Hi °C | Lo °C When it comes to the three-way General Election battle, Northern Ireland voters have good reason to feel left out.
David Cameron is seeking votes here, albeit via his link-up with Sir Reg Empey and the Ulster Unionists.
But the parties of Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg are not on our ballot papers.
We are nevertheless bombarded with media coverage of the race to Number 10.
Network news programmes have in-depth reports on the latest developments — claims, counter-claims, rows and gaffes.
And for the hardcore politics junkies, there is blanket coverage on the 24-hour news channels.
It is hardly surprising therefore that the Nick Clegg effect has crossed the Irish Sea, even though he and his party are not on the local electoral scene.
The televised leader debates were hyped to the max, although the content did not exactly match up to the advance billing.
Clegg's performances were also the subject of media coverage bordering on hysteria, with one newspaper even claiming he had become almost as popular as Churchill.
These opinion poll findings are not without significance for Northern Ireland politics.
The fact that Cameron is far from being universally loved among UCUNF voters flags up again the stresses within that Conservative-UUP pact.
It was always fanciful to imagine that all Ulster Unionist supporters were natural born true blue Tories.
Cameron's poor rating among Catholics is hardly a big shock. Memories of Conservatism from the Thatcher era may well play their part there.
But this does raise a question for Sinn Fein. Its president Gerry Adams was adamant this week that his party does not care who wins the General Election.
It seems a lot of Catholics do not agree.
With the result too close to call, every seat could conceivably count. It is not entirely inconceivable that Sinn Fein's abstentionism could ease Cameron's path to Downing Street.
