On the campaign trail: Sinn Féin looks confident, but the SDLP still has the air of a party licking its wounds,writes Dan Keenan.
He had taken the podium at the ballroom in the Slieve Donard Hotel, which has hosted SDLP annual conferences aplenty over the last 30 years. He was flanked by a casual Gerry Adams, newly-elected Assembly member Caitríona Ruane just back from Colombia, and the candidate Bairbre de Brún.
It was no accident that Sinn Féin had chosen the capital of the SDLP's heartland for its election rally.
The SDLP has more or less controlled the local council since 1973 and Eddie McGrady has made secure the Westminster seat since 1987. This is solid SDLP ground - more so than Derry.
The room, laid out with 500 seats, held more than 400 people, many of them collared and tied for the event. There was little evidence of the stereotypical Sinn Féin voter from the disadvantaged margins of local society.
A traditional Irish music group plucked a few reels as the platform party strode to the front, prompting a smattering of applause and a frisson of excitement.
Over the following two hours, they campaigned effectively for their woman and motivated the crowd.
We heard about the "victimisation" of the Colombia Three, collusion between the British state and "unionist" paramilitaries and the republicans' push for equality, progressive politics and Irish reunification.
One Sinn Féiner, talking privately, said later that the days of hardened republicans meeting in smoke-filled rooms to form an electoral strategy were gone.
Sinn Féin has gone mainstream everywhere and the locals are happy to queue for Mr Adams's autograph and smile for the local paper's photographer.
There is a sense that the electoral tide is flowing in their favour and only a monumental shift in political gravity can change that. Even "events" which appear to be republican reverses seem to be turned around for political advantage.
Ms de Brún told the crowd she is pro-Europe but not uncritically so. "Another EU is possible." There is no need for an EU constitution being pushed by the big countries, the former colonial powers. Another treaty would tidy things up in a post-enlargement Europe of 25.
She outlined a vision of a Europe of equals, of big and small nations co-operating under maximum national sovereignty. There should be no "fortress Europe" and there should be a renewed commitment to combat poverty and to promote justice and human rights.
The people loved it - the same people who rallied behind Eddie McGrady and defeated the Ulster Unionist Enoch Powell.
Sinn Féin has always gone for rallies, and done them well, admitted a well-placed SDLP source.
Asked how it is that Sinn Féin can now outplay the SDLP at its own game and in its own backyard, there was a shrug of the shoulders and an indication of even deeper problems in the party.
Standing in a local SDLP office in Belfast, six volunteers collected election leaflets for a door-to-door canvass.
There was a sense of purpose, but also the feeling that they were merely going through the motions.
The contrast with the Sinn Féin rally could not have been more stark.
Speaking confidentially, an elected representative claimed the party still doesn't quite know why its vote stayed at home last November, while "the Shinners" flocked to the polls. More importantly, he said, the party does not know what to do about it.
The hope is that a single, strong and positive message from its fresh-faced candidate will halt the slide.
Martin Morgan, the Belfast Lord Mayor, would top the poll if personal commitment and passion for Europe, rather than universal suffrage, were the deciding factors.
He is campaigning under the slogan Morgan Means More. There is constant reference to the 25-year Hume legacy and to the things that so-called ordinary voters will find appealing: money and jobs.
Portraying himself as an Irish nationalist and a European internationalist at the same time, Mr Morgan warns that Northern Ireland cannot afford to send three anti-EU MEPs to Strasbourg.
Anti-Europeanism is a badge of honour for the DUP, a slightly unfair criticism of the decidedly iffy Ulster Unionists, and perhaps something of an unfair taunt against Bairbre de Brún.
The candidate himself toured West Belfast this week on a series of engagements more geared to photo opportunities and media interviews than meeting the electorate. In fact not one "ordinary" voter's hand was shaken throughout the afternoon. His posters line the Falls Road as if this, and not South Down, were the SDLP heartland.
He relentlessly pushes the pro-EU line. Pro-euro, pro-constitution, pro-integration, pro-enlargement. It seems a more natural tactic than the negativism of last year's disastrous Assembly campaign and the photo-shoots of an uncomfortable-looking Mark Durkan parading with a "Stop the DUP" slogan.
Mr Morgan is only too happy to be for something and to portray his opponents as anti-progressive and narrow. Yet there is an invisible (and unmentioned) pall over the afternoon as the candidate and his entourage tour the part of Belfast which has just two SDLP city councillors.
They feel they have done the "right thing" for 30 years and now the electorate is handing the plaudits to the Shinners.
Worst of all, they don't fully understand why.