DAVID Ervine has replaced Gerry Adams as flavour of the month in Irish-American political circles, not that that means much to Ervine, his associates and constituents in east Belfast.
Ervine is one of a group of loyalist political figures who have come to prominence during the period of the paramilitary cease fires and have become a growing political force in Northern Ireland.
The significance of the rise of these working-class loyalists can be gauged by the nervous reaction of some mainstream unionist politicians.
Attempts to denigrate the emerging loyalist parties have included accusations that they are MI5 agents or communists or both.
Much of this revolution in loyalism is due to the lead given by David Ervine, the former UVF prisoner who now leads the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP).
Ervine has introduced an element of sophistication and presentability which in the past seemed almost anathema to loyalism.
He is the darling of Irish-American Democrats who must feel betrayed by the IRA's resumption of violence and indebted to the loyalists for not pushing the North towards a bloodbath in the weeks before the Presidential election.
However, Ervine and his counterpart in the Ulster Democratic Party, Gary McMichael, have had a difficult time in keeping loyalism on the political tracks.
Away from the public eye, they have come under considerable pressure and have had to convince obstinate people that the cause of loyalism is best served with the ballot box, at present.
The loyalists have only maintained their ceasefire because they have listened to the arguments of Ervine and McMichael, and others and found them plausible.
If the loyalists choose to reject Ervine and McMichael's arguments then their political futures are lost.
Ervine has provided a public face for a group of loyalists who have never fully emerged from the backrooms.
They are people who would have recourse to the use of bombs and guns should the time come. That would be when they decide the Union with Great Britain is under threat.
Their decision, so far, not to react to IRA provocation suggests that their assessment has been that the Union is not under threat and that resorting to violence would be counter-productive.
Their reaction to the IRA attack on the British army headquarters in Lisburn 12 days ago shows they are no longer simply the knee-jerk violent reactionaries portrayed in the past.
The loyalist leadership's assessment for some months has been that the IRA would, indeed, restart its campaign in Northern Ireland. Their view, that the IRA would launch an attack as the political talks resumed at Stormont in September, was quite accurate.
The loyalists further believed the IRA was depending on them to return to violence. Such a reaction would give the IRA the opportunity to attack the emerging loyalist political leadership.
They had learned from contacts that republicans had been intimating to journalists that David Ervine was a member of the UVF leadership.
A similar whispering campaign had preceded the killing of Ray Smallwoods, the main political strategist of the other main loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in 1994.
Smallwoods, another ex-felon who played an important role in bringing the loyalists to a ceasefire, was shot dead by the IRA at his home in Lisburn, Co Antrim, a month before its ceasefire.
Two weeks later and within a short time of calling its ceasefire, the IRA also shot dead two leading UDA figures, Raymond Elder and Joe Bratty, in south Belfast.
The killings were deliberately provocative and made the calling of the loyalist ceasefire much more difficult and complicated, but it eventually happened on October 13th, 1994, and has held since.
THE last few months have been the most tiring time for the strategists in the loyalist paramilitary world. They faced considerable pressure from within their own organisations and from the head-line-grabbing antics of the maverick loyalist figure, Billy Wright, in Armagh.
Wright, it now appears, was neutralised when both the UVF and UDA issued threats to him and his followers. To emphasise the point, the UDA threw a grenade into the home of the parents of one of Wright's supporters.
After the media deserted Wright, the mainstream loyalists were able to concentrate on their response to the impending restart of the IRA campaign in Northern Ireland.
A considerable amount of discussion took place among UVF and UDA battalions and brigades at meetings in August and September.
The leadership laid out their view on the IRA's strategy which was proved to be entirely accurate.
The loyalists' view that a violent loyalist reaction would be counter-productive also appears to have been accepted by the rank and file.
The loyalists are also being realistic about the fact that restarting their campaign will bring the RUC back down on their heads as well as diverting security force attention away from the IRA.
It is already being hinted that loyalist prisoners will be released in sizable numbers this Christmas if their ceasefire holds. This will be particularly galling for republican prisoners and their families who can expect no such leniency.
The fear among loyalists now is that having failed to provoke the UVF and UDA by bombing the army headquarters in Lisburn, the IRA might now go a step further.