There is, as someone said, the elephant in the room and she is not that hairy little baby pictured at Dublin Zoo the other day.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has given an explanation about the nature of his personal finances to the public in the election campaign and Tánaiste and leader of the Progressive Democrats, Michael McDowell, sees it as no obstacle to going back into coalition government. He is satisfied. Mr Ahern has stated that his life was "as simple as it is honest" but, honestly, is there any other ordinary guy who bought his house in this way? The architecture of the story is still so strange.
Then, there is the other issue which is mentioned simultaneously. Has the leader of Fine Gael, Enda Kenny, who speaks in soundbites, the credibility and the competence to lead an alternative government in what could be less good times? As we enter the third week of the campaign, he has yet to prove that he would be a competent taoiseach should he achieve power after the general election.
Mr Kenny is a very nice and genuine man, as was his father, Henry, before him. His wife, Fionnuala O'Kelly, a former press officer for Fianna Fáil, is a nice person also. He has brought Fine Gael to new heights in this general election campaign in a way that his more illustrious and and experienced predecessors, Alan Dukes, John Bruton and Michael Noonan, could only have dreamed of. He has worked for five years to bring the Fine Gael party off its knees to be a contender for power in the 2007 election.This is no mean achievement. Some skills in motivation, leadership and vision must have been required to do so.
Now that the opinion polls show that Mr Kenny could form the next government, the question being posed is whether he is taoiseach material. He enters a critical period from now until May 24th.
Mr Kenny can't run a whole general election campaign - even the weird one we are experiencing - on the basis of a contract with the people of Ireland. It is an imported and shallow concept. The people will dispose of any taoiseach, as they see fit, if he does not deliver on his election promises.
The electorate are experiencing a difficulty in coming to terms with Mr Ahern's strange money transactions in the renting and buying of his house. But, there is a genuine acknowledgment that he came to be a skilled and popular leader in fields as far apart as labour relations, taxation, foreign affairs and social welfare policy. His leadership of the Northern Ireland negotiations could not be equalled.
Mr Kenny is now being seen as a would-be taoiseach. There is desire for a change of government after 10 years. This is accompanied by a fear of jumping into the unknown
For these reasons, Mr Kenny must eschew the glad-handing and shape up as a future taoiseach in the next few days. His challenge is to present the vision of a new Ireland over the next five years and to make statements of substance about the big issues, North and South.