Faced with the choice between a government whose best days are some years behind it and a small target opposition that has yet to produce any compelling argument for it to be given office, Canberrans can be excused for feeling underwhelmed.
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As we enter the caretaker period, the two options are a government that will spend close to a billion dollars on a contentious tram and an opposition that would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on scrapping the same, as yet unbuilt, piece of infrastructure if it was elected.
In the second ring of what looks like a three-ring flea circus, voters also have a choice between two new hospital building proposals.
The more modest of these was rejected as unnecessary and wasteful by the Barr government in August when it was first tabled by the Liberals.
Now that same government has a super-sized hospital building plan of its own.
This seems to be a knee-jerk response to the attack ads contrasting hospital waiting times with the tram plan the opposition has been screening.
Neither of the proposals gives the appearance of being based on solid research and long-term planning. Both come across as political point scoring and toxic examples of policy-making on the run.
A fact-based health policy, as opposed to the dog's breakfast of political expediency we have seen at Calvary, and now at Canberra Hospital, should draw bipartisan support on its own merits.
The big question, and one ACT voters will be looking forward to an answer to, is what issues will be paraded in the third ring of our electoral flea circus ahead of October 15.
It seems safe to predict, on the one hand, an ongoing orgy of self-congratulation by a government that has held office under three chief ministers for almost 15 years – since November 5, 2001.
On the other, the opposition is likely to maintain the small target and largely negative approach to campaigning that worked so well for Tony Abbott in the lead-up to the 2013 Federal election.
Whether Canberrans, who traditionally take a keen interest in local issues and have supported the ALP, most recently in coalition with the Greens, six times out of the eight elections held since self-government, will warm to this remains to be seen.
It seems improbable, given the conservatives have held the reigns of power for only six years and 248 days in the past 27 years.
Nothing can be taken for granted, however. Although the Liberals have not yet provided persuasive proof they deserve to be given a go, Labor has done no more to convince voters they deserve to retain government.
Faced with what appears to be a difficult choice between two "B" sides, Canberrans could be forgiven for saying "a pox on both their houses" when they finally enter the polling booths.
