McAleese marches on in hope of victory

It's a phrase she has used countless times to countless fans, but yesterday it meant a little more. "How are you Mary?" a woman asked presidential candidate Prof Mary McAleese at a party gathering in a Dublin pub. "I'm doin' the very best," the candidate said. "Thank you very much."

After a weekend of polls indicating that she is indeed doing the very best in the race to the Aras, the candidate was a changed person. Gone was the woman who threw reporters' questions back at them like badly-constructed essays from dim undergraduates.

Instead, she praised the fairmindedness of John Taylor, deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, for recognising her finer qualities, and answered questions calmly about a newspaper report that her cousin was a convicted IRA man. "As I told the Sunday World, I have 60 first cousins in that generation and another 130 in the next generation. I don't know if they intend to unpack all their lives."

The situation highlighted the "tension that exists in families", she said. "Everyone, including my cousin, and perhaps particularly my cousin, knows only too well my views of violence. He certainly knows that I have never ever stood for the use of violence."

The problems of Northern Ireland were "soluble first of all through politics and secondly by the Gospel", she said.

It appeared that the stronger the smell of victory the mellower was the candidate. "Hello", she said to a small girl. "Nice to meet you. Can I shake your hand?" The irony was that Mary McAleese does not have to glad-hand journalists. The polls appear to show that reports of her frostiness have had all the effect of snowflakes pelted at a volcano.

The organisers of Concern's Christmas Fast waited more than an hour for her to arrive at their publicity function.

"Fianna Fail say she's on her way," Concern's chief executive, David Begg, told Adi Roche, who was waiting to go to her next engagement. "If I was you, I'd start, but it's not for me to say," Ms Roche said. "Give us five minutes," Mr Begg asked, and Ms Roche agreed, adding: "Mary wouldn't do that for me, by the way."

The five minutes passed and there was still no sign of Ms McAleese. Mr Begg introduced Ms Roche and Tanya Banotti, daughter of the Fine Gael candidate, who was canvassing in Wicklow. As Ms Roche spoke, Prof McAleese, her family and handlers came through the front entrance, heralded by a ringing mobile phone. They walked down the long corridor and waited for Ms Roche to finish.

Prof McAleese said that she had been a "long-time supporter of Concern for a long number of years", but this was not an appropriate place for self-promotion.

Asked for her reaction to the opinion polls showing her with a commanding lead, she said that she would be "happy maybe on Friday when the votes are counted". Talking to another reporter about her planned trip to an Irish centre in Manchester tonight, she said that this was intended to show people "what they do abroad in the name of Ireland is deeply valued".

Then it was on to the Golden Ball pub in Kilternan, where two people running the Dublin City Marathon for Cerebral Palsy Ireland were photographed with Prof McAleese. Minister of State Tom Kitt and MEP Niall Andrews led the supporters, who whooped their welcome as her car pulled up.

"Who are you reporting for?" a woman asked afterwards as the candidate left. "I hope they'll see her true value now," she said, with more than a sniff of disapproval.