At the outset of this campaign it was stated here that nobody should be surprised if one or more of the candidates did a John Prescott. That hasn't quite happened but it's rough out there.
Mr David Trimble suffered a serious ballyragging in Portadown at the weekend while in West Tyrone yesterday SDLP candidate Ms Brid Rodgers was pelted with eggs, the latest in a series of such incidents.
The DUP and Sinn Fein sought to distance themselves from these actions. Still, it all reflects how trenchantly this battle is being fought. And with two days to go it's still very close in several constituencies.
There are important TV leadership debates tonight on UTV and BBC. The four main leaders - Mr Trimble, Mr John Hume, Mr Gerry Adams and the Rev Ian Paisley - are due to appear on UTV's Insight programme, where without candidate interaction each leader is to be quizzed one-to-one by Mike Nesbitt. It's a relatively unthreatening formula for them. BBC's Spotlight programme is a trickier business. It will have the four main party representatives making separate pitches and then questions from an invited audience. Dr Paisley did not fare well on a similar programme during the 1998 Assembly election campaign. Mr Trimble, Mr Hume and Mr Adams again are due to appear on Spotlight but at the time of going to press, according to the BBC, Dr Paisley will not be there. The DUP candidate in North Belfast, Mr Nigel Dodds, will field questions instead.
With all those undecided unionist votes Mr Trimble is trying to exploit Dr Paisley's non-appearance. He accused the DUP leader of running scared from a potentially fraught studio scene. Not so, says the DUP, it's simply that Dr Paisley has other engagements. Mr David Ervine is plugging away for the Progressive Unionist Party in East Belfast, where he is seeking to dislodge Mr Peter Robinson of the DUP.
A pretty hopeless task it seems. But it's important that he flies the party flag. Moreover, pounding the streets of the constituency should ensure that he holds on to his Belfast City Council seat in the local elections, which are being held on Thursday.
Conscious of his ability to aggravate his opponents, he has called for support "because the most unsettling politician from Peter Robinson's point of view is David Ervine".
From a pro-Belfast Agreement perspective one of the elements of the 1998 Assembly elections was the failure of either Mr Gary McMichael or Mr David Adams of the Ulster Democratic Party - which is linked to the UDA - to be elected.
Without Assembly seats the UDP's influence on the loyalist paramilitary grouping was undermined, and there has been evidence of that. Loyalist paramilitaries have been involved in violence and murder since the agreement, but it's fair to say that the UVF has shown greater discipline than the UDA over that period.
The presence of Mr Ervine and Mr Billy Hutchinson in the Assembly appears to have had some moderating effect on the UVF. Mr McMichael, Mr Adams and other UDP candidates are hoping they can maintain some political influence by winning council seats.
There has been much talk this election about demographics. Sinn Fein has predicted that more and more nationalists are coming on the electoral register and that will be very evident when the Westminster and local government counts are completed.
Unionists such as Mr Trimble and Mr Robinson insist it won't be like that at all. They argue that in terms of the Catholic/Protestant head count, matters are beginning to reach a plateau and, even if there were a shift, that doesn't mean all Catholics would favour a united Ireland.
In the 1997 and 1998 Westminster and Assembly elections, the SDLP and Sinn Fein between them took 40 per cent of the votes, with various unionist parties holding about 50 per cent of the total vote.
In the European election two years ago, the SDLP and Sinn Fein won over 45 per cent of the vote with unionists candidates taking over 52 per cent. Alliance, the fifth-largest party, did well in the Westminster and Assembly polls but fared abysmally in the Euro election.
Most politicians know of the dangers of dealing with constitutional politics on the basis of sectarian head counts. It's the Balkans civil war scenario. The best comment on the issue came from Mr Ervine. "At the moment the nationalist minority is so powerful that it is uncrushable, but it must also be remembered that the unionist position is so powerful that it too is uncrushable."