With just a week to go to polling day, the campaign has entered the last, crucial stage where all could be won or lost on a single false step.
While it is evident from opinion polling that a good many people have determined what they want to happen, which explains why National until recently polled so consistently above 50%, the shape of the next government is quite another matter.
The subdued level of public participation in the campaign may not reflect indifference or complacency but a desire to ensure a coalition emerges that will not attempt to do too much, as in 1984-87, or too little at a time of great public uncertainty about the economy.
In short, people may be looking for a "safe" coalition while at the same time a large number, possibly a majority, desire change for the sake of change - a problem all long-term governments face.
The outcome - unless the improbable landslide National has been hoping for actually comes to pass - is tending towards a National-Act New Zealand-United Future coalition, or a Labour-Green-New Zealand First-Progressive combination, with the Maori Party possibly finally determining who will sit on the government side of the House.
Much will depend on whether New Zealand First is represented and the embarrassing further disclosures about its leader's defective memory over the Owen Glenn matter cannot have improved its chances.
If it fails to be represented then the likely next government will be led by National.
In a mood of moderation that prospect seems to be broadly acceptable, again using opinion polling as a guide.
However, vote splitting is a wild card in an MMP election and it could still produce an unanticipated or confused outcome.
Voters are, after all, electing a Parliament, not a government.
For example, the Labour coalition's emphasis throughout the past nine years has been on restoring so-called social justice, but what that has really meant is the creation by the State of a much larger pool of beneficiaries.
The bulk of the middle class is eligible for and is clearly enjoying the tax credits from Working for Families; students have happily accepted interest-free loans; many people are enjoying cheaper or free doctors' visits and prescriptions; pensioners are travelling freely on public transport; Maori Treaty of Waitangi settlements are proceeding apace; the tax cuts have been generous to the lower paid, and so on.
This truly has been the "nanny state". Those so rewarded will be concerned to ensure they do not lose by changing horses now.
And whereas National has committed to most, if not all, these policies the fear that a new government might find reasons to modify or cancel them exists in some minds, a fear cynically exploited by Labour's election slogan.
It is doubtful, too, whether voters will place a great deal of their faith in the minor parties' promises.
One reason for this is that throughout the campaign the major parties have been preaching caution with new spending, Labour in particular.
In a recession likely to get worse before it gets better, there will not be enough money coming in to fund anything like the level of enticements being promoted by the likes of Act, NZ First, the Greens or the Progressive Party.
The Maori Party is a slightly different case in that its "bottom line" policies are to do with claimed "rights" rather than actual cash.
While Labour has said it is committed to entrenching the Maori seats under the Maori electoral option, the Maori Party wants the Electoral Act amended to require a 75% vote in Parliament before they can be abolished.
This is something neither a Labour-led or, for that matter, a National-led coalition would be likely to achieve.
There is a degree of electoral annoyance with the influence small parties have had on Labour, which has seen such policies as the anti-smacking legislation enacted and threats made to force choice upon consumers.
Ideologically, National has stuck to its individual-rights guns on some matters but at the same time has thrown conventional conservative ideology out of the nearest door with others of its policies.
Its lifeline for people likely to lose their jobs in the recession is pure welfarism and some of the Clark Government's policies adopted wholesale by John Key run counter to every free market principle.
But comfort in hard times is one thing; proposing convincing long-term solutions to the goals that three successive Labour-led coalitions have failed to achieve - sustained growth, much higher wages, less government, a higher place in the international wealth rankings - quite another.
A security blanket will not solve them and voters have little time left to properly assess who can offer the most credible plan.
