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Martinelli can boast that, according to one poll, he has overtaken the PRD candidate, leaving the other two opposition presidential candidates, Juan Carlos Varela and Guillermo Endara, when taken combined only show slightly more than half as much voter support as he has. Balbina can boast that the pollster with the longer history and better reputation has her ahead. Everyone can speculate about what the large group of undecideds means.

Both polls show Herrera dropping support since the September 7 PRD primary and part of this has to be that her name isn't on the radio and TV every few minutes now. Both show her with the backing of the Democratic Revolutionary Party's hard core base and little else.

The polls also say that President Torrijos remains remarkably popular for someone in this stage of a term in office, but that his personal popularity is dropping and that more Panamanians think that the country is headed in the wrong direction than those who believe that things are going right. They also show that the combination of Varela plus Endara equals about 20 percent, roughly the traditional hard core Arnulfista base.

Hardly anyone in Panama is neutral about the PRD. Most of the undecideds are against Balbina Herrera, and if most of those whom she doesn't attract go for the opposition candidate with the best chance of winning, then the smart money bets that Martinelli wins.

However, six months is an eternity in politics.