Enda Kenny's performance on Saturday night was competent but far from inspiring, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
Well before 7 p.m. on Saturday evening, 90 minutes before Enda Kenny's address to the Fine Gael Ardfheis, over 4,000 delegates were already in their seats.
The level of enthusiasm was palpable. Despite being written off by their enemies and many in the media, Fine Gael's grassroots are quick to profess belief in the cause.
Though most do not care to accept it, those same grassroots know in their hearts that the party's future lies in the balance in the weeks running up to June.
Despite all the professed optimism, and there is much of it, Fine Gael knows that it must produce a convincing result from the local elections.
For now, the FG leadership is happier to talk about its chances in the European Parliament, where late-arriving strong candidates such as Gay Mitchell have strengthened its claim that it will win four seats.
Such a result is necessary and it would provide a badly needed confident boost, but it is the local elections that will decide the party's future.
Here, the picture is perhaps not so bright.
So far, Kenny has quietly but smartly emphasised that he cannot match Fine Gael's 1999 results, when the party won 28 per cent of the first-preference vote.
Favourable "bounces" in late counts made that result even better, as they delivered an extraordinary seat bonus of near 5 per cent.
In simple terms, Kenny can tolerate not insignificant losses if he can show that he has found a crop of genuine Dáil candidates - and if Fianna Fáil does much worse.
However, Fine Gael, from Kenny's point of view, must not become the bad news story of the campaign. If that happens, the wheels will come off the tracks.
Such an outcome would force the Labour leader, Pat Rabbitte, into quietly putting distance between himself and Kenny so that he could, however reluctantly, keep his coalition options open.
Nevertheless, a mid-20s performance would be good enough to keep Kenny's dream alive. Given Fine Gael's historic tendency to under-perform in opinion polls, that cannot be ruled out.
If Kenny's speech last November in Galway settled party nerves and attracted voters, it is unlikely that his effort on Saturday night will be met with equally warm reviews.
Ever since the days of Richard Nixon's disastrous performance alongside the youthful John F. Kennedy, politicians have known that there is one thing that they must never do while in front of a television camera - sweat.
Inside the low-ceiling conference hall, the temperatures were stifling. For the audience, it was uncomfortable. For Kenny, however, it meant his face quickly became blotchy. Trival, perhaps, but the image will live long.
In addition, the Mayo man's delivery was flat, even though the themes were lofty, so much so that delegates sat quietly for extraordinarily, and at times embarrassingly long periods of time for a leader's address.
In some ways, he reprised a speech given in Galway late last year: politics, trust, belief, society, community, leadership and integrity were the themes.
The core theme of the next general election is already in preparation, but it has to be kept fresh until general election polling day: Fianna Fáil has been in power for far too long. Get it out.
On its own, this message will not be enough, though it will have been helped by issues such as Punchestown Equestrian Centre, when Charlie McCreevy and Joe Walsh doled out taxpayers money to pay in an extraordinary fashion.
The Kildare centre is the image that the Opposition has clearly decided to make the motif of what is wrong with Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats.
And there have been casual abuses of power such as Minister for Education Noel Dempsey's decision to get election manuals for FF local election candidates prepared by civil servants, the gravity of which is amplified by the fact that he does not even appear to realise the seriousness of his offence (and neither does the Taoiseach, given his remarks at Arbour Hill yesterday).
The second theme will be Fine Gael's attempt to highlight the performance of the Progressive Democrats, the party most likely to capture votes from it - as can be judged by the serious carping that was directed from the top table in Citywest throughout the weekend.
Watching the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party chairman, Tipperary TD Tom Hayes, one was given a graphic illustration of the damage inflicted upon Fine Gael in the last general election.
Few of the Fine Gael front bench, with the exception of people such as Richard Bruton and Gay Mitchell, are nationally known figures. Without holding office, however, they have little chance of becoming nationally known. The circle is vicious.
The big idea of the ardfheis - Bernard Allen's plans to offer accelerated tax breaks and SSIA-style savings schemes to those trying to get on the property ladder - could tap into a potentially lucrative vein of support.
However, the full costings have yet to be displayed. The plan will have to stay coherent following examination if it is to avoid repeating the damage done to Fine Gael's record in the run-up to last general election by some of the late Jim Mitchell's more rash finance proposals.
Given a sustained standing ovation, Kenny, who still seems uncomfortable to be the centre of such adulation, was shortly presented with a cake, complete with candles, to mark his 53rd birthday.
For now, he and the rest of his organisation must pray that there will be something to celebrate once the results of the locals and Europeans come in.