Michael McDowell will fight the next general election by potraying the alternative Fine Gael and Labour pact as a 'slump coalition', writes Stephen Collins, Political Correspondent.
Michael McDowell set the agenda for the last election with his slogan "One-Party Government - No Thanks".
On assuming the leadership of the Progressive Democrats yesterday he gave a firm indication about how he intends to fight the next election with a new target in his sights.
This time a reworked version of the theme reads "Slump Coalition - No Thanks".
When it became clear in recent days that McDowell would succeed Mary Harney as leader of the PDs, there was much speculation about how relations with his Coalition partner, Fianna Fáil, would develop under the new arrangement.
At his first press conference as party leader, McDowell tried to put that issue to bed by stressing his good relationship with Bertie Ahern and pointing to his record in Government as a team player.
He made it clear that his political target in the next six months would be the alternative Government of Fine Gael and Labour.
In particular, he appealed to people who had voted for Fine Gael in the past to vote for the PDs, with whose policies they could identify, instead of tying themselves to voting for a party that was handcuffed to Labour and more than likely to the Greens and a number of far-left TDs into the bargain.
"To those who might be tempted to vote for change for change's sake, my message is clear: what is on offer is a change for the worse," said the new PD leader.
McDowell coined the term "slump coalition" almost a year ago in an effort to pin that description of Fine Gael and Labour on the public mind. By emphasising that the main Opposition parties are likely to require the support of the Greens and Independents, he is clearly pitching for the support of middle of the road Fine Gael voters, who might be even more fearful of uncertainty and instability than they are of Fianna Fáil continuing in office.
Going on the trend in the opinion polls, it is clear there is a developing mood among the electorate for a change of Government.
The weak point in the argument for the alternative is that it is hard to see how Fine Gael and Labour will win the number of seats necessary to put a coalition together without support from others.
To that extent McDowell may be ploughing a fertile furrow by trying to focus the minds of Fine Gael voters on what they really want after the election.
Most Fine Gael voters do not have a problem accepting a coalition with Labour but the potential involvement of the Greens may not go down very well in the party's rural hinterland while the possible involvement of some of the Dáil's handful of hard left TDs will not be to the liking of the party's urban middle-class voters.
McDowell knows that the electoral record since 1987 is clear. When Fine Gael does well, the PDs do badly, and the precise opposite is also the case: when Fine Gael does badly, the PDs do well.
The clearest trend in Irish politics over the past two years and more has been the revival in Fine Gael's fortunes. This is something the new PD leader wants to halt in its tracks. Stressing the prospect of instability if there is not a clear-cut result in the election is one way to go about frightening Fine Gael voters.
The other side of the coin, however, is that by stressing the difficulties that the Opposition will have in forming a Government, the PD leader raises the question of how Fianna Fáil and the PDs will be able to perform that task.
The polls indicate that the current Coalition partners will be at least as far short of the numbers as the alternative, so the question arises as to how they propose to make up the difference.
Fine Gael and Labour have their own favourite bogeyman for that role and it is Sinn Féin.
That prospect may be even more unappealing than the likely component parts of the "slump coalition" as far as prospective Fine Gael voters are concerned.
Whether McDowell can make his "slump coalition" tag stick is another issue.
The last time Fine Gael and Labour were in government was under John Bruton's leadership in the mid-1990s.
That rainbow government also included the Democratic Left and it was widely regarded as a successful and prudent administration that played its part in the creation of the Celtic Tiger economy.
McDowell is hoping to drag voters' memories back to the 1980s but a significant proportion of the electorate will have no idea of what conditions were like a quarter of a century ago, and are likely to care less.
What they will want to know is what coalition combination looks like making their lives better in the years ahead. McDowell rightly recognises that probably the biggest problem facing the Coalition is that the voters inevitably tire of the same old faces in government and they are open to voting for change.
If he can convince them that the change will be for the worse, then the new Tánaiste may be able to make voters think again.
The very fact of the change of leadership that will bring him into the Tánaiste's office will help to freshen the image of the Government.
It has certainly generated a huge level of publicity for the PDs which has to be good for the party.
McDowell's task will be to capitalise on the media exposure by getting his message across to as many people as possible.
The new PD leader rang the Taoiseach yesterday to assure him he intended to serve out the remainder of the Coalition's life but also to discuss how they will both face into the election.
"The leader of Fianna Fáil and I also agreed that it was not our intention to fall over the finish line in the manner of an exhausted long-distance runner but that each of us, as leaders of separate political parties, would use the next six to eight months to generate policies and platforms which will enable each of our parties to seek not just a renewal of our mandates to govern but to set out a vision to bring Ireland to new heights of prosperity, social justice and national achievement."
By the time the election comes around next year, all the parties and their leaders will certainly be exhausted because the campaign is already well and truly under way.
Whether McDowell can imprint his mark on it as he did in 2002 will determine the fate of the Progressive Democrats.