As befits a candidate from the world of show business, the official launch of Dana Rosemary Scallon's campaign was carefully staged. It took place in the Irish Writers' Museum in Dublin, corresponding to her remarks at the end of her speech of associating herself with Ireland's cultural heritage in literature and music.
Although, as she often points out, she has no party machine behind her, a large number of supporters, mainly middle-aged women, had been informed about the launch and the large first-floor double room was thronged long before it was due to start.
A single podium stood alone at the top of the room, in front of a poster which, with its misty landscape and ghostly children, looked like a Celtic rock album cover.
The front row of seats was empty, waiting for family members to fill it, stressing once more that this campaign was not only about defending the family, not only about the family praying together and staying together, but about this particular family working together.
Twenty minutes after the launch was due to start Dana's husband Damien arrived, followed by her brother, John Brown, carrying a large bouquet. Her election agent, Elizabeth Bruton (a solicitor and cousin of the former Taoiseach) introduced the candidate, and the audience erupted into clapping, cheering and a standing ovation on cue.
Her first act in what was a very polished performance was to ask for a moment "to thank the lady without whom this day would not be able to take place", and present the bouquet to her mother, the living embodiment of the family values she so ardently espouses.
She deflected obvious questions about the lateness of the launch by stressing how much she had learned about the issues in the campaign since she had started. No longer was she regarded as the "nice wee singer" who had won the Eurovision, but increasingly greeted as someone who expresses people's views about issues of concern to them.
Underneath the gentle voice and flashes of self-deprecating humour there was a hint of steel, as she lacerated the "liberals" - for their illiberalism. She combined "passionate beliefs" with "deep-rooted tolerance", and spoke on behalf of those who resented hearing their faith and values ridiculed.
And, perhaps to counter those who, according to her, treated herself and those she represented with contempt out of intellectual snobbery, Dana evoked the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn to warn of the dangers of cutting off people's roots. The people to whom these roots were valuable were the victims of "contemptuous intolerance and intellectual snobbery", this time from their own people, after suffering from it for so long from others.
This was not a mark of "maturity" or security in our national identity, but placed such people under question if they could not cope with having as President someone of strong religious belief. And what insecurity produced the need to "conjure up some controlling bogy-man", instead of dealing with what she was really saying? she asked.
There was a further swipe at her critics when she asked if they assumed "that if you don't have third-level education you mightn't know what spoon to use at the State dinner."
Hating the sin while loving the sinner emerged both from her speech and in the questions afterwards. Saying you respected "life at every stage" should not produce ridicule, she said, just as a mature, tolerant society would not demonise or hurt any woman who had an abortion.
She told a journalist from Gay Community News who asked if, like Mary Robinson, she would invite members of the gay community to Aras an Uachtarain, that she respected people because they were individuals, not because of the labels they wore.
To a journalist from another gay newspaper who said that the Catholic Church had been anything but tolerant to gays, she said: "As a Catholic I respect your dignity and I respect you," and suggested that the church was apologising for any lack of respect it showed in the past.
Most of the other journalists were stunned into silence, perhaps afraid they would be seen as intolerant or intellectually snobbish if they asked a critical question. Charlie Bird ventured to ask if she believed she could win, and a supporter immediately answered, "Of course," to loud applause.
The candidate was more circumspect. "I was brought up to live life on the basis, not of winning, but of doing my best. Maybe I do have a chance of winning."