Mary Banotti challenged her rivals to match her political experience and track record when she officially opened her campaign office in Dublin yesterday. There were still drills and saws at work on the top floor of the suite of offices in Dawson Street, but below there was no doubt about the professionalism of the campaign, and the weaknesses identified in the other candidates.
"It's time to get real," said Ms Banotti. "I wish to invite all three other candidates to engage in robust dialogue about what really, really can be done about the Presidency.".
She identified the three roles of the Presidency as ambassadorial, constitutional and symbolic, and invited the other candidates to debate with her how these roles should be filled.
She asked them to agree to at least two or three televised debates, rather than the one Late Late Show debate on October 17th, which she described as "too little, too late".
"I'm not seeking to criticise any individual or any one candidate's campaign. I want to draw attention to the fact that there is no debate taking place at all, just choreographed photo opportunities and `safe' speaking events," she said.
This, she said, was due to the unwillingness of the candidates to debate, or their deliberate strategy "to avoid direct, honest-to-God, face-to-face debate - and instead to seek out controlled exposure where beautiful words or beautiful images or beautiful clothes are more important than actual content".
She then posed with her daughter, Tanya, who has just flown in from Gaza, where she is working, to campaign with her mother O Muilleoir, hurriedly thrust a video of the film, Michael Collins into the hands of Tanya, the great-great niece of the subject, as the cameras clicked.
A quick look at the Banotti campaign website of the office computers, then it was into the cars and off to the west for a day's campaigning.