PANAMA CITY (AP) — It was billed as a battle royal between Latin America’s top two spin doctors. In one corner, the campaign guru to such towering leftist leaders as Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. In the other, a strategist likened to Karl Rove who is credited with helping return the Institutional Revolutionary Party to power in Mexico after a 12-year-absence.

So how did these high-paid rainmakers get trounced in Panama’s recently concluded presidential race by a candidate advised by an unknown American strategist who barely speaks Spanish?