All of the following statements appear to be true at the same time:

• Mexico is a rich country.
• Mexico is a country where a majority, certainly by American standards, is poor.
• In Mexico, people work incredibly hard.
• In Mexico, people would work even harder if their work paid off.
• Mexico is a country that has not advanced in the way its resources and hard work could have, and should have, enriched it.
• And Mexico is providing a standard of living for tens of millions of its people that could only be dreamed of in Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and elsewhere in Latin America.

I'll be reporting for the NewsHour for the next week here in Mexico, based in the capital and getting out to the rest of the country as much as possible. There's something new happening in Mexico -- or at least still relatively new -- competitive politics where the conclusions of elections are not already known, where the stakes, control of the powerful central government, are very high. And in this case it's really impossible to anticipate the outcome.

We talked to voters last night -- Sunday night -- at a street fair in a poor barrio in Mexico City. It was the feast of St John the Baptist. A local bishop was on hand for first communions and confirmations. There were rides for the kids and street food for everyone. A taco vendor dicing, frying, filling tortillas, and sweating in the searing heat over his griddle said he makes little more than $5 a day, and he's voting for [Andres Manuel Lopez] Obrador. A woman roasting corn, slathering the ears with mayonnaise and grated cheese, talked of her worries for her children, and education, and said she too supports Obrador. But right along with those made up minds were people who said they had little faith in the ability of Mexico's government to improve the lives of poor people, and that all the candidates were pretty much the same, some adding for emphasis, all liars and thieves. A group of young guys talking to one of our team said they make little more than $2 a day for eight hours -- even in a place where it's much cheaper to live than the United States, that is barely enough for subsistence.

The NewsHour team was on hand when the candidate of current President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, known by its Spanish acronym P-A-N, or pan, the word for bread, filled the vast Azteca stadium in the capital. Most national polls have Felipe Calderon, a former energy minister, running slightly behind, but within the margin of error. President Fox was the first PAN president, the first elected national leader to break the 70-plus year grip of the Institutional Revolution Party or PRI. The PAN is a middle class, Roman Catholic party in its orientation, appealing to aspirational Mexicans who lost plenty in the economic boom and bust cycles overseen by the PRI -- savings wiped out -- costs of mortgages and car loans spiraling out of control. President Fox promised an end to all that, and while there has been dissatisfaction that the changes haven't gone far enough. Inflation is under control; the economy has put together back-to-back-to-back years of solid economic growth. I'll continue Mexico's transformation, Calderon promises.

Among the leading candidates, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is promising something different from his PAN rival. The candidate of a coalition of left-of-center parties led by the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, Obrador is a critic of NAFTA, a critic of globalization, and someone who has made siding with the country's poor the centerpiece of his campaign. Today we watched him campaign in the state of Mexico, in the state capital Toluca. The happy crowds, waving flags, singing songs, chanting slogans, know Obrador's campaign theme so well, they shout its conclusion when it comes up in a speech -- to do good for all, but first for the poor.

Toluca was hopping today. The roads into town jammed by people from throughout central Mexico coming for the rally, buses hired by the party filled with supporters in trademark yellow t-shirts bearing the initials AMLO: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. In a long address to a crowd filling the vast central plaza of Toluca, Obrador said neo-liberalism, the word used throughout Latin America to describe global capitalism, has failed Mexico, and especially Mexico's poor. He promised to defeat what he called the rightists of the PRI and the PAN. He said he wanted hard-working Mexicans to stay in their own country, not feel pressured by low wages to head north to the United States. It was a speech much longer than the ones given by presidential candidates in the United States -- and a more complex argument than you're likely to hear at a rally north of the border.

At the same time, it was a rally, it was a party -- one of Mexico's famous masked wrestlers was on hand -- bands played reggae and hip-hop, and traditional mariachi music. Vendors criss-crossed the giant plaza with ices, roast nuts, a vinegary corn and pepper salad, and flat bread pizzas, made with blue corn crust, slathered with refried beans, grated cheese and slices of tomato.

A popular item at today's rally was a mask bearing a caricature likeness of Obrador himself. The drawing turns the smiling 53 year old into a boyish, appealing face to wear over your own. These are not unauthorized drawings; the toothy, grinning cartoon also adorns official campaign posters. A supporter in the crowd even gave the candidate a mask of himself. He didn't put it on, but can you imagine the Republicans mass producing a cartoon likeness of George W. Bush -- or the Democrats caricaturing the monumental jawline of Sen. John Kerry?

In two hours it was all over, and Toluca got back to work. Commuting, doing the marketing, selling to the shoppers. Though Wal-Mart was not far away, the vast Mercado Juarez sold much of what Tolucans need for the week -- hardware, shoes, flowers, music, tabloid magazines. Corn tumbled from a truck just driven in from a farm further north. A team of florists made funeral wreaths, the bright yellow orange of squash flowers bumped up against the deep green of fresh chiles and nopales, that is, cactus petals.

The American-born pollster Dan Lund says many of these voters will be ticket-splitters, that's something new on the Mexican political scene; they'll support the long established PRI for local offices, and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the man who promises to take care of the poor first, for president of Mexico.

I'll have more on this election, and the other candidates, later in the week.