The pan-blues claim that some 3 million attended the rallies, though what police estimates are available suggest only half that number were present.

Those events were highlighted by Lien Chan and James Soong - who have been dogged by accusations that they mean to "sell out " Taiwan Destiny Online Gold to China - prostrating themselves and kissing the earth to show their love for the country.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that opposition supporters at the rallies were deeply moved. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that non-supporters were generally disgusted by what they were quick to label a hypocritical gimmick. And unfortunately, given the blackout on polling data, anecdotal evidence is all there is.

Assessing the mood is also problematic because it is almost impossible to meet undecided voters.

Most people's minds are made up and have been made up for some time. So what the elusive "undecided" voter makes of the competing claims for their ballot is simply not known.

All that can be said is that at the end of the legal polling period - the middle of last week - the DPP had pulled ahead by about 3 percentage points. But this was in the wake of their extremely successful human-chain event on 28, when they organized a human chain from the northernmost point of Taiwan to its southern tip. The event was designed, in theory, to show Taiwanese rejection of China's missile threat.

Human in Destiny Online Gold chain turned into massive DPP rally
But the human chain turned into a massive rally for the DPP. The turnout was estimated at around 2 million, but even more formidable were the logistics involved - and many had thought the often-ramshackle DPP was incapable of such a mobilization.

What impact the March 13 pan-blue rallies had on the DPP's gains is difficult to assess. But for a couple of months now, the race has been neck and neck, within the margin of error of most polls. Illegal bookmakers are still favoring a pan-blue victory by the narrowest of margins.

It has been a curiously empty campaign with very little discussion of major policies. The DPP's President Chen has wrapped himself in the colors of Taiwanese nationalism, posing as the defier of Chinese coercion and the hope of democratic and societal reform in Taiwan - to good effect - significantly widening his core constituency.

The pan-blues have had difficulty meeting this challenge. Originally they hoped to focus on economic problems, but with the economy fast picking up, the wind has been taken out of their sails. They have been left to tout their reputation for bringing prosperity, and a raft of small policies which appeal to single-interest groups - promising special preferential savings rates of 18 percent for state workers and public servants and promising abolition of the widely hated compulsory military service to win the young male vote, and of course establishment of direct transport links with China to win the business vote.

Actually, the DPP also wants to open direct links, but the pan-blues can trade on their reputation for being China's preferred candidates - playing down talk of Taiwan's separate identity - to suggest that they are more likely to bring this about than the governing party.