ANALYSIS: Marian Harkin has half a dozen teams working the Sligo-Leitrim constituency night after night as she bids to become an Independent TD. Kathy Sheridan joined her on the campaign trail
Thirty minutes out in Sligo town and it's been a heady progress of hugs and handshakes. The man beetling purposefully towards Marian Harkin announces that he has six pints in him. Well, she was warned.
Ten minutes later, he has unburdened himself of his life story, slandered at least one former prominent politician, and still hasn't revealed who he is planning to vote for. Oh, he has a plan, indeed he does, he says repeatedly: "Oh yes, I plan to do something and it's perfectly legal. I heard it on the radio."
It's like a test. Harkin is uncomfortable - and not just because of the time. Negative campaigning isn't her style, never mind slandering the opposition.
She examines her feet for a minute, fixes a smile on her face, then interrupts him, firmly and brightly, mid-sentence: "So have you decided what you're going to do this time?"
It's probably taken the maths teacher more than 20 hard years of dealing with adolescents to perfect that interjection, the kind that delivers the message "don't mess with me" - with a smile.
He gets it.
His Grand Plan is to write "None of the above" on the ballot paper.
"And how is that a vote?" she asks, the smile a bit quizzical now.
"Well, if I stayed at home, my vote wouldn't count. But if I go in and write that down, they have to count it. I heard it on the radio."
Right. "Okay, well we have to be moving on . . ." No lecture about spoiled votes. No muttered obscenities. On to the next concerned citizen.
A stony-faced woman answers the door. "Hello, I'm Marian Harkin," says the candidate. No response. "Have you heard of me?" (She's on every second telegraph pole). "I heard of the whole lot of you", snaps the gargoyle.
"Well . . . I'm looking for all the support I can get", says Harkin. The door rattles on its hinges as it slams behind her.
In moments like these, it must be good to have polls behind you which suggest you're home and dry. But she's far too astute to take anything for granted. More than half a dozen separate teams are swamping the sprawling 68,000-strong constituency night after night; and that's with Harkin not only reporting in to her Leaving Cert and repeat maths students every day, but operating without a party machine or paid staff or the comfort of an MCC after her name.
"If you get the road to my house upgraded", promises a woman, "you'll get my No 1." It's insane, of course. Upgrading any road in nine days would present a challenge, even for Bertie the Roadrunner. But what makes Harkin different to the point of foolhardy is that she tells them, out loud, that she can't do a thing about upgrading that road or anything else because she's not an elected politician. She promises to make inquiries (which she channels through local Independent councillor Alfie Park).
The only other promise she makes is "that I'll work as hard as I can if elected". In other words, her supporters are taking a whopping leap of faith.
Then again, this is a woman who pulled in 47,500 first preferences in the European elections, who says that the only thing that would put her right off anyone courting her support post-election is a person talking out of both sides of his mouth: "Because I'm a straight talker myself. And I'd be looking very carefully at promises made and broken where this region is concerned."
Carers, health, breast-screening, radiotherapy and - the issue she has made her own - infrastructure are the talking points in this election.
"A billion would probably fill a lot of the gaps" as set out in the Western Development Commission's document presented to the Taoiseach in January, she says. Bertie's response, she adds, was: "Sorry, not in the National Development Plan."
"But you still hear about the Bertie Bowl and Dublin transport. And they're not in the Development Plan either," she says.
This lady is revved up. This morning she was organising her tax-clearance certificate. And time and distance hold no terrors for a widow whose youngest child is doing his Leaving Cert.
Has she a role model in Dáil Eireann? She has. Brian Cowen is top man. "He's a man who always knows his stuff . . . and doesn't bluff". Pause. "Oh God. Now they'll think I'm going with Fianna Fáil." Hmm.
"And I admire Mary Harney. She has certainly led the clean-up in Irish politics and, as a nation, we should be grateful to her."
And there's Fine Gael's Frances Fitzgerald - "a fine spokeswoman" - and Jan O'Sullivan of Labour. "Have I mentioned all the parties?" How about the Greens? "No".