fewer ways to alter election rules than through a referendum. And even then he can only stay in power "indefinitely" if he keeps winning elections.
Now, what should the American administration do? Nothing. As long as the US intervenes in Latin America, mildly ineffective reformers without much of a record will become very popular by riding anti-US resentment.
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