SHE is good-looking, stylish and charming but Iris Robinson, whose other hall, Peter, is the DUP deputy leader, is no trophy wife. As her namesake across the Border bows out, the North's Mrs Robinson is stepping in.
After eight years in local government, she is standing in Strangford against the Ulster Unionist deputy leader, John Taylor, and is hoping to become the North's first woman MP since Bernadette McAliskey.
Strangford is mainly middle and upper working-class. Mr Taylor (59) has held the seat for 14 years but boundary changes have brought in staunchly loyalist Dundonald, which is part of Castlereagh District Council, of which Mrs Robinson is mayor.
In previous elections Mr Taylor romped home. But that was when the DUP stood Mr Sammy Wilson, who was judged too outspoken and "unpolished" for the area. Mrs Robinson (47) does not lack polish. She is articulate and confident. Even DUP members who heckle the Women's Coalition respect her.
At 17 she met Peter at college.
"He was very popular. All the girls were chasing him. I decided my best technique would be to play hard to get." They were married three years later.
Her views are "almost identical" to those of Peter, whom she showers with praise. If her husband is her hero, then Mr Taylor is the villain of the piece. He is a "political cuckoo" who flits from one outlandish idea to the next. In her glossy manifesto she lists a series of Taylor quotes about encouraging IRA doves, not humiliating the Provos and believing that the 1994 ceasefire was genuine.
She says he lives in Armagh, 40 miles from his constituency and has "the distraction of multiple business interests". His constituents often get only "his answering machine". The Right Honourable John D. Taylor, as he likes to be known, is taking it all in his stride.
"I'm well used to the DUP's silly sniping," he laughs. He has fought far too many elections "to get excited this early".
The only unionist politician to have survived from the Terence O'Neill era, he has no intention of being shafted now. He says none of the DUP's three MPs lived in their constituencies in the last parliament. He is "available 24 hours a day" and has helped 2,500 constituents since the last election.
The electorate wants peace while the DUP seems to be "seeking confrontation on the streets". He is very different to Mrs Robinson. She is hostile to the Republic; he makes, regular cross-Border trips.
Mr Taylor is delighted to have been told on a canvass that he is better and younger looking than he appears on television. He has a daughter, Hannah (7), who is the apple of his eye. She accompanies him everywhere reading her poems over the campaign loudspeaker: "John Taylor is our man if he can't do it nobody can. John Taylor is our bloke, come and meet him all you folk."
In Hannah's eyes anyway, Mrs Robinson doesn't get a look in.