There is little doubting the confidence within Fine Gael ranks, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
Just nine months from the election, Fine Gael believes it is within touching distance of power, if only the trend in a multitude of opinion polls is maintained.
However, the party is unlikely to find the going that easy between now and polling day. Though battered and occasionally bowed, Fianna Fáil will put up the strongest of defences in its bid to hold on to the levers of power.
In Westport last week, Fianna Fáil TDs complained that they had not been able to get "a real handle" on the public's mood during constituency canvassing over the summer.
The relatively benign reception received worried, rather than soothed. This week, their Fine Gael counterparts agreed that voters are equally polite, though they read much into the body language: the "thumbs-up from across the street", as Galway East TD Paul Connaughton put it.
"In 2002 we weren't getting anything like that. We could not get any reading at all from the public. Sure, we knew we were in trouble then," said Connaughton, who has retained his seat on every occasion since 1981.
The appearance of Labour leader Pat Rabbitte at the Sligo gathering was known beforehand to just the Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and a few close aides, though it was clearly a well thought-out move.
Welcoming him, Kenny's gratitude to Rabbitte was in no doubt. Without the Labour leader's decision to push his own ranks behind a FG/ Labour coalition, Kenny would have spent the last four years whistling on his way to the political graveyard.
However, Kenny will need to be careful that his displays of gratitude - even if they are born out of a natural politeness - do not go too far, since FG voters will chaff if they sense that the smaller party is punching above its weight.
Up to now, Kenny has allowed himself to be overshadowed by Rabbitte when the two have held joint press conferences, bowing to the more forceful personality that is the Labour leader.
In truth, Rabbitte's tendency to dominate, one that he finds difficult to curb, does not even serve his own interests, since his own leadership would be as much threatened by failure next year as Kenny's, if not considerably more so.
Nevertheless, Rabbitte's desire for co-operation was evident, though he emphasised that he leads another party that will want its own agenda implemented - an issue that may yet raise tensions as both parties discuss joint policies.
So far, the work has gone smoothly, though the early desire of both to produce broad-brush pre-election agreements - even if they are inclined to deny now that they ever held such an opinion - has faded as they have accepted that voters will demand more.
Furthermore, both clearly acknowledge that voters, faced with higher energy costs, interest rates and house prices, may be in far less mood for change for change's sake come polling day.
The message between now and then will be, in the words of Fine Gael's most respected election strategist Frank Flannery, "safe change" or "change with safety".
Two years ago in Kilkenny, Kenny announced that Fine Gael would target 30 seats in the next election, an ambition that it still argues is credible if the party can secure the 29 to 30 per cent rating currently offered by the polls.
Furthermore, the party, which was savaged in 2002 and hit particularly by its failure to get any bonus from transfers, can now hope for the opposite to occur, as it did in the 2004 local and European elections.
However, the emergence of Michael McDowell as Progressive Democrats leader has thrown a new ingredient into the electoral mix, given that the PDs' success in the past has come at the expense of Fine Gael, regardless of the fact that they initially grew from Fianna Fáil disaffection.
Nevertheless, Flannery's argument that McDowell will not be able to siphon off Fine Gael voters in the same way next time around is, for now, logical if only because Fine Gael voters deserted Michael Noonan to stop Fianna Fáil winning an overall majority.
Though Kenny has done much to bind the wounds suffered by Fine Gael in 2002 and to instil hope in an organisation long bereft of it, he still has much to do to prove himself to be taoiseach material.
Admittedly, Bertie Ahern did not look much like a national leader either back in 1997, though he was then facing Fine Gael's John Bruton, who was not a natural election campaigner and had not become taoiseach after a general election.
This time around, the battle between Kenny and Ahern will be different. Certainly, the Mayo man is the most people-friendly Fine Gael leader in the party's history and will be able to match Ahern pound for pound on the streets. However, he will equally have to prove himself in the leadership stakes and in the major debates and here the struggle may be more difficult. Despite major improvements, he can still stumble under heavy questioning.
The personality battle will not just be at the Kenny/Ahern level. Each putative Fine Gael minister will have to outscore his or her Fianna Fáil opponent if the public is really to get a sense of a cabinet-in-waiting.
On that score, Fine Gael still has much to do. Too few of its frontline people have become nationally known figures in their own right, and they frequently fail to draw blood in Dáil debates.
In four years of leadership, Kenny has proved that he can run an organisation, motivate his followers and he has shown he is a decent man. He must now prove that he can use the whip hand to produce better performances from his key lieutenants.