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Inside Politics: The political season has opened with a bang, as the looming election concentrated minds all round.
A change of tánaiste and party leader by the junior coalition party was followed by an impressive display of unity by the main Opposition parties with the Labour leader, Pat Rabbitte, turning up at the Fine Gael party gathering in Sligo in an effort to convince the voters that a credible alternative is genuinely on offer.
While much of the political activity of the past two weeks was ritualistic, and clearly designed for the cameras, a lot of important business has also taken place. Even the publicity stunts are deadly serious at this stage of the political game and nothing happened at any of the parliamentary party meetings without careful thought and planning.
At the first Cabinet meeting after the summer holidays the Taoiseach gave his Ministers a sober assessment of the scale of the task facing them in attempting to win a third successive term.
Some were surprised to hear such an unvarnished appraisal of the political prospects but Ahern pledged that regardless of the odds he was going to give everything in the attempt to pull off a third term.
The public face presented by the Taoiseach and his Ministers at the subsequent Fianna Fáil parliamentary party gathering in Westport was decidedly more upbeat, and they attempted to set the political agenda by questioning the competence of the Opposition parties to govern.
Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte countered with a publicity stunt of their own and travelled to Mullingar once again for another reminder of their accord.
The Westport meeting was overshadowed by the dramatic developments in the Progressive Democrats. The resignation of Mary Harney and the smooth transition to the leadership by Michael McDowell generated enormous publicity for the party. "For a party with 4 per cent of the vote we have got incredible coverage over the past few days," said one activist after the press conference to announce McDowell's election on Monday.
The timing of the leadership change has given the party a necessary shot in the arm but the task facing McDowell is still immense. His first job was to dispel the air of fatalism that had taken hold of the PDs over the past year, and he set about it immediately.
However, his claim that the party can double its number of Dáil seats from eight to 16 should not be taken literally. McDowell was clearly aiming to boost the morale of party activists as the first step in preparing for the election campaign. He has a long way to go and there is not a lot of time left to get the party in shape and to devise ways of promoting the distinct identity of the PDs while remaining in Government with Fianna Fáil. The new Tánaiste surprised many people with the firm commitment to keep the Coalition going until the end of its five-year term, and his declaration that he was a team player. He moved decisively away from his statement earlier this year that he had no particular preference as to whether Bertie Ahern or Enda Kenny was the next taoiseach.
After his elevation McDowell was quite clear that he is seeking a third term for the Fianna Fáil-PD Coalition.
He referred to the fact that the main Opposition parties had apparently ruled the PDs out of any possible alternative government and he resurrected his description of the "slump coalition" to describe the alternative on offer.
At the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting in Sligo two days later, McDowell's decision to tie his party's fortunes so closely to those of Fianna Fáil provoked some discussion. Leading members of Fine Gael were anxious to maintain that they had not ruled out the possibility of involving the PDs in coalition if the numbers made sense. The public comments of party front bencher Olivia Mitchell that the only partners that had been ruled out by Fine Gael were Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin were echoed by other TDs.
Still, given the hostility of Labour, the prospect of the PDs being able to switch horses and form part of the alternative seems remote, although few things in politics are certain.
The mood at the Fine Gael gathering was certainly upbeat. The defeatism and lack of confidence that has characterised the party for the past two decades is gone, and in its place there is a Fianna Fáil-like ebullience. Pat Rabbitte's arrival was the icing on the cake but the party's TDs have no doubt that things are going their way.
"The response I am getting on the streets is unreal. I haven't seen it like this since the early 1980s when Garret was in his prime," said one experienced deputy.
Frank Flannery, the party's director of elections, reinforced the mood by telling the TDs at the meeting, and anybody else who cared to listen outside it, that if the percentage share of the vote being shown in the current opinion polls was reflected in an election, Fianna Fáil would get a hiding.
Flannery's prediction that Fianna Fáil would be down in the low 60s in terms of seats, and that Fine Gael would break the 60 barrier, was carried widely in the media. There was a furious reaction from Fianna Fáil, which only added to Flannery's delight.
There is no doubt that Fine Gael is in better shape for the forthcoming election than for any other since the 1980s, but there is a long way to go. Mayo's championship run to the All-Ireland final has enhanced Enda Kenny's natural ebullience and he joked that neither he nor his county team would be showing the white feather, whatever the difficulties ahead.
Just as Mayo have to face natural-born winners Kerry tomorrow, Fine Gael has to take on a party that has a history of winning like no other in the western world.