THAT WALK. Long strides and a cracking pace, that's our Bertie. Party officials and camp followers scramble to keep up as he advances along the main street of Letterkenny. Watch out for Bertie's blitzkrieg.
The Fianna Fail leader doesn't just canvass a shopping centre he hoovers it up in one great gulp. There might be only "30 or 40" people there but they will, as he says himself, "talk around". In three months' time he'll meet someone who'll say: "You were in Sadie McGrady's coffee shop last March. Me sister seen you there."
The Blaney organisation's headquarters are on the main street. Bertie marches ahead, eyes front, apparently intent on ignoring his party's "external faction". Not a bit of it; just as he's passing the door he wheels suddenly and marches inside.
How's everything?"
Smiles, greetings, a handshake with Harry Blaney, the cameras recording every second. Don't be surprised if it shows up in Fianna Fail's party political broadcast for Donegal North East.
But behind the bonhomie a deadly political battle is taking place. Harry Blaney, the ageing political lion of the north west, is seeking to replace his brother Neil, whose death led to the by election. Bertie Ahern is seeking to replace John Bruton.
Cecilia Keaveney, a young, cheerful music teacher from Moville, is the Fianna Fail candidate. Harry Blaney, at 68, is over 40 years her senior but they are equally hungry for the seat.
The other candidates are hungry too. Jim Sheridan, a teacher from the Buncrana area, emerged as the Fine Gael contender after a fierce internal battle.
Labour's Sean Maloney has been crusading for a seat, night and day, for the past three years. Sinn Fein's high profile vice president, Pat Doherty, knows his performance will have implications far beyond Donegal.
Harry Blaney is smaller and more soft spoken than his famous brother. But he has the same unmistakable jaw line and the same firm views on the "Six Counties".
Quietly, and without emotion, he retraces the familiar ground: the differences with Fianna Fail; the "outfall", as he charmingly calls it, with Jack Lynch; the disappointment over Charles Haughey's "U turn" on the Anglo Irish Agreement and other issues; the more recent attempts to effect a reconciliation and run a joint campaign for Neil's seat.
But, he says, they couldn't agree on the candidate. Fianna Fail wanted its separated brethren to take a back seat and support its nominee. The Blaney organisation wouldn't have it, and now the battle has gone to the hustings.
Paudge Brennan, a famous name from the traumatic events of May 1970, has taken the job of Harry Blaney's director of elections.
The local papers are full of Fine Gael's internal problems. Three years ago, the party was supposed to be dying and had certainly lost its political sex appeal. Now everybody is offering to carry the standard.
Party activists received a letter urging support for football star Donal Reid. The name of the chairman of the parliamentary party, Phil Hogan, also appeared on the letter.
Although Hogan says he never agreed to let his name be used, the apparent "laying on of hands" by party headquarters caused uproar and effectively sank Reid's chances of the nomination.
Had Reid been selected he would have been a threat, in the longer term, to the sitting Fine Gael TD, Paddy Harte, since they live in the same part of the county (there are dark suspicions that this was the intention of party headquarters).
The chosen candidate, Jim Sheridan, lives on the Inishowen peninsula, well removed from Harte's stamping ground.
Sheridan is a local councillor in Buncrana, but he has family connections throughout the constituency. He is campaigning on two main issues: the revival of the peace process and the need for curriculum changes in the schools to ensure better employment opportunities for young people.
Sean Maloney, who was elected to Seanad Eireann in 1992, is the only candidate based in Letterkenny. Planting the seeds of socialism in the rocks of Donegal is hard work. By his own account, Maloney has harried and cajoled the Labour Ministers to visit the constituency and he reels off a list of the gains Donegal North East has made since Labour got into government.
The Tanaiste and Labour Party leader, Dick Spring, spent two days canvassing with Maloney last week and is due again shortly.
Maloney got over 3,500 first preferences in the last general election. Although the Labour tide has ebbed somewhat since then, he is expected to poll well in his home town.
Sinn Fein's Pat Doherty has been one of the party's main spokesmen on the peace process. His constant radio and television appearances and his leadership of Sinn Fein's delegation at the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation have given him a national profile.
Other parties claim Doherty's vote will suffer because of the ending of the ceasefire. But Sinn Fein itself says the candidate is being well received on the doorsteps. A senior party member predicted most of Doherty's transfers would go to Harry Blaney.
Fianna Fail caught some people on the hop by moving the writ for the Dublin West by election earlier than expected. Unlike the Wicklow poll last year, there was no "lead in time" to the campaign proper and the canvassing is only now getting into top gear.
Pressed for a prediction, senior politicians said it was still too early. After Wicklow, they would not dream of saying the "sympathy vote" had gone out of fashion. Much would depend on the campaigning between now and polling day on April 2nd.
The challenge for Cecilia Keaveney is to be so tar ahead on the first count that she can't be caught. Fianna Fail has a historic difficulty securing transfers and Blaney is expected to get a "sympathy transfer" across the board.
However, Inishowen is anxious to have its own TD and there may be a significant transfer between Keaveney and Sheridan.
A senior Fine Gaeler said it would be a major achievement for Harry Blaney to get into the Dail at the age of 68. But he quipped that, with Bob Dole in the running for the White House, perhaps this was "The Year of the Veteran."