Exit Pat Cox, enter Mr President. Being the favourite is no guarantee of victory, and a shadow of doubt hung over the result until late afternoon.
Then people suddenly started hugging him while merely shaking hands with his chief rival, Socialist David Martin. Everybody loves a winner.
The warmth of his reception when the result came in showed how hard the Independent MEP for Munster had worked to build up a network of support and thereby realise his dream of becoming President of the European Parliament. Rejected in the past for the leadership of the Progressive Democrats, he now chairs the great assembly of 626 MEPs at Strasbourg.
For the next 2½ years he will be the principal voice of this key institution. We will be seeing and hearing a lot of Pat Cox through the airwaves and on our television screens. As for the PDs - who knows?
It was a great day for Ireland, it was a great day for Limerick, it was a great day for Christian Brothers boys, but most of all it was a great day for outsiders who start from scratch and work their way right to the top.
He didn't forget where he came from and alluded several times to his Irish nationality. Both he and others noted that the parliament had given its highest position to a member from the second-smallest state in the European Union.
There was a sense of fairness and openness in the air and tremendous goodwill as speakers from different countries hailed their new chief from beyond the continental shelf. Cox's success is a reminder that the Irish don't always have to go to the US if they want a presidency.
While Cox was the star of the show, the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor went to Jens-Peter Bonde, the Danish MEP who played an active role in our own Nice referendum on the No side.
Considered a no-hoper, he ended up holding the balance of power. Cox was tantalisingly, short of the majority he needed and if enough of Bonde's supporters had switched to David Martin, we would have a Scottish president instead of an Irish one.
After the final vote, Cox gave a news conference where he spoke of his plans for the new job. He would be addressing key European issues as well as reform of the parliament's procedures and methods of operation.
He will have a huge job explaining to punters in Ireland and throughout Europe what exactly the European Parliament does and what relevance it might have to their daily lives.
It is a daunting prospect but, looking how far he has come already, it would be foolish to predict that Pat Cox would ever fail at any task he set for himself.