With the Taipei mayoral race heating up, a local meet-and-greet held by DPP candidate Puma Shen was stood up by three party heavyweights who had all been announced as attending — an awkward signal for morale in the green camp.

• Shen's office had earlier issued a media advisory saying Chuang Jui-hsiung, Hsu Kuo-yung and Wang Shih-chien would all attend the event in Wanhua, but none of the three showed up.
• City councillor Liu Yao-jen, who organised the event, explained that Chuang's flight had been grounded by torrential rain in Taitung and that Hsu had a sudden family matter, and asked the public not to speculate about Wang Shih-chien — though Wang still failed to appear.
• Shen played the incident down, saying there were too many campaign events and that scheduling was difficult.
• There have also been murmurs within the green camp about how he is running his campaign, with former minister without portfolio Chang Ching-sen urging him to step outside his echo chamber and seek advice from former Taipei mayors such as Jaw Shaw-kong, Ma Ying-jeou and Ko Wen-je.
• Ko Wen-je, for his part, jabbed that the DPP had fielded too weak a candidate in Shen, leaving Chiang Wan-an with nothing to fear; Shen shot back that people had said Ko was too weak back in the day, and he was elected all the same.

Outlook: With only three months to go before the local elections, whether Shen can bring the party's heavyweights together on stage to campaign for him will be a key thing to watch in the Taipei race.