One of the classic political errors in democratic systems is to presume that a given segment of the electorate so detests the other party that its concerns need not be addressed. "They have nowhere else to go" are the infamous words or thoughts of many a candidate, many times followed by post-election whining about "their" betrayal.

That's how John Engler got to be governor of Michigan. The polls said that the Democratic incumbent, James Blanchard, went into Election Day with a double-digit lead. However, Blanchard had figured that the black vote was solidly in his pocket and it was important to appeal to the rednecks, so he ran TV commercials showing a white prison guard screaming abuse at a young black inmate, he wouldn't listen to his own civil rights director on some high profile pardon and clemency issues and otherwise did his best to imitate the caricature of a right wing Republican. When the votes were counted, relatively few of them were from Detroit. Blanchard figured that residents of the mostly-black city had nowhere else to go, and for the most part, they went nowhere on Election Day. They just stayed home. Detroit had an 18 percent turnout, the vote for an obscure black gubernatorial candidate for the Workers World Party exceeded the margin between Blanchard and Engler, and Michigan got a new Republican governor.

It was neither the first nor the last example of this sort of miscalculation. Blanchard complained about the black leaders whom he had shunned and taken for granted not mobilizing their constituencies, took a job as Slick Willie's ambassador to Canada, and this past year was trounced in the primary while seeking to be governor again.

Is there a lesson to be learned? Sure, but Mireya Moscoso and her little clique haven't learned it and won't anytime soon.

Martín Torrijos will be the PRD candidate for president in 2004, she figured, and given the Panamanian electorate's sharp historic polarization and the election law changes she engineered, whichever member of her entourage she chose would have a reasonable chance in a two-way race with the PRD. It all seemed to be working when Alberto Vallarino, who had been running close to Torrijos in the polls for months, quit the race in disgust.

However, Ricardo Martinelli quit his job as minister of canal affairs to run a third party presidential bid, and former President Guillermo Endara looks like the fourth candidate in the race, if the Liberal Party can get the signatures needed to get back on the ballot. Martinelli began with blasts about Moscoso's ruinous "equalization" giveaway to Hutchison Whampoa and business-unfriendly tax and utility regulation policies. Endara trod where Torrijos has been too timid to go, attacking Mireya's foreign policy in general and her tolerant attitude about Colombian death squad incursions into Panama in particular.

A lot can happen in 15 months, but it appears that the most that a Martinelli presidential bid could accomplish would be the avoidance of Cambio Democratico's loss of ballot status and that Endara would be an also-ran as well.

But look at what these candidacies will do to Mireya's calculations. Knock Vallarino out of the game with election law changes, purge most members of MOLIRENA factions other than the Rosas family's from her government, pick the next Arnulfista nominee and those who voted for Moscoso and Vallarino in 1999 will have nowhere else to go --- right?

WRONG!

Like Jimmy Blanchard, Mireya Moscoso has erred on the side of arrogance. The most recent Dichter & Neira poll shows that none of Mireya's potential Arnulfista presidential candidates breaks the barrier of three percent public support. The only question left is how humiliating the final result will be.