By-elections are generally used as barometers of different political parties' popularity and the efficiency of their electoral machines.

They are far from perfect gauges: Local issues get in the way and enthusiasm and turnout is often low.

That may be more true in Pembroke East Central, which goes to the polls on November 26, than in most by-elections.

Nonetheless, it will be used to assess the state of the parties, and both will be picking through the results booth to "spin" it in their favour and to figure out they can do better in the looming General Election.

Of the two parties, the Progressive Labour Party has more to lose. Because it has had large majorities in the constituency in the last two general elections (200 votes in 1993 and 400 votes in the PLP's 1998 triumph), a reduction could be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

If the United Bermuda Party fails to make up much ground, it can argue that this is a PLP stronghold. Nonetheless, given the rolling out of the UBP's new "vision" and "philosophy", party officials would be worried if they failed to narrow the gap. If the PLP's majority is reduced, however, they can take it as a moral victory.

In spite of that, this has been an unusual campaign so far.

There has been something of a debate about the separation of church and state since an ordained minister, the Rev. Leonard Santucci, is the UBP candidate and the independent candidate, Dennis Bean, is running on a fundamentalist Christian platform as best as anyone can tell.

The PLP candidate, Ashfield DeVent, an unknown in political terms, has made some rookie mistakes. His call for a division between church and state rings hollow when the Rev. Wilbur Lowe sits on his own party's benches in Parliament and the PLP's Rev. Trevor Woolridge was always more than happy to mix religious and political rhetoric when he was in the Senate and the House.

That does not mean politics and religion mix well. They often don't, especially when, as Mr. DeVent has pointed out, different churches can't agree on fairly basic questions of faith.

Still, this may be the most religious by-election in memory. Both Rev. Santucci and Mr. Bean are running religious campaigns. The constituency has a heavy concentration of churches, many of them fundamentalist, and their messages may play well, although it is hard to imagine that Mr. Bean will be a factor.

The Rev. Santucci may draw fundamentalist voters with his socially conservative views. But he runs the risk of driving away even more liberal voters with those same views.

Mr. DeVent has run into his own difficulties over his general support for the decriminalisation of cannabis. While he has said that there is a distinction between decriminalisation and legalisation, it is not one that is always clear to the general public.

That is especially so in Pembroke East Central, whose law abiding constituents have to put up with far more than their fair share of drug dealing and whose neighbourhoods continue to pay the price for it.

Mr. DeVent has also had to admit that he has used marijuana in the past although he does not now. That admission should not damage him very much. There are many Bermudians under the age of 50 who have tried drugs at some time; if they were all disqualified on the basis of drug use at one time or another there would be few candidates left, and some of then would almost certainly be liars.

That does not mean that people who have used drugs should be let off the hook. What they have to do is explain clearly where they now stand on the issue, and Mr. DeVent needs to explain his position better.

It is hard to say what role strong religious views and differences on drugs policy will have. In the end, each candidate has the chance to maintain or reduce their vote based on how the voters see them and how they hard they work to see the voters. In Bermuda's small constituencies, that is what will make or break a political campaign.