Mary McAleese is a formidable woman. But, rather than exhibit her strengths, she has adopted an election campaign with the consistency of custard. All her political baggage, along with any ideological commitment, has been jettisoned in favour of a loving, embracing, conciliating melange aimed at the soft heart of emotional Ireland.
Of course, she is not the only candidate ploughing that particular furrow, which became hallowed ground under President Robinson. But the craft and care which Ms McAleese brings to the task of pressing the public's emotional buttons is a new phenomenon.
Traditional Fianna Fail supporters stood in awe of her style yesterday as she waltzed through the launch of her presidential campaign and left her questioners for dead.
Her speech quarried United States politics for the style which had earlier won the hearts of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party. The late Martin Luther King was invoked with her announcement that she had a dream. But while the American civil rights leader had been specific in his demands for change and reform, Ms McAleese's dream was of embracing "the Irish people", of protecting the Constitution and of healing old wounds by representing the country abroad with distinction.
Bill Clinton's "bridge to the future" was invoked as she promised an inclusive Presidency. A leaf was taken from Mrs Robinson's book by promising to become fluent in Irish. There were echoes of Charlie Haughey as she claimed roots that linked her to Roscommon, Dublin, Meath and Belfast. And she flagged her commitment to the disadvantaged in society by taking a question in sign language from the audience and emphasising her long-term involvement with the deaf.
In terms of radio programming, her behaviour could be described as "dumbing down". She slowed her speech to walking pace for journalists who were mentally challenged and she disguised her considerable intellect, her ambition and her toughness in a flurry of sentiment.
You don't become an RTE presenter or a director of Channel 4 television by being a dewy-eyed do-gooder or by turning the other cheek. You don't survive the cutand-trust of university politics and reach the dizzy heights of ProVice Chancellor of Queen's University by deferring to other people. You don't become an imposed Fianna Fail candidate if you lack ambition.
Ms McAleese reflected little of this gritty determination and ambition when she faced her former press colleagues. There was plenty of evidence of her intelligence and political acumen, however, as she avoided difficult questions; complained about being pigeon-holed and offered love and condescension to doubting Thomases.
She failed to agree that those who had opposed an abortion referendum in the mid-1980s had been unfairly branded as "proabortionists". But she agreed that "lazy stereotyping was a scourge". In that regard, she felt that unionists who regarded her as a threat or as a divisive influence were misinformed.
She understood why some unionists might hold that opinion. It wasn't just bigotry. Rather was it something that was "taught from the cradle" and it reflected a deep-seated suspicion and fear of nationalists. People in Northern Ireland, she said, saw themselves as winners or losers; and if an individual in one community won, it was seen to be at the expense of somebody in the other community.
She wanted to reach out the simple hand of friendship to unionists. And there were many in that community, she said, who had responded to her efforts to strip away the baggage she had carried.
It was the closest she came to allowing an insight into her complex personality. The shutters went up again as she disavowed any personal desire to reform the Constitution and she elevated the Presidency above politics.
It may have looked great on television. And she might have pressed all the right emotional buttons. But the medicine was far too cloying for cynical reporters. Will the real Mary McAleese please stand up?